How does mystery shopping reveal the truth?
Customer feedback is essential, yet it is strategically limited.
Customers often don’t tell you the truth, and they may give unreliable superficial information tainted by poor memory or emotion. They also don’t know what is profitable to you.
Customers could be walking out with a smile on their face but empty-handed. Furthermore, many manufacturers are one step removed from the customer because they sell through retail partners.
It’s almost impossible to receive compliance feedback from customers. Untrained customers can’t give accurate feedback and probably don’t care to tell you.
When did you start Mystery Shopping?
We’ve been conducting mystery shops in over 20 different industries and 200 clients since 2003.
Our client rollcall includes Woolworths, ANZ, NAB, Commonwealth, Mazda, Lamborghini, Bob Jane, Google, Apple, Mastercard, Visa, Exxon, Caltex, Quest apartments and over 200 other companies.
We’ll bring all that experience to your program and allow you to compare with world best practices.
How do you recruit Shoppers?
We’ve amassed deep mystery shopper relationships throughout the country. We still depend on shopper recommendations but also advertise online.
Anyone can register to be a shopper, but getting through the hoops to start work is a different matter. We match mystery shoppers to the client work. Not all clients will see all jobs. Furthermore, shoppers are selected based on their previous history. New shoppers go through additional screening processes. Despite all that, the essential attribute of a good shopper is reliability.
How do you screen shoppers?
If a good shopper is a reliable shopper, how can we find reliable shoppers? The best way to find reliable shoppers is to track their history of work with us. We conduct an additional layer of briefings for new mystery shoppers to determine whether they will be reliable shoppers. For example, whether they are prepared for our 1st shop briefing.
How do you know the shoppers really went to the store?
We deploy a series of security measures to ensure the shop took place. Shoppers are only paid directly to a bank account. They must scan a receipt of purchase and provide a date-stamped photo of the front of the store (or phone call log). We deploy a Photo DNA check which ensures no part of any uploaded photo has ever been uploaded on the internet ever before. We also run IP checks to ensure the shopper’s computer belongs to the person who says they are the shopper.
Can I have my own questionnaire, and can it be changed?
Each questionnaire is designed based on the client’s own sales processes and workflows.
Yes, we allow clients to change the questionnaire as their business changes or as questions become redundant.
How is the reporting delivered?
You will receive the reporting through our Web Portal. It provides multi-layer security logins to cater for different levels in the organisation.
We can also deliver data directly through API or simple excel files.
See a short video of our reporting system here.
What is HSB University?
We train our staff and can train shoppers using webinars and other online tools. Our newest online tool is a new learning initiative called HSB University. HSBU is unique in Australia and developed through our global mystery shopping arm to ensure consistent base knowledge.
What’s the difference between Mystery Shopping and Market Research?
Mystery shopping provides deep, actionable operational compliance data. However, market research provides more subjective consumer insights. They’re very different but work very well together.
A mystery shop tends to have lass data points, but the data is deep. Market research provides data from more people, but it is shallow compared to mystery shopping.
Mystery Shopping will tell you what happened, whereas market research will tell you how the customer felt.
Can I get best practice comparisons?
Yes, you can get best practice comparisons with other organisations in your industry and different parts of the world.
Do you have global reach?
Yes, we service all of Asia directly from Australia and service the rest of the world through our sister companies. These companies belong to the same global trading group called HS Brands, through which we also deploy our university HSBU.
What else can I measure?
We provide a dashboard of dashboards. You can combine all your compliance and customer service data in one place. We can combine:
- Mystery Shopping
- Consumer surveys
- Net Promoter Score
- Social Media Monitor
- Internal operational audits, and
- External operational audits.
How can I fix store issues?
It’s hard to stay on top of the data at head office level. We can deploy a workflow process called Kaizen Action plans to keep track of store remediation.
You can set tolerances for any questionnaire or individual question so that a negative result can immediately send an Action Plan to the store for them to initiate and report back, all in the same system. You can then track who have fixed problems, and rest assured that they won’t repeat the same problems.
How secure and confidential is our data?
All our mystery shoppers and staff have signed confidentiality agreements. Your data stays with us. We are happy to provide a confidentiality agreement, or we can sign yours.
See our separate data security outline here.