by Costas Chryanthou

Created on: July 16, 2008

Mystery shopping is an independent visit carried out by a contractor of the mystery shopping organisation. The mystery shopping company will have a contract from a client whether they be a business generally a well known group of companies.

Their are either retail visits to restaurants, shops, banks, betting shops, coffee shops, amongst the type of visits that tend to be available.

The reason this exercise is used is for the business to measure the level of quality performed on either a retail basis or through phone calls. The buying process of a retail fast food store will check for cleanliness i.e how fast are the tables cleared and cleaned, the speed of the buying process, from walking into the store to making a payment is measured. A mystery shopper is asked to take a description of the member of staff that served a mystery shopper. The store must rate the service of the staff, the product display, the cleanliness and tidyness of the store, and if required a visit to the toilet to check if the company hygiene of the area. Also the mystery shopper is asked to give a rating and recommendation as to whether they would shop at the store that has been visited. The feedback and comments detailed in the report makes the mystery shopping client aware of any areas for improvement and the details are viewed and action can be taken accordingly.

Usually the mystery shopper will have to visit an agreed store and purchase an item stated in a assignment brief. The spending limit may or may not cover the expenses incurred in the shopping visit. The mystery shopper has to adhere to all these guideline details, otherwise they will not be paid. Also the report must be submitted online within either 24 hours of the visit taking place or on the same day. Mystery shoppers visiting the wrong place or at the wrong time will not get paid for this effort. Also the brief will indicate a visit duration in minutes. This also has a warning not to spend too little time in the retail store. Also the shopper will have to obtain a receipt for their transactions, following the guidelines in the assignment brief.

Mystery shopping can also be used to identify competitors service provided. For example one supermarket can carry out the field research on a rival store. This could be used to find areas of strengths and weaknesses.

Other than field based visiting work, the mystery shopping can also be carried out if their are telephone only mystery shopping assignements available. This will measure

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