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Whether you’re exploring Mystery Shopper Research for the first time or seeking to elevate its role in your Customer research strategy, this series will guide you through unlocking its full potential.
In this first post in the series, I introduce –
- Mystery Shopper Research as a another ‘window’ into your Customer Experience
- Common misconceptions about Mystery Shopper Research
- The simple answer to why Mystery Shopper Research programs are often so poorly run
- Why Mystery Shopper is best understood as a qualitative form of research
Mystery Shopper Research is one window in the House of Customer Experience
Think of your Customer Experience as a house.
Each Customer research method you use is like a window, shedding light on different rooms or aspects of the Customer Experience.
A house with only one or two windows feels dark and incomplete, just as relying on too few Customer research methods provides a narrow view of your Customers.
Today’s Customer research mix could include transaction and relationship surveys, ethnographic research, unsolicted feedback, experience design and journey mapping and more.
But no matter what mix we settle on, the more windows we have in our House of Customer Experience the more light that shines in.
Illuminating what our Customers need and want from us.
Mystery Shopper Research is one of these windows.
It very specifically allows you to study and understand what Customers actually go through when they interact with your organization.
And in this series, I want to help you get the most from your Mystery Shopper program.
Or if you’re not yet using Mystery Shopper Research, understand how it could be used – effectively – as part of your overall Customer research mix.
What our 25 years of Mystery Shopper Experience has taught us
Our Mystery Shopper know-how and examples come from our real world work with global Mystery Shopper Clients for the past 25 years.
Working on programs ranging from $20K to over a million dollars.
And to help me structure this series on Mystery Shopper Research – I will draw on what we teach in our Mystery Shopper Research workshop.
A workshop we initially put together to help our existing Mystery Shopper Clients get the most value from their Mystery Shopper programs.
There are many misconceptions about Mystery Shopper Research
Before we even get into the value of Mystery Shopper and how to design and execute an effective program, let me share some most common misconceptions we come across – even to this day.
And we’ll explore these misconceptions in greater detail as we progress through the series.
Common Mystery Shopper Research Misconceptions
| Misconception | Reality |
|---|---|
| Mystery Shopper programs should be run internally. | Internally run Mystery Shopper programs can be biased. Who in the Organization is going to be executing the Mystery Shopper fieldwork? What is their stake in how the findings turn out? What is their expertise in the Customer domain? Internally run Mystery Shopper programs tend to lack research rigor – making them less effective than they might otherwise be. |
| Mystery Shopper is a replacement for Customer surveys. | Mystery Shopper can complement Customer surveys by providing insights that surveys can miss. Since Mystery Shopper studies what Customers actually go through when they interact with your Organization findings can deepen your understanding of the Customer scores and comments given in surveys. |
| A Mystery Shopper is the same as a real Customer. | Mystery Shoppers are profiled, hired, trained and paid to act out certain scenarios and capture observations about your Organization. They should never be considered to be real Customers. And their findings aren’t substitutes or stand-ins for Customer Satisfaction. |
| Mystery Shopper results are very subjective. | The best Mystery Shopper programs provide for both objective scoring based as well as subjective input from the Mystery Shoppers. If your data turns out to be subjective that reflects either a design choice or a flaw in the program. |
| Mystery Shopper research needs statistical confidence levels. | Mystery Shopper is a qualitative form of research and provides meaningful insights into the Customer Experience without requiring statistical significance.
|
| Our Customer Journey Mapping eliminates the need for Mystery Shopper Research. | Customer Journey Mapping and Mystery Shopper Research offer different windows into the Customer Experience. Journey Mapping brings together real Customers to work alongside the Organization’s Employees in the structured study of the path the Customer takes to achieve a goal. Mystery Shopper Research provides focused insight into what Customers actually go through when they interact with the Organization. |
| We don’t need Mystery Shopper Research – our Customer Satisfaction scores are sufficient. | Multiple windows provide a more comprehensive and ‘illuminated’ view of the Customer Experience. And Customer Satisfaction scores can miss out on important learnings that effective Mystery Shopper Research can provide. |
Why are there so many poorly run Customer research programs out there?
The answer to this question is relatively simple.
People who jump into Customer research often underestimate – or don’t even know – what it takes to conduct that form of research well.
There is a well understood art and science to conducting any form of Customer research. That applies whether we’re talking about Customer journey mapping or conducting a diary study.
Here’s an example of a poorly designed research program
The Boss came in on Monday and said, “Hi everyone, we need to have a survey ready to send to Customers by this Friday.”
After which a bunch of well meaning folks gathered around a conference table. And debated and discussed survey questions to ask.
And by Friday – voilà – they had finished a survey and sent it out to their Customers.
But it wasn’t a very good one. And the Team missed out on the reality that the survey questionnaire itself is just one part of a robust survey program. It’s not the entire program.
The Team missed discussions about measurement scales, the focus of the questions, the meaning of the data, and who would actually take action on the findings.
It was truly Amateur Hour.
Because the people around that table just didn’t know what they didn’t know.
The same poorly run approach happens with Mystery Shopper Research too
Because it didn’t have to be that way.
When companies conduct weak Mystery Shopper Research, the method itself gets a bad reputation.
Even if that reputation was not deserved.
Mystery Shopper is a qualitative research method
Mystery Shopper focuses on the depth and richness of learnings rather than statistical significance. It’s a qualitative form of research.
Which is different than quantitative research methods, which involve consideration of appropriate sample sizes, confidence intervals and confidence levels.
With qualitative research, when you identify a behavior or outcome that happens 5, 10 or 25 times you’ve got a trend worth exploring.
For example, in one Mystery Shopper program we conducted for an airline in India, our Mystery Shoppers noticed that airline staff treated customers wearing ‘western’ dress more respectfully than those in traditional regional attire.
To their credit, the airline management at this Client jumped on this quickly.
Later on they told us that this was something that they had ‘suspected’ but did not have actual data to prove out.
Sometimes when I’m teaching Customer Service or Experience I’ll ask, “How often is it ok to be rude to someone?” or “How often is it ok for your website to be down?”
To which folks answer, “Well actually never.”
Lots of organizations still don’t use qualitative research well.
But just because results from qualitative research may not be statistically meaningful that doesn’t mean they aren’t meaningful at all.
What comes next
In Part 2 we will share our definition of Mystery Shopper Research. And we will explore the value that it brings to looking at your Customer Experience.
We will show where Mystery Shopper results fit into classic CX data architecture. And why it’s important not to confuse Mystery Shopper and Customer Satisfaction.
Thank you for reading!
Daniel Ord
[email protected] / www.omnitouchinternational.com
