5 Ways To Use Mystery Shopping Reports

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A mystery shopping report , if interpreted correctly can often provide key insights into the working of your business and improvement areas. Owners and top management often develop a blind spot to many less than perfect service areas which can be brought into perspective by these reports. You can ask for competitive inputs to be included as also personal opinions from the observer. Of course, a lot will depend on the observation and writing skills of the shopper as well. So get started, go through our 5 useful tips to get the best possible mystery shopping report for your money

1. Know Your Objectives – If you do not know what your objectives are, chances are there that your research team wont meets them. Take out time to discover your perceived strength and weakness areas with your management staff. Ask for agency inputs, and then, frame a questionnaire that maps onto what you need to know with enough room for the unknown.
2. Do not leave hiring the shopper to the quality consultancy – The mystery shopping report is as good as the person making it. Many freshers see it as a lucrative and easy way to make money but it requires a keen eye for details and an ability to translate that observation into a written piece of paper. More importantly, often the shoppers need to meet a certain profile. Ensure that your management staff meets the candidates to be sure of the quality and accuracy of the report.
3. Do not include too many questions per visit or shopper – While there may be a temptation to find out everything, you may end up finding out nothing. It is best to let the questionnaire focus around a few key areas rather than try and include everything. Too many questions will confuse the shopper and reduce the overall quality of the shopping report.
4. Have open ended questions – There are many things that you may not be aware of and hence cannot adhere to a Yes or No format. Make sure to include sections where the shoppers can include their opinion and views. These often give very valuable insights about the things that you may not even have thought of.
5. Check out sample reports online Today there is a huge amount of information and ideas available on the Internet. Try and check out some of the questions that people have included to ensure that you do not miss out on anything important or just improve the quality of your own efforts.

 

Findings of a mystery shopping report  results need to be such that they can drive some kind of action. There is no point spending time and money getting information that does not help in any kind of decision making. Many company heads are spending money on getting a lot of interesting insights which often do not lead to any kind of actionable result making entire exercise futile. It is also important to ensure that you continue with these shoppers on a periodic basis as quality is not static.

It is also important to include the staff in the quality exercise so that they do not believe that they are being spied upon or targeted. It is also important to share the mystery shopping report results with sensitivity to avoid embarrassment but yet make a point. It has been seen that just knowing that they could be watched makes people put up a better performance than otherwise. Make sure that you implement the findings in real time be it sales training or display change etc. If you take too long the momentum and excitement will get dissipated.

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Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.