Methodology

When a client comes on board needing Mystery Shopping services, a survey model will be drawn up and agreed to which defines what information and improvement factors the client company wishes to measure as part of the mystery shopping process. These are then drawn up into survey instruments and assignments which are then carried out in the various stores, personnel in question.
For best results, we generally recommend two visits, per location, per month. It is important that the service data collected, on our clients' behalf, is accepted and applied by the clients' team. The crux of the Mystery Shopper programme is to maximize every Rand spent.

Some of the common details and information points shoppers:

* the date and time of the pre-visit phone call
* the name of the store on each side of the store visited
* evaluating the customers first impression of the store
* number of employees in the store on entering
* how long it takes before the mystery shopper is greeted
* the name of the employee(s)
* Appearance (grooming) of employee(s)
* whether or not the greeting is friendly
* the level of helpfulness
* the questions asked by the shopper to find a suitable product
* the types of products shown and the employee product knowledge
* if or how the employee attempted to close the sale
* whether the employee invited the shopper to come back to the store
* cleanliness of store
* speed of service
* compliance with company standards relating to service, store appearance.

Shoppers are often given instructions or procedures to make the transaction atypical to make the test of the knowledge and service skills of the employees more stringent or specific to a particular service issue (known as scenarios). For instance, mystery shoppers at a restaurant may pretend they are lactose-intolerant, or a clothing store mystery shopper could inquire about gift-wrapping services. Not all mystery shopping scenarios include a purchase.

From there, the shopper will then submit the data collected to the Mystery shopping company in question. The data is then reviewed and analyzed before quantitative and qualitative statistical [analysis] reports on the data are then returned to the client company that enables measurement against the previously defined criteria.