- Mystery shopping is used to anonymously evaluate customer service, operations, employee integrity, merchandising, and product quality through trained shoppers. It benefits businesses by improving customer retention, reinforcing positive behaviors, and identifying training needs. - A mystery shopping program involves setting objectives, designing questionnaires, recruiting and training shoppers, collecting data reports, analyzing findings, and repeating the process to monitor performance over time. It provides quantitative and qualitative feedback to enhance the customer experience. - While related to marketing research, mystery shopping has a more operational focus on training and incentives rather than determining customer opinions. It should not replace formal customer satisfaction research but can complement it.