Mystery shopping is a tool used by market research companies as a tool to measure quality of retail service. Companies send mystery shoppers to 'act' as shoppers or to legitimately shop in return for some combination of cash, store credit, purchase discounts, or the goods or services purchased. Instructions to mystery shoppers can include a script of behavior, questions to ask, complaints to give, purchases to make, and measures to record, such as time it takes to receive attention from an employee or receive a service, or the responses given to questions.

 

The Survey Procedure

Often the shoppers will be looking for specific details. Common details they look for include:

• the date and time of the pre-visit phone call
• the name of the store on each side of the store visited
• number of employees in the store on entering
• how long it takes before the mystery shopper is greeted
• the name of the employees
• whether or not the greeting is friendly
• the questions asked by the shopper to find a suitable product
• the types of products shown
• if or how the employee attempted to close the sale
• whether the employee invited the shopper to come back to the store
• cleanliness of store and store associates
• speed of service

Shoppers are often given instructions or procedures to make the transaction atypical to make the test of the knowledge and service skills of the employees more stringent or specific to a particular service issue. For instance, a mystery shopper at a restaurant may pretend they are lactose-intolerant, or a clothing store mystery shopper could inquire about gift-wrapping services.

Not all Mystery Shopping scenarios include a purchase.

Mystery Shopping Locations

The most common venues to be mystery shopped are retail stores, fast food, and banks. Virtually any context where there is a customer/business interaction is open to mystery shopping, including on-line surveys.

Pay

Pay is highly variable, depending on the company facilitating the mystery shop, the experience level of the mystery shopper, availability of mystery shoppers in the area, and shop being tested. Novice mystery shoppers can earn less than minimum wage after accounting for time and cost involved to perform the scenario. Mystery shoppers must read and understand the requirements of the client. Gas mileage to and from the store is not usually reimbursed. Many scenarios involving the purchase and return of an item require the mystery shopper to wait for an uncompensated period of minutes or hours before they can return the item purchased. It can take 1-2 hours for a mystery shopper to complete a shopping report.

In the case of unreturnable services, such as a meal at a restaurant or an evening's stay at a hotel, mystery shoppers receive the unreturnable service as their sole compensation. Reports on restaurant and hotel assignments can be much more detailed than other shopping reports, and can take hours to complete.

Background

Mystery shopping began in the 1940s and as a mechanism to measure employee integrity. Tools used for mystery shopping assessments can range from simple questionnaires to complete audio and video recordings. The Internet has provided a medium for mystery shopping online. Many mystery shopping companies are completely administered through the Internet, allowing potential mystery shoppers to use the Internet to register for participation, find mystery shopping jobs and receive payment.

Statistics

The Mystery shopping industry had an estimated value of nearly $600 million in the United States in 2004, according to a 2005 report commissioned by the Mystery Shopping Providers Association.  Companies that participated in the report experienced an average growth of 11.1 percent from 2003 to 2004, compared to an average growth of 12.2 percent. The report estimates more than 8.1 million mystery shops were conducted in 2004. The Report represents the first industry association attempt to quantify the size of the mystery shopping industry.  Similar surveys are available for EUROPE where mystery shopping is becoming more embedded into company procedures The Mystery Shopper began as a radio station promotion near Columbus, OH in 1975 when an Ad Ex named David McGaughy took the concept of the Secret Santa to involve station listeners for the new WWWJ FM in Johnstown, OH. The promotion listed clues of businesses who advertised on the station and when a listener correctly identified the business, they won prizes. This contest became so popular in Central Ohio that many restaurants and stores offered their own version to increase sales.  While the Mystery Shopper or Secret Shopper has been used for over 100 years to gauge competition, the concept became popular to the mass market and colleges used it to preview classes and small business used it to increase their market share. Since the internet has picked up on the industry, it has come full circle to 1975 when radio listeners engaged a popular communication tool to improve their lifestyle.