Mystery Shopping

The term mystery shopping or mystery shopping are subsumed in the general procedure for the collection of quality of service in which trained observers, so-called mystery shoppers, as a normal customer experience and real customer situations perceive. The service events are measured using the a predefined set of criteria. Not the subjective perception, but the most objective assessment of quality aspects is the central subject of the proceedings. In order not to distort the results, the service providing employees will not notice that it is mystery shopping. In addition to the quality of service in the strict sense ( attention, friendliness, product knowledge, etc.) and vigilance in shoplifting, order and cleanliness in the store and much more can be tested.

Demarcation

Usually, the results of a mystery shopping project is not published, but are a trading company for self-control. A sector comparison is not yet possible. Unlike the approach of publishers of hotel, restaurant, or camping guides: Here is an entire industry will be tested and subsequently released the results in printed form and, increasingly, the Internet. The best known example is perhaps the Michelin Guide. However, the neutrality of such tests is controversial and difficult to verify, but the subjective impression weighs heavily here, both in the service and in the quality of food, etc.

Financial services, for example, evaluated and compared, which is applied independently financially as state foundation and non-profit organization and has earned a reputation of high competence and credibility over the years by the Stiftung Warentest. Besides the quality of customer service as well in these tests, product quality plays an important role.

The comparative evaluation of commercial enterprises is still most likely been in the area of online commerce, where this task is often placed in the hands of customers. A fixed set of criteria and an objective assessment are absent in this case. It is also not clear what interests lie behind the individual reviews. Companies that manipulate their reviews, but risk extremely bad reviews, so these reviews are well accepted as valid evidence or benchmarks.

Objective

In the practical and scientific literature, there is agreement that weaknesses and thus improvement in the process of creating services uncovered by the method of test purchasing, and so action-relevant information can be obtained. This instrument is especially suited for evaluating the compliance of requirements (eg standards of service, appearance, product placement and advertising in retail behavior in cashier operations). The data are collected at the customer interface (eg, Point of Sale, call center, correspondence, field service ) and can form the basis for intra - and extra-company performance comparisons can be coupled with incentive systems that serve as a basis for training, for the measurement of service - or quality of advice be used or may be used as a starting point for quality development.

Application forms

Commitment and approach to mystery shopping are related to the desired objective. Basically three survey forms can be identified: personal collection, written survey and telephone survey. Together all forms of mystery shopping have the appearance of test subjects, collect the data on the basis of a predefined observation catalog and document. The catalog refers to the import dimension (eg, appearance, friendliness, speed of response ) and is based on the contents of the respective industry relevant properties, the location of the survey, the survey form and the desired result.

In addition to mystery shopping, there are other types of service tests, which are carried out analogously to Mystery Shopping. As a Mystery Call is defined as the performing of test calls. A Mystery Guest testing services in hotels or restaurants. Also sending test e- mails is a form of service test. Another form of mystery calls are Customer Reality checks using actual customer contacts are checked with the standards of mystery calls.

The providers for the implementation of service tests, there are two different philosophies. The one place to lay testers, others on professional testers.

Expiration of a mystery shopping project

A mystery shopping project usually proceeds in different steps. In the first step, the requirements and goals are set. For example, to be reviewed and, if necessary, improved service standards, so they have to be defined first. In the surgical preparation, a variety of tasks is work through: the observation catalog is to formulate the kind of conduct is to be determined (own implementation vs. contracting of a foreign company, the use of professional testers vs. lay testers obligation of mystery shoppers to neutrality and fairness.. ), The number and the (possible ) the type of training the tester is to determine the timing to be planned and the reimport of the results is determined. In the third step, the survey is conducted. The data is then analyzed and are actions. These are converted, and finally the achievement of objectives is checked.

Market volume

For the number of companies that are registered as a provider of Mystery Shopping services the Professional Association of German Market and Social Researchers, an increase from three to 112 companies between 1997 and 2008 recorded. While the German market for mystery shopping was estimated at € 20-30 million in 2003, it was ranked on a range of € 30-50 million in 2005. The European Union, the Mystery Shopping Providers Association ( MSPA ) goes for Germany from an annual average growth of 8 % by 2010. More cautious estimates put the development of the German market volume to € 75 million in the year 2010. Thus then should be reached the pinnacle of development. The sales volume for mystery shopping services in Europe is estimated from the MSPA in 2005 to € 210 million and € 600 million in North America.