Mystery Shopper

Mystery Shoppers or Mystery Customers visit specific stores and businesses anonymously for the purpose of observing and reporting on the quality of customer service delivered. The answers submitted by the mystery shoppers enable clients to make employment decisions, reward staff for excellent performance, redirect staff who perform poorly and evaluate adherence to company service standards.

There are a number of agencies that provide Mystery Customer Services to organisations, and often they have an ongoing contract which involves regular visits by mystery customers to their organisation over a period of time. Mystery Shopping provides the organisation with an independent opinion of their customer service standards, staff performance and overall perception of the business from the customers’ perspective. Without "pointing the finger" the information gathered can often uncover poor employee performance and allow business to reshape that performance in a cost-effective manner. In the process businesses can discover, identify and correct weaknesses, act on them, re-measure for improvement and gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.

Mystery Shoppers can register with a Mystery Shopping organisation and will be sent assignments when they come up in their area.

Pay/reward varies, and can be monetary or a gift voucher, depending on the organisation you work for.