Objective customer feedback a mystery
DSN Retailing Today
October 25, 2004
By Jeff Hall

Nearly 30 years ago, a handful of companies from the retail and restaurant industries began adopting an objective and unbiased means of measuring the front-line service experiences of their customers. By deploying consumers to anonymously and discreetly conduct observational research and report their findings to management, the mystery shopping industry was born. Over the past several years, the mystery shopping industry has matured into a global business utilized in one form or another by nearly every customer service-driven organization.

Today, mystery shopping has evolved into a dynamic and robust form of customer-experience research, and is considered by many retailers as a must-have tool in their ongoing bid to remain a step ahead of the competition. What is it about mystery shopping that remains so compelling?

Customer experience vs. customer satisfaction

Several forms of consumer-research tools are available to today's mass merchandise retailer, including exit surveys, phone-based satisfaction polls and Web-based surveys. While most options focus on measuring customer satisfaction, subjective feedback of impressions from actual customers subsequent to their interaction with your brand, mystery shopping, offers objective, unbiased and in many cases, near real-time insight as to actual brand performance, giving you highly actionable information to support critical business decisions.

Mystery shopping, as a stand-alone or complementary form of research to customer satisfaction, provides an immediate and deeply insightful understanding of very specific attributes related to the customer experience. Mystery shoppers allow you to gain critical intelligence around metrics, such as store appearance and cleanliness, product presentation, interactions with sales associates, helpfulness/professionalism, speed of service and adherence to display and marketing promotions. An increasing number of mystery shopping programs are integrating audio, video or digital image capture as a component of the shopper's report, extending traditional mystery shopping into operational compliance audits.

Powerful cross-channel benefits

Mystery shopping enables organizations to quickly and accurately measure key customer experience attributes across all customer touch points, from the in-store experience to Web site interactions and inbound call center effectiveness. Integrating performance feedback across touch points can provide deep insight as to service delivery strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to identify best practices among best performing divisions and apply them downward through the organization, thereby raising the bar for everyone.

Industry resources

For mass merchandisers interested in learning more about mystery shopping, a clearinghouse of information and resources is now available through the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. Founded in 1997, the MSPA now counts over 175 companies worldwide among its members, and represents those providers with demonstrated program experience and a commitment to operating with the highest of standards of professional and ethical performance. These companies specialize in mystery shopping and related services for organizations of all sizes, across all industries.

Recent technological advancements in the training and deployment of mystery shoppers, along with real-time data collection and reporting tools, has allowed mystery shopping to emerge as the research tool of choice among today's most successful brands. For organizations with a commitment to providing an optimal customer experience, mystery shopping may be a great solution.

Jeff Hall is founder and CEO of Second To None Inc., an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based consultancy providing customer experience measurement solutions to brand leaders across North America. He may be reached at: JeffH@second-to-none.com.