Mystery shopping is one of the latest marketing tools implemented by a lot of companies in order to keep a close tab on the performance chart of their employees. Providing good customer service is considered a hallmark of quality service by businesses without exception, and a business providing superior customer service can easily be said to be holding a trump card against its competitors. Many other methods of tracking the customer service activities of front-line employees now exist, but mystery shopping is the one most en vogue, because it has proved itself over the decades it has been in existence.

But what makes mystery shopping such a great tool? The answers are quite simple.

1. Mystery shopping is one of the best ways to motivate employees into staying on their toes and providing the best customer service they are capable of, offering the employer an advantage over other employers.
2. Since the midlevel management positions of many companies are being downsized, mystery shopping is used by companies as an alternative to monitor the quality of employee performance, which used to fall under the duties of supervisors in many cases.
3. Mystery shopping allows you to ‘spy’ on your rivals and find out what they are doing to make their customer service better.
4. All retailers of today understand that good customer service is a surefire way to attract customers and retain them.

However, that is not to say that mystery shopping does not have its limitations, even though it lets you gain a lot of insight on your customers’ mind.

1. The factors which are being evaluated should be objective in nature, since fixed alternatives are the only choices given to mystery shoppers on the field.
2. Mystery shopping requires more manpower, and is thus not as feasible as a telephone- or mail-based marketing research campaign.
3. Mystery shopping is not a flawless science without its own share of quirks, and a small percentage of the evaluations they perform are almost sure to be found questionable in one way or another.

Mystery shopping can be classified according to various levels of ‘penetration’.

Level 1 involves the mystery shopper using a telephone to evaluate over-the-telephone service of a retailer.
Level 2 involves the mystery shopper to visit the retailer in person to make a quick purchase, making as little personal interaction with the employees as possible.
Level 3 involves the mystery shopper visiting the retailer and conversing with a sales/service representative based on a predetermined script to evaluate its customer service facilities, without making an actual purchase.

Level 4 involves the mystery shopper paying an extensive visit to the retailer, and it requires very good communication skills, as well as in-depth knowledge on the product.

The prices for mystery shopping services vary greatly based on various factors, such as their technique of evaluation, the geographic location which needs to be covered, the number of visits required to the shops, the contents of the reports and the method of its distribution.

With the help of mystery shopping, front-line employees and managers can be made to work in harmony, rewarding those who deserve it, improving sales and opening new avenues for making profit.

The presence of the internet and its various ‘child technologies’, e.g. email and the World Wide Web has greatly reduced many of the costs and hassles associated with mystery shopping reporting, as well as greatly sped up the process. Many of the intricate details associated with the reporting process in the old days can now simply be skipped over, and as a result, the process has become quite affordable by most standards. More and more companies are making use of mystery shopping as a result of this.

However, finding the right balance between quality and speed for your company’s mystery shopping reports is absolutely critical. If your mystery shopping company covers quality checks of reports under its range of services, it will be a far better idea to not involve the corporate office until the final stage, by having the reports sent directly to field-level offices. Corporate offices can still observe trends after each period of reporting ends, while the field-level offices can be left to take appropriate measures based on the report, even at the most elementary levels. This results in efficient division of work between the corporate and field-level offices. You may also delegate the quality review duties to a member of your corporate office, but you will require a state-of-the-art benchmarking system in order to achieve the best quality at the highest possible speeds.

It is also a good idea to share data from trend analysis between shops, since it creates openings for the development of new, creative incentive programs for the employees. Competing with oneself and trying to break old records is the best way to improve performance in this case. The performance of individual shops can be monitored by the central corporate office.

However, even the most established mystery shopping service providers have come to experience the bottleneck of timeliness vs. quality. To put it in a nutshell, there is only one way to solve the inequality - tailoring the system according to the needs of each customer. Many mystery shopping firms go as far as declaring outright that such a dilemma may be faced every now and then, but that they will try their best to keep it from becoming a major issue by planning out their objectives well beforehand.

One vital point which stands true is that a report should not be subject to dissent simply because it is presented in an electronic format or because it was delivered quickly, because it may still be of very high quality. As long as the source of the report was a well-planned shopping system, it can be easily assumed that the report is substantially feasible. Mystery shopping reports actually follow the age-old principle of GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) - if its objectives are unclear, the evaluation form is poorly designed, the shoppers are not chosen properly or given adequate instructions, the report will turn out to be a disaster no matter how much time it takes to be delivered. The method of delivery used is hardly a matter of importance in this era.