8 Mystery shopping

Questions and principles every client should ask before starting a project, while briefing it and after it has been carried out:

• What am I running the mystery shopping for? To assess the quality of my distribution network in the market, the individual performance of a member of staff or of a particular branch, compliance with internal rules and standards, or a physical audit of the goods in a store, for instance.
• Is this MS Research (without identifying the person being assessed) or an MS Project (the people assessed are identified and individualised results will be produced)?
• Which personal data of the people assessed am I entitled to obtain and request from the agency under legitimate interest and under my contractual arrangements with them?
• Does my project brief meet the requirements of the applicable data protection legislation and of employment law – in particular the duty to inform my own employees?
• Will I distribute the detailed results of individual visits directly to the people assessed (where the mystery shopping is within the client’s own organisation)?
• What could give a mystery shopper away while they are working, and how can that be prevented (through the wording of the brief or of the pretext, through internal communication, or through how quickly the results are distributed)?
• How are mystery shoppers selected and trained for a particular project?
• How are the data collected checked, and what material is used in checking them?

The standard can be downloaded in full here.