An Interesting Mystery Shopping Trend Revisited

I originally wrote about potential competition for mystery shoppers from stores and restaurants themselves a couple of years ago in an article called “An Interesting Mystery Trend”, which can be viewed in full at this URL:

http://www.mysteryshoppercoach.com/mysteryshoppingtrend.html

The idea was that mystery shoppers could face competition from the very clients who tend to hire them for basic “checklist-type” shops, by being replaced with surveys that companies invite customers to complete either online or via phone via the sales slip on their transaction. The proactive firms even call attention to the fact that there is a survey to complete by mentioning it to the customer. I have even had an employee circle the web site or phone number to call!

The incentive to do the survey is either a discount on a future purchase, or the chance to win a prize like a shopping spree—overall, much cheaper than paying a mystery shopping company, and the subsequent shopper who actually does the work. I haven’t seen anything on the response rate for these surveys, but it must be decent since they seem to be everywhere. I can’t get through a day’s shopping, eating out or errands without getting at least one of them.

Check out the article mentioned above for my thoughts on how mystery shoppers can protect themselves from becoming obsolete.

Have a great day and happy shopping!

“Taking the mystery out of professional mystery shopping”—Melanie Jordan
http://www.mysteryshoppercoach.com

Copyright 2005 Melanie R. Jordan E-Publishing