Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping can be defined as one of the meaningful research tools to analyze, and evaluate performance, quality of key services from customers' point of view. The ultimate purpose of applying Mystery Shopping in Research is to provide better customer experience at the concentrated sales places of the brand.
Mystery shopping can be done through direct visit, telephone, online contact or other methods depending on clients' requirements.

You may want to have mystery shopping program if:

  • 1.Your employee hospitality have great effect on sales output
  • 2.You have standard of hospitality to be applied,
  • 3.You have more than one retail or business operation places,
  • 4.You want to monitor, improve and maintain your company service level.

PROGRAM FOR VIETNAM

Our Mystery Shopping program work well for Clients

Operate business in:
■ Retails
■ Hotels & Restaurants
■ Healthcare services
■ Movies & theaters
■ Other service businesses
Business Areas:
■ Ho Chi Minh
■ Ha Noi
■ Da Nang
■ Hai Phong
■ Others


  • Mystery Shopper Club
    Recruited from a rich panel of over 130,000 members of W&S in Vietnam. Only those who pass the screening round to get qualifications of standard evaluator would represent W&S to carry out the service.


  • Research Support
    Mystery Shoppers are backed up by W&S professional Research team while executing projects.


  • Combined services
    Mystery Shopper program are to be accompanied by other Research services of W&S Clients acquire the ultimate insights of consumers/ shoppers on business operation for further improvement.

Some of mystery shopping terms:

Mystery
Shopping
Provider
Research agency that provides mystery shopping program to Client.
Client
Individuals/ Organizations.. who require the application of mystery shopping program on their business.
Mystery Shopper/
Evaluator
Person who passed the qualification test and is assigned to conduct the evaluation of service in the appointed procedure, place and time.
Evaluation
The process of observing, collecting information by mystery shopper/evaluator in order to examine the quality of given service.

iconsubtitleMystery Shopper or Evaluator Qualification

Qualified Mystery Shopper or Evaluator must pass the following procedure to meet common standards:

  • 1. Evaluator Applicant will be recruited through email invitation or he / she can apply for the program directly on dedicated websites.
  • 2. Evaluator Applicant needs to fill in his / her personal information (including all contact details) as well as available time for doing evaluation. Information is recorded on the websites or directly sent to the mailbox of Mystery Shopping Provider.
  • 3. The system will check the authenticity of data. After that, Mystery Shopping Provider will directly call Evaluator applicant to reconfirm all provided information.
  • 4. Evaluator applicant is required to learn mystery shopping procedure before he / she gets the mandatory test.
  • 5. After finishing the module, Applicants need to join and pass the mandatory test. Only who can reach the score of 85% or higher can get the certification to become a Mystery Shopper / Evaluator.
  • 6. The Evaluator now can check the available evaluation schedule. They can volunteer for some evaluations, then Mystery Shopping Provider will appoint suitable evaluators to conduct the case.
  • 7. It is the report that will classify Evaluator as 'blacklisted,' 'poor,' 'standard,' 'good,' or 'excellence.'
    • a. Evaluator who reports false / fraudulent data will be automatically blacklisted.
    • b. Evaluator who reports incomplete data will be classified as "poor", and will need to retake the module test before committing another evaluation.
    • c. Evaluator who gives complete data as requested will be classified as either 'standard,' 'good' or 'excellence' depending on quality of the report.
  • 8.Evaluator who submit standard or higher quality report will receive prize, benefits, or some amount of money regulated in the mutual agreement signed with Mystery Shopping Provide

iconsubtitleMystery Shopping Process

1. Evaluator Training
Mystery Shopping Provider organize training course in general to all Evaluators.
2. Evaluator Appointment
Qualified Evaluator will be chosen and appointed to conduct a Mystery shopping case as they meet the typical requirements of project.
3.Mystery Shopping
This person will come to the appointed place in specific time and play a role as regular consumer to evaluate performance or quality of the key services.
4. Service assessment
Performance of key services are assessed through the level of hospitality, cleanliness, tidiness, how the product is served or displayed, service speed, sales place maintenance, product availability, and so on. The checklist is built based on Client's needs and mystery shopping provider's recommendations which are approved by Client.
5. Report of findings
Evaluator will record the findings in secret, and report the visit. There are some sections which Evaluator needs to give objective feedback as instructions and other sections at which he / she can give personal feedback.
6. Value acquirement
The report then is used for improving the service in that particular area in the future, and as the learning materials for the rest of the branches.

iconsubtitleTypes of Mystery Shopping

Regular evaluation without purchase:

Evaluator visits or calls or makes a contact as a regular customer, observe and examine the overall service level without commiting any purchases. Reports are to be submitted after Evaluator performs those activities.

Regular evaluation with purchase:

Evaluator visits or calls or makes a contact as a regular customer, then makes a specific order as instruction, and examine overall service level. Finally, the evaluator sends the purchased product to Mystery Shopping Provider and submits the report.

Special evaluation case:

Evaluator visits or calls or makes a contact as a regular customer with unique circumstances or special needs. For example,

  • When visiting ABC store, Evaluator will ask some specific products which have no longer been produced. The evaluator will observe the overall service level by the store's response and submits report.
  • When having a telephone order to XYZ restaurant, Evaluator will ask to modify the menu due to his / her allergic reasons. The evaluator will observe the overall service level by the restaurant's response, and submits report.

iconsubtitleBenefits of using Mystery Shopping

Mystery Shopping program help Clients with:

  • 1. Receive complete consumers' feedbacks on all the key services you need to know.
  • 2. Collect the evaluation of service with minimum bias since the evaluator would be disguised as an ordinary consumer.
  • 3. Monitor the standard of service across your channels of retails.
  • 4. Evaluate the recent service procedure, get consumer insights to help improve the service standard. On further analysis, from the regular evaluation of mystery shopping program, you can monitor the standard during peak and non-peak hours, weekdays and weekends, and during high and low seasons.
  • 5. The report would be one of the tangible assesment for your services. Hence, the service can be evaluated and you can make a tangible target to maintain or improve your service level.

iconsubtitleEthics in conducting Mystery Shopping studies

Things to remember when you decide to conduct mystery shopping:

  • 1. Only qualified evaluators have rights to conduct the evaluation as instructed.
    Picture / Illustration
  • 2. Confidentiality is the key. The evaluator should never reveal their identity, or access the same employee at various situations. (: On the case where Client recognize the evaluator, then As a matter of agreement from Mystery Shopping Provider they should never reveal the identity of evaluator to their employee as well).
  • 3. Mystery shopping is not a sales program. None of the evaluator will buy and own the product during the evaluation assignment period. All of the purchase made, if any, will need to be sent back to the Mystery Shopping Provider (including any promotion items including after sales prize, vouchers…..).
  • 4. Mystery shopping is not the best method to evaluate employees personally. This is a tool to measure the overall quality of the studied services.