How to be a Mystery Shopper in General

The service evaluation by using a secret shopper or commonly known as “Mystery Shopping” is the popular research tool for organizations who want to evaluate their employee’s performance on their daily service routines. A mystery shopper, as an evaluator is the one who will pose as a regular customer. He/she will observe and report the factual information that happen during the visit (such as whether the staff greet you or not, whether the store clean or not etc.) as well as provide some personal opinion or feedback about the service that you received (for example, do you satisfy with the service you received today)

It is not a caviling Mystery Shopping is NOT a caviling activity that you must seek the best opportunity to capture employee’s faultiness. Instead, you will be instructed to act as a regular customer and the evaluation must be objective and to be done by observations and importantly, allow opportunity to the employee.

You must not hastily conclude what you have seen that it is faultiness. For example;

• You should not immediately as the employee about the sales promotion without allow some time for him/her to suggest the information by his/her own initiative.

• Once you enter the shop and find that it is dirty, you should not conclude that the shop was dirty if you later find out that there is an employee comes to clean the rubbish during the visit.

The most critical point is that you must read the shopper instructions carefully and make yourself familiar with the questionnaire before you conduct the visit. You can contact your field co-ordinator if you have any questions or felling unclear about any information in the instruction.

Always be anonymous

You must remain anonymous in all situations; this is the utmost important thing. This includes performing any kinds of behaviors that capture employee’s attention and to make them suspect you are the evaluator. All observations must be done naturally as you are just only typical customers. You DO NOT have to walk around and explore every single corner of the shop. New mystery shopper who lack of experience usually ignore this discipline by, for example, directly ask the manager’s or employee’s name without a valid reason, or obviously stare at the name badge to read employee’s name. These kinds of activities are strictly prohibited.

You MUST NOT bring any document or questionnaire into the premises. This will obviously be seen by the employee. You are not allowed to bring other person to the visit as he/she will distracts you from observe and remember things. However, in case you are instructed to bring another person with you, you must make sure that the person understand this guideline very well as same as you are. Please always recall that even the little voice of the conversation, telephone chats, photographing that has content relates to the evaluations are sensitive, and can be easily overheard or noticed by the employee. You also cannot make any complaints if you are not satisfy with the service, by doing so would reveal your identity.

The proof of visit is also critically important for all of your work. This includes original copy of purchase receipt, voice record etc. If without these evidences, we cannot verify that your visit is actually be done and, as a consequence, it will be marked as invalid. Therefore, you must keep the proof of visit with you for a period of time for future reference. You may be requested to send these evidences back to our office if needed.

Please bare in mind that in case the employee did not automatically offer you a purchase receipt, you may immediately request one from the employee. However, in the event that the employee does not give you the receipt and you also forget to ask and already left the shop, we strongly recommend you NOT TO return to the shop and ask for it. If you experience such a situation, please contact your field co-ordinator immediately for further instructions.

You may find, in some situations, that the employee come and ask you directly whether you are the mystery shopper, the only answer that you must stress out is.. “you do not have any idea about it”…or…”what is the mystery shopper”….. Also, if such situation happens, you must stop the evaluation immediately as your visit will be automatically become invalid and you need to contact your field co-ordinator immediately.