General Principles of Intellectual Property: Concepts of Intellectual Proper...
mystery shopping
1.
2. What is mystery shopping?
Mystery Shopping is the practice of using
trained “shoppers” to anonymously evaluate
customer service operations, employee
integrity, and product quality.
Getting trained people to act as customers to
experience a defined set of processes and
report back on the results.
3. When was it developed?
Research tells us that it was a technique originally used by
private investigators to prevent internal theft at banks and
retail stores.
During the 1940’s, Wilmark started using the term
“mystery shopping” to describe the process of anonymously
evaluating customer service.
The industry slowly gained popularity throughout the
1970’s and 1980’s.
The industry slowly gained popularity throughout the
1970’s and 1980’s.
4. Who is a mystery shopper?
Person hired by a market research firm or a
manufacturer to visit retail stores, posing as a casual
shopper to collect information about the stores'
display, prices, and quality of their sales staff
The hired person will be trained.
5. How mystery shopping is implemented?
Anonymous persons are used as mystery guests.
The mystery guest is well trained and uses a
predefined checklist.
The mystery guest behaves like a normal customer.
After the visit to the service point the checklist is
filled in and an evaluation report is documented.
The evaluation report and the scores on the
checklist are used for feedback.
6. Purpose of mystery shopping
Mystery shopping can be used for various
purposes.
Most of the time the goal is to measure the quality
of the service delivery to the customer.
Mystery guest is also used to visit not only the own
service locations but also locations of competitors.
Measuring effectiveness of (training) programmes.
Testing if employees treat all people in the same
way, or testing against discrimination.
7. Benefits of mystery shopping.
Reports make very clear what is going wrong.
Training programmes can be improved.
Improvement activities can be focused on issues that
are important for the customer.
Good behavior of employees can be rewarded.
8. Importance of customer satisfaction.
Research reveals that - 26 out of 27 dissatisfied customers
of goods with a relative low price, don’t tell their supplier
about their dissatisfaction, however, 63% will never buy
again.
27% of the buyers of expensive products will not complaint,
but 41% will not come back.
37% of dissatisfied customers of expensive services do not
complaint, however, 50% of the dissatisfied customers will
not come back.
9. Customer satisfaction is important because…
Satisfied customers buy more and become loyal.
Satisfied customers buy additional products and services.
Satisfied customers support positive word of mouth.
Satisfied customers pay less attention to advertisements of
competitors.
Satisfied customers deliver more ideas and suggestions.
It costs 5-6 times more to acquire a new customer than to
retain an existing customer.
On average, one unhappy customer will tell 8-16 other
people of their bad experience with service.
15. Tips to be a good Mystery Shopper
Be Anonymous.
Read your instructions.
Fill out the reports on time.
Give all the details.
Only Report, don't comment.
Commitment.
Enjoy.
