A systematic way of assessing customer satisfaction, by having research staff pretend to be potential customers, and noting how frontline staff respond to their demands. Sometimes called shadow shopping. After the encounter, the interviewer fills in a questionnaire, so mystery shopping is a type of survey.
The collection of information from retail outlets, showrooms etc, by people posing as ordinary members of the public.
An unobtrusive method of gathering data that uses people posing as bonafide shoppers to observe and collect information about an organization's service performance.
This entails researchers posing (in accordance with the Market Research Society's guidelines) as an institution's customers so as to evaluate customer service related issues.
A research technique used by a wide variety of commercial, governmental and other organizations. It is typically conducted with an evaluator posing as a customer and documenting their experiences and other information with the use of a questionnaire or other report. The evaluator is specially trained to observe and measure the nature and quality of the services being offered to the costumers.
This technique is used to measure the standard of service delivery in the Department for Work and Pensions' customer-facing areas. It provides an independent and external assessment of service delivery, being carried out by external contractors. The mystery-shopper approaches the Department in a variety of ways and records responses against set questionnaires. The results and detailed feedback are used to enhance understanding of customer requirements and support work to improve services. New Deal A programme to enable people to move from welfare to work. New Deals are targeted at specific groups – lone parents, the long-term unemployed, partners of unemployed people, people with disabilities, and the young.
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.