Mystery shopping has been a valuable source of insights for decades on end, and the popularity of this data collection method never ceased to grow. Nowadays, when great customer experience and excellent service is not a benefit, but a default for every business, mystery shopping is an option that is definitely on the radar.
The main goal of engaging in the mystery shopping process is to find the gaps between the current level of customer satisfaction, and the level that you aspire to be. In order to achieve that stated goal, it is important to structure the process correctly. In this article, we have outlined all the steps of the successful mystery shopping campaign that a business – or mystery shopping provider agencies – need to follow. Keep on reading!
Mystery Shopping Steps
Step 1: Determine the objectives of your mystery shopping campaign
Before jumping to the main actions, it’s crucial to determine what are the goals of your mystery shopping campaign. Ask yourself a few questions like, what exact thing I believe needs to be checked and later improved? How will you work with the results you will gather?
Knowing exactly what you want to achieve will help you with further hiring, training processes, as well as will allow you to create a comprehensive questionnaire further on.
Step 2: Put down the requirements of what needs to be checked
The general rule for determining what aspect will have to be evaluated is not to go too broad with it. It is best to hire a few different shoppers to check each element, without dumping everything on a single one.
Sit down, and work from your objectives. For example, if your main goal is to assess the quality of work of your waiters, here is what list of requirements you will get (approximately):
- Greeting of guests
- The knowledge of the menu
- The ability to suggest a meal
- The waiter’s service (repeat the order, refill drinks, pick up empty plates, etc).
Step 3: Determine the qualifications of your mystery shoppers
Some quality checks require highly trained professionals to perform the job, and some can be made by anyone who knows what to look for. At this point, it is important to write out the shopper qualifications for each of the tasks you have. The data gathered at the end will depend on how suitable your shopper is to perform a specific check, meaning that this step of the mystery shopping process may be considered one of the most important on the roadmap.
Step 4: Hiring and training
Once suitable candidates are found, they need to be trained. It is necessary they understand the general rules of how to conduct the check, and are notified about conditions and anti-fraud actions you are going to implement in order to make sure the shopper is diligently performing their job. At last, every shopper needs to be informed about what aspects they should be on the lookout for.
Step 5: Evaluate the results
Once the fieldwork is done, and the data are in your hands, the real work only starts. Depending on the initial goal you were trying to achieve, the collected information needs to be evaluated and analyzed. After that, it’s all about determining the issue and coming up with the solution to it.
It should look somewhat like that:
The research showed: The waiters weren’t very friendly and didn’t greet the guests properly.
The issue: The waiters don’t know the proper etiquette → the guest doesn’t feel welcome.
The solution: Train the waiters, pointing out this mistake.
Seems easy, doesn’t it?
It’s not that easy: the issue
While generalized steps do seem pretty simple, it is the micro-tasks laying in between that usually cause issues. Everything described usually requires multiple tools to handle, and each end needs to be carefully managed and controlled. This often results in inefficient results, or even data loss, if it is not being handled correctly while importing between tools.
What’s the solution?
Thankfully, on the market you can find projects like Checker, that will allow you to manage every step we talked about under one roof. Having all the processes under control, and accessible at all times will eliminate the issue of unreliable data and will help cut the time spent on switching between products.
With Checker mystery shopping software you can kickstart your own mystery shopping campaign, and effortlessly gather the data you need:
For Mystery Shopping provider agencies, Checker is offering a convenient presentation tool that will help create branded data presentation dashboards ready to be shown to the end clients. Everything is automated and easily customizable – created with a goal to help data survey professionals spend less time on technical tasks.
While mystery shopping was indeed around for decades on end, in the 21st century we have the opportunity to simplify the process and make data surveys even more effective.
