Mystery Shopping As A Business Concept

The Business of Mystery Shopping And Opportunities For The Service In Our Economy

There is already a consensus of opinion that the rapid growth we envision for the Nigerian economy can only be reality if the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector becomes vibrant. What this simply means is that we need a torrent of new businesses in the MSME sector. Besides the massive cumulative impact of such development on the GDP growth rate of our economy, the serious blow it will deal to the monster of unemployment is not in doubt. Empowering the MSME sector is therefore a major plank of any genuine effort to transform our economy.

For MSMEs to thrive, small business ideas need to flourish. It is against this background we introduce the business concept of mystery shopping, a possible candidate for MSME ventures. Mystery shopping is not widely known of in our economy, unlike, say the United States of America, where small and home businesses thrive and various business ideas have been developed. Nonetheless, the market for mystery shopping service is potentially sizeable.

What It Means
Mystery shopping is a service which provides businesses the opportunity to obtain independent, non-biased evaluation of their business practices, service delivery, employee behaviour, etc, through an external party. Some other tags for mystery shopping include secret shopping, secret performance evaluation, service check and frontline evaluation. What happens is that an unknown, unidentified and seemingly regular customer visits an outlet or unit of an organisation and gets attended to by staff who do not realise that he in fact visited to evaluate that business unit against criteria defined by the management of their company. The shopper is a mystery shopper because he has no relationship with the business and the staff at the location will not get to know by whom or when their outlet or performance was service-checked. This way, the company's management gets a feedback that reflects the reality. Compare this to when a top management or supervisory personnel visits an outlet. Every staff will, at least for that period, turn a good leaf and the team will collectively take steps, albeit short-lived, to present a sterling performance. The implication is that when a company depends solely on internal checks, it may never get a true picture of the quality of service, the attitude of staff or even the condition of the outlet. Mystery shopping turns the tables and gets the picture, more or less, as it is. Secret Shopping may also be by way of phone orders or mere customer care or sales enquiries, depending on what the principal company wants to evaluate.

Who Needs This Service
Every organisation can indeed benefit from mystery shopping and should strive to use the service. This is because service, employee behaviour and even corporate practices are important to the success of any business. Companies need to measure performance against set company standards and, equally important, benchmark against competitors. When you need to measure your rating against the competition, who is better placed to capture the reality at comparative locations than an independent, unidentified visitor? Such service is therefore critical to the performance of businesses such as retail outlets, restaurants and fast food chains, financial institutions, convenience stores, petrol stations, hospitals and other service providers, manufacturers, department stores, airlines and travel agents, entertainment centres, etc. Really every business needs mystery shopping, which is why we posit that the market for this service is potentially large.

Who Provides Mystery Shopping
Any person can provide the service, but to win business mandates, a structured business may be required. Usually the mystery shopping company is the agent which secures a mandate from an interested user company. However, to be able to execute such mandates, mystery shopping companies enlist interested shoppers into their database. Because the business mandates may relate to diverse locations or require diverse expertise or experience, the mystery shopping company seeks to have a database of subscribers of diverse backgrounds and locations. When a job arises, it runs through its lists to choose suitable subscriber(s) who will be offered the opportunity to execute it. Such shoppers are interested in the additional income they will earn and the opportunity that arises, sometimes, to buy items at the expense of the company. If, for instance you are to mystery-shop at a Sweet Sensation Fast Food outlet, you will likely be give an allowance to buy the items.

Delivering The Results
To stay in business and continue to get jobs, both the mystery shopping company and its shoppers must deliver on their jobs. The company will not continue to use a subscriber whose performance proves inadequate. Similarly, the company is unlikely to get further mandates if it fails to satisfy its clients. The quality of the mystery shopping service is therefore critical to success. This is why the mystery shopping companies not only train their shoppers but also provide clear guides and reporting forms to them. To be successful, therefore, you need a good service delivery system in place.

The Scope Of Surveillance
Mystery shopping may evaluate the cleanliness and ambience of a business outlet. It may also monitor service delivery. Staff behaviour could equally be the interest, or a combination of everything. So, it all depends on what the company management wants. In terms of the mode of delivery, this will also depend on the mandate. The shopper many merely provide a written report of observations. Audio evidence may also be requested by the company, meaning that miniature a recording device will be a necessary tool for the assignment. In other cases, video reporting may be required, if the company thinks that such hard evidence is required. Here again, the necessary tool will have to be deployed to do the job. A company that means to provide a full scope of mystery shopping service will therefore have to acquire a few gadgets and devices, just in case a client needs the relevant service. What is clear is that the fees to be paid will of course be influenced by the scope of work requested by the company.

Is this a Viable Business
Service delivery is critical to every business. Competition also compels close monitoring of service performance. The use of mystery shopping is an effective means of getting unbiased information for managing the service challenge. Given that service-driven organisations abound in our economy, the market for this service exists, but it has to be marketed to potential users. Companies in the categories earlier listed are potential clients. If you develop a system for effective mystery shopping and succeed in convincing potential user companies that you can provide impeccable feedback on their business processes and service delivery, chances are that you can grow a business out of this service. One thing, at least, will work in your favour: this is not yet a crowded field in our market. Note however that mystery shopping is not espionage into the private lives of employees which may breach the law as an abuse. Measuring service issues at work, as well as business practices, under the mandate of the organisation, is legitimate. It's already a thriving business in other economies.

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