Every business and organisation must strive to do better by increasing performance levels in every department. It has become a business axiom that if a business doesn’t focus on doing better it will inevitably do worse, suffer in its marketplace, and become less profitable. It is also self-evident that all businesses vary in their objectives and style, with many different internal measures, which help towards the achievement of the company’s, agreed key performance indicators [KPI's], and its own mission of ‘excellence’. However good customer service is often a key to success but its measurement by internal measures is invariably difficult or even impossible. It is in this area that mystery shopping can be used effectively in helping to create business excellence and a real competitive advantage.

What is mystery shopping?
There are various definitions of mystery shopping but they all include using fully qualified, independent, trained and briefed people to go through real sales or service scenarios in real business environments like shops, airports, hotels, banks, auto dealers, etc, and make key observations of the service they receive; then complete a questionnaire focussed on the service received, and quickly reporting back to the client in a way which will help the client to rectify problems found and reward for good service. Thus, service levels can be improved through the discovery and resolution of problems and through rewards to management and staff who give good service.

History, different types of mystery shopping, and the MSPA:
Mystery shopping started in the United States more than 30 years ago, coming out of the PI [Private Investigator] market. It moved to Europe 20 years ago, and is now fast developing in Eastern Europe, Asia - Pacific and other markets across the world. It is now a worldwide market of over 1 billion US dollars encompassing virtually every kind of business, especially retail, leisure, personal finance and most others. It is even used by Governments to ensure that their service to their constituents is at the required levels.
Mystery shopping is usually associated with ‘walk in visits’ which may also be taped visits [video or audio], but can also comprise of phone calls to offices, shops or call centres; visits to web sites, or measuring responses to fax, email or other electronic service requests.
It is true to say the mystery shopping is now used as a key business tool by the most successful companies, accompanying their own internal measures of success and other customer opinion research, to give a complete set of measures of business excellence. This is even more the case since the birth and maturity of mystery shopping’s own trade association, which is dedicated to ensuring professional standards and excellent service within the industry. The MSPA, Mystery Shopping Providers Association, has regional organisations in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and will cover the other parts of the world as its market develops. The current worldwide growth rate for mystery shopping is estimated at more than 12% annually.
How can mystery shopping help my business and what return on investment can I expect?
The answer to this question is best sought in conversation with a local professional mystery shopping provider, who is a member of the MSPA. They will be able to give you case histories relevant to your business, which will show the kind of return on investment [ROI] that is possible.
ROI when applied to how mystery shopping can help you in your business can be measured in many ways. Mystery shopping can often help to improve your service levels to your prospects and customers so that they may be happier with your service, spend more with you and less with your competitors, and maybe even be willing to pay more for your goods or service.

How can you get the benefits of using mystery shopping?

Decide what you need to know to improve your customer service and achieve business excellence:
Mystery shopping can help you to measure and improve the service that you and your staff give to your prospects and customers. However, it does not tell you what your prospects and customers think of your service and products. If that is what you want to know, you need to talk to your customers via customer opinion research techniques. So, the first thing to decide is what you need to know. If you need to know how good your staff is at delivering your agreed customer service KPI’s, mystery shopping is for you. Of course, you should know your customers views of your service and products too because they will complement your mystery shopping feed-back.

Talk to a good local Mystery Shopping provider:
There are MSPA members in all major countries and there are international providers too. Get recommendations if you can. Invite them to your offices and visit theirs; make a relationship, tell them what you want to achieve and ask them about their facilities and experience in your marketplace. Then ask their advice on the kind of mystery shopping system that they would recommend. You may even ask them what they would recommend as a budget for this program. They may suggest more than you are willing to spend but it will give you good ideas and a good perspective on what you want to achieve. But mainly, ask them questions.

Decide on the most efficient way to spend you your budget that will achieve your objectives:
Your budget availability may force you to decide to have mystery shopping visits to all of your outlets quarterly or a sample every month, which will give the program more constant visibility within your business. You will also need to decide on how the feed-back reports at every level in the business are designed, actioned, and followed-up. Your provider will be able to advise you on this and show you working examples. The key here is to devise a system which ensures that the information in all reports is actioned quickly before the next round of outlet visits.

Ensure good communications:
Ensure that you involve all key management and staff in the design and implementation of the program, and that they know the importance and benefits to the business that their mystery shopping program can deliver. Get their buy-in to the program so that they are able, not only to contribute to its creation, but also to support it when talking to staff and management at all levels within the business.
It is vital that everyone in the business sees the program as a positive element in their search for better service to their customers and their drive to business excellence. Keep talking to your staff about the program to ensure its integration into the language of the business and into your information, training and incentive schemes.

Provide your people with a continuous set of mystery shopping measures:
It is vital to see mystery shopping as tool to enable improvement in your business. A once-off measure will not help you to do this. All of the effective mystery shopping programs feature regular and continuous measures, which are used in conjunction with other business measures and training, coaching and incentives to enhance performance site by site.
In summary:
I hope that this article has given you a flavour of the potential for the use of mystery shopping in your organisation and some ideas on how to create, implement and run a mystery shopping program.
Mystery shopping is a very practical business tool, which can help a business to assess and improve its service to its customers at every level. It works best when implemented in partnership with an experienced provider and applied at outlet level with frequent visits, where staff and management see it as integral to their desire to improve their service to their customers.
Improving your service to your customers is a sure way to improve the return on investment in your business.