Mystery shopping,
The term “mystery shopping” was coined in the 40’s, and it use by Market research companies. Mystery shopping is also known as secret shopping, it is the method by which an organisation evaluates its employees to establish service quality monitoring, there are different method to monitor and evaluate service delivery, the most used are Mystery shopping and Net promoter scores (NPS).
Mystery shopping is a tool used externally by companies to measure quality of service, or compliance with regulation, or to gather specific information about products and services. It can be used in any industry, with the most common venues being, Bank, Retail stores, hotels, restaurants, fast food chains,Gas stations, car dealerships, Hospitals and in Government Agencies
SHOPPERS
There are no essential requirements to be a secret shopper, as shoppers don’t have specific appearance or qualification. Those who have a flair and passion to enhance the customer service and the quality of the product can plunge into secret shopping. It would be interesting to learn that the secret shoppers are paid for their job. It is a profession just like any other profession.
Although the job entails shopping which is fun, mystery shopping is a serious business and should be carefully dealt with. There must be certain innate traits within a person that would be helpful in being a secret shopper. These traits are the ability to act or pretend, being trustworthy, reliable and professional. Apart from all these, secret shoppers should have a good writing skills and a clear perspective of actual reporting and their personal opinion so that the truth is not tampered
A shopper can be a students, workers, disabled, young, old, pregnant, elderly, scientists, installation engineers, bikers, foreigner, Doctor, hairdressers, plumbers, dentists, and every flavour of small business. We may even have our own dummy businesses with websites etc. to fit any kind of customer profile that a firm require
BENEFIT OF MYSTERY SHOPPING
Customer satisfaction and experience,( Ambience, queue management),Audit of company’s employees, e,g (Attitude, Time management, Appearance, policy and procedure)Future employees and training,Detection of service Gap (contemporary Knowledge)Increase profit baseBenchmarking (competition).
Mystery shopping In Nigeria
Private companies
Mystery shopping service has been in Nigeria since late 90s but it more immediately there are more competition in the Economy, it is used by Banks, insurance ,pension, Telecommunications, Government, FMCG, etc, please note mystery shopping is meant for all organisation that deal with people,I have consult for Banks,schools,pension administrators,investment companies,insurance companies,E-commerce companies among others, and you need to listen to them for the impact of mystery shopping on their service delivery and profit base
Government.
Nigeria Government during the Obasanjo regime introduce service compact (servicom) to monitor service delivery in Government institutions but the challenge is that quality service monitoring cannot be achieved if the mystery shopper or service checker are not externally sourced, it will be compromised, though from my research Government institution like FRSC,FIRC,JAMB servicom are functioning well,
Nigeria economy need mystery shopping service to monitor the activities of government agencies, most filling station decide to hoard the fuel because of the scarcity, a mystery shoppers can easily detect them and inform the government, please note the identity of the shoppers must not be disclose by the shopper and the employer,
The leading mystery shopping institution or company in Nigeria is (Nigeria mystery shopper’s provider (NMSP) www.mysteryshoppers.org.ng and other market research companies in Nigeria. For more information 08052205072, contact Nigeria mystery shopper’s provider for the service or membership