Mystery Shoppers
De-Mystified
By Marcia Mogelonsky
Mystery shoppers unwrap some not-so-sweet secrets.
A customer
who finds the products she wants, in an environment she expects, and at a
price she likes, is not about to shop around for another alternative. For
manufacturers, a happy customer is a repeat customer, one who restocks
frequently and doesn’t look around for a different supplier to fill
important shelf real estate. Unhappy customers tend to vote with their
feet, however, taking their business to another outlet instead of giving
the retailer or manufacturer another chance to set things right.
Retailers who want to assure that their customers
enjoy the best possible experience may want to look to a different kind of
shopper for verification that product, price, and positioning are all at
their optimum — the mystery (or secret) shopper. These shoppers
provide a look at individual stores, or individual components of a store
— its sales associates, cleanliness, products or routines.
Homing in on the customer experience
Mystery shoppers use a different kind of shopping list
to do their daily store visits. Instead of enumerating things to buy, they
bring to the store a list of expectations determined by the retailer. They
shop carefully and provide a customer’s view of the store, its
appearance, associates, displays and whatever other elements need to be
reviewed.
“The mystery shopper provides a clear picture of
the customer experience when interacting with the retailer in the retail
environment,” says John Swinburn, executive director of the Mystery
Shopping Providers Association (www.mysteryshop.org), a trade association
of mystery shopping companies based in Dallas. MSPA has more than 180
members, most of whom are in the United States and Canada.
Shopping for answers
Retailers use mystery shoppers to help provide answers
to a wide array of issues, ranging from associate interactions to product
placement. Using mystery shoppers can be beneficial, but only if problems
and goals are clearly defined ahead of time.
Swinburn provides some tips for retailers considering
going the mystery shopper route.
A reputable mystery shopping company will work with
the client to determine exactly what criteria need to be measured. For a
retailer in the confectionery industry, these issues can range from the
assortment of products displayed and shelf space devoted to specific types
of products to presentation of candy items during seasonal promotions or
cleanliness of the bulk candy department.
A retailer who sells products “by the
each” may use a mystery shopping service to verify that associates
handle the product with the right care, package it correctly or deliver the
correct sales pitch. Retailers can verify the extent to which associates
“sell” the products, as opposed to allowing customers to
flounder without direction when trying to purchase an assortment of pieces.
Set goals
“It is important for the client and the mystery
shopping company to discuss goals,” says Swinburn. “They must
work together to develop a questionnaire that mystery shoppers can fill in
objectively. It is important to make sure that the client — in this
case the retailer — understands what can be measured
objectively.” Follow-up is also
essential, and the retailer and the mystery shopping company should agree
ahead of time on the scope of the analysis to be done by the company and by
the client at the end of the project.
Manufacturers can also use the services of a mystery
shopper for a number of different purposes. When it comes to
manufacturer-retailer relationships, the manufacturer can use mystery
shoppers to audit the interactions between a salesperson and the retailer
he or she is courting. A manufacturer’s mystery shopper can also be
sent into the retail environment to make sure that products are positioned
and displayed correctly, that point-of-sale materials are available, or
that prices are accurately and clearly displayed. Manufacturers looking to
police their own systems may use mystery shoppers to spot check products in
different stores, looking for consistency in ingredients, presentation or
packaging.
“Manufacturers can access a host of mystery
shopper-type services,” says Patricia MacHannaford, account manager
for Mintel International, a market research and customer intelligence
company with offices in London and Chicago. “They can, for example,
work with our retail auditing service to receive regular details and
updates about competitors’ products — both single items and
whole lines,” MacHannaford continues. “They can use mystery
shoppers to audit distribution, and they can even use retail audits to
collect products from different retailers to check for consistency in
packaging or labeling, providing a check of their own systems and
processes.”
Intelligence gathering
But the concept of mystery shoppers can be taken even
further. Consider the mystery shopper as a “product intelligence
agent” hired for quality assurance, product retrieval, retail audits
or even tailored research.
“We can send our teams out into stores across
just about any geographical region to look for products that will help
generate ideas for new products, or to collect products with innovative
packaging that could be applied to the confectionery industry,” says
MacHannaford. “We’ve done ‘before and after’
surveys of products for one client, and we do regular retail audits for
another. We can look into specific programs or promotions to assess
consistency across a number of outlets. We’ve also done trade
sampling, tracking of in-store and on-package promotions, and appearance
monitoring, to ensure that no damaged products are put on the shelf.”
Mystery shopping companies can provide no end of
solutions for retailers and manufacturers in the highly charged and highly
competitive confectionery industry. The only limit may be your imagination.
Stretching the bounds of what you want a mystery shopper to do can help you
not only understand what your clients want now, but what they may look
forward to in the future.