Welcome to the Mystery Shopping Learning Center Blog

Companies use mystery shopping reports in many ways, and each one is considered invaluable to the success of the company. Mystery shoppers provide an extremely important service, and we wanted to show you some different ways companies can use reports.

Many shoppers may think that companies use this service as a “Big Brother” approach and only look at the negative aspects of a report. It’s just the opposite – companies tend to use the information they get in a positive way, from enhancing training programs to offering employee bonuses. Below are some examples of ways companies may use the information you provide:

Snapshots of customer service
The simplest way companies use the individual reports shoppers fill out is to gauge the level of service provided. Are employees greeting customers in a timely manner? Do they try to help the customer with any questions they may have? Are they offering the loyalty card to customers? These are things that companies could not otherwise find out. Having the individual shop reports allows them to see potential issues before they become problematic and impact their customers.

Product knowledge
Employers know that even despite the best training measures, there is the risk of employees sharing incorrect information with customers. This is typically the reason you are assigned a scenario when doing some shops – the company wants to make sure that the information provided to you is uniform across all of their locations and also that each employee is answering questions accurately and thoroughly.

Employee reviews
Companies know that one poor mystery shopping experience should not be used as an absolute determination of an employee’s performance. However, companies can compile all of the shops completed for one employee over a year’s time to look at the overall trends in the service they provide. This is useful for assessing annual reviews, not only in determining the employee’s abilities, but also to assist managers in training the employees to improve and succeed. This benefits both the employee and the company.

Manager/employee bonuses
Incentives are beneficial in increased performance in many industries, and attaching an incentive to a mystery shopping program will also put it in a positive light, as opposed to the “Big Brother” school of thought. We’ve seen clients attach bonuses and incentives in many different ways, from employees who score well on a shop receiving a monetary bonus, to having locations within a company “compete” for the best overall score each month. The location with the highest overall score will receive a bonus to be shared among employees involved in the shops that month. Other companies will distribute awards, plaques, or other tokens of appreciation for a job well done.

As you can see, this is a vital service to many companies. Know that the hard work you do as a mystery shopper is making a significant contribution to businesses!

Until next time…happy shopping!