Mystery Shopping is a relatively new service assessment strategy in the market. It has become very popular because of its advantages and effective results. A Mystery Shopper’s job is to do shopping online or offline like a regular customer and then give a detailed review of the product or service.
However, not everyone can play the role of a mystery shopper quite diligently. Also, you cannot use one mystery shopper for all your assessments. If your employees get to know who the mystery shopper is, there is no point in going through the whole procedure.
The appointed mystery shopper has to have very good communication skills. He or she must be able to give his or her feedback in clear and crisp terms. They must have sharp observational skills and must be able to ask questions and gather certain information required by the business owner.
Mystery Shopping Companies are the companies that offer the service of providing the most appropriate mystery shopper for your business. They select and send mystery shoppers who fulfill the aforementioned criteria required for a good mystery shopper.
Mystery Shopping Companies can benefit your business in several ways. A few of them are discussed below-
- Assessment of your employee’s behavior and service
Your employees will be at their best behavior in front of you, your friends and family, and the people you know. You will never know how your staff actually behaves with your customers on your own. You will need a third-party opinion to accurately evaluate the customer service of your shop.
Since mystery shoppers go to your shop like any other customers and no one in your shop knows who they actually are, your employees behave with him or her as they would usually behave with any customer. When the mystery shopper gives his or her report about your shop, you will know exactly what kind of customer service is experienced by a person when he or she enters your shop.
- Keep an eye on the Competition
To get ahead or maintain your position in the market, it is important to remain informed of your competitor’s position and their workings. It helps you to determine what they are doing better than you and what you need to improve and learn from them. It also tells you what they are lacking in their service which you can highlight when you are pitching your services.
Mystery Shopping Companies can let you hire mystery shoppers who go to your competitor’s shop. In their report, they answer all your question that you would have handed them. They also share their experience without any bias to let you know all that you need to know about the services provided by your competitors.
- Review Strategy Execution
Many brilliant ideas and scheme fail on the ground level because it was not executed properly. The execution matters as much as the idea itself. After you have a great idea or scheme, you must curate a well-detailed plan to execute it practically. However, sometimes, even if you have the perfect plan, your returns are not what expected. It happens because you failed to notice the loopholes in the execution of your plan.
Mystery Shopping Companies makes sure you get the outer perspective of your business idea or scheme. They send the mystery shoppers to examine if your plan is being executed as per your instructions. They give you a proper report to let you know the status. Hence, enabling you to recognize the loopholes and do proper rectifications.
- Maintain Consistency
For any successful venture, be it any art, sport, study or business, consistency is one of the most important value to go by. You may have the most brilliant business plan of all times and yet you could fail to materialize it on the ground level. Being consistent requires will, effort and dedication. However, you need to put extra effort if you want to maintain the consistency of others along with you.
When your employees have it in the back of their minds that anyone of the customers could be a mystery shopper, they remain consistent with their behavior with all the customers. This establishes an environment where your customers receive the same care and customer service each time, they enter your shop and have a happy experience every time.
- Run Rewards and Incentives Programs
It is not surprising that every employee will be thrilled to be rewarded for his or her service. Rewards and incentives are a great way to keep your employees interested and enthusiastic. It creates an environment of competition among the staff members and improves service quality.
However, it is not always easy to pick the right candidate of the reward and incentive. It is important to be among them to properly judge them. But that would be next to impossible given that you are the employer. However, with the report and feedback of a mystery shopper you can easily determine which employee has done a good job making a customer fully satisfied.
Apart from the five advantages mentioned, there are many other benefits of hiring a mystery shopping company. Unlike a mystery shopper who just shares his or her experience, a mystery shopping company does not simple hand out the report. They also analyze the feedback and give valuable suggestions and insights to implement to your business.
Mystery shopping companies have a diversity of mystery shoppers who work for them. The diversity is important to make the shopping process appear genuine and authentic to the staff members. The chosen shoppers are able to forge a natural shopping experience.
The mystery shopping companies combine the quantitative and qualitative data to provide a report that analyses various aspects helping you make improvements to your business. It helps you to shift your perspective from that of the businessman or businesswoman to the customers. This enables you to make your business customer-centric and hence enhance your chances to make it a success.