Mystery shoppers: an evaluation of their use in monitoring performance

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine what mystery shopping is, why it is used and how mystery customers are trained and how the information collected is fed back to the client organisation.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach was to use an online survey of mystery shoppers compares the reality of the situation with the best practice identified from the extant literature.

Findings

The main outcome was that results identify good and bad practices in all areas of the process and guidelines for the recruitment, training and monitoring of mystery shoppers are proposed including in-depth training in all aspects of the job.

Research limitations/implications

A sample of 85 mystery shoppers was used and only in the UK. It would be interesting to widen this out internationally.

Practical implications

Mystery shoppers are used worldwide by services to evaluate the performance of their front-line people and processes but are their evaluations valid and reliable? This research identifies good and bad practice which should help managers to design their training for mystery shoppers.

Originality/value

The paper addresses a gap in the literature on the perceptions of mystery shoppers.

Citation

Douglas, J. (2015), "Mystery shoppers: an evaluation of their use in monitoring performance", The TQM Journal, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 705-715. https://doi.org/10.1108/TQM-04-2015-0052