The Hindu Business Line : Watch out for the mystery shopper!

Mystery shopping, a concept that helps organisations learn how customers perceive their products, services and the company itself, is being increasingly used as a market research technique in India.

Sravanthi Challapalli

Chennai, May 30 The next time you eat out or shop at a swank store, there could well be a ‘mystery shopper’ hanging about, making mental notes about the service or sales assistance, to be recorded later and sent off to the establishments’ management so they know where they stand vis-À-vis the competition and in customers’ opinion.

Mystery shopping, an established concept overseas that helps organisations learn how customers perceive their products, services and the company itself, is being increasingly used as a market research technique in India over the last six years. Usually, it’s the retail, hospitality and banking sectors that employ mystery shopping techniques to gauge how their services are doing.

So what does a mystery shopper actually do? In a restaurant scenario, for instance, a mystery shopper posing as an ordinary diner would take note of the ambience and cleanliness, welcome by the staff, their courteousness or the lack of it, the dining experience, how the order was taken, the billing and closing experience.

Ms Samhita T. Rao, Managing Director, Grass Roots Performance Services India Pvt Ltd, says her company ensures the mystery shopper panelists she employs are “not overly trained and look natural” as staff in these establishments have begun to wise up to this tactic!

The India arm, part of the UK-based Grass Roots Group, aims to do business of $3 million this year. Six months old, it is on the verge of signing on three or four major clients, Ms Rao said.

The Grass Roots Group’s annual turnover is over $460 million and it helps its clients achieve their business goals by providing services that positively influence the attitudes and behaviour of the client’s employees, channel partners and customers, Ms Rao explained, adding that the group has over 28 years of experience.

Ms Rao said the firm proactively suggests the various ways in which information derived from a mystery shopping exercise can be used further. Usually, the marketing department initiates the exercise as one of “measurement” – where the company takes stock of its performance – but it could go on to “learning” and “rewards” where other divisions in the company, R&D and HR, for instance, could benefit from the information and reward the customers and employees as incentives.

Grass Roots’ expertise also includes developing communication strategies through varied media that ensure the programme is aligned with the client’s corporate messages and positioning, educating clients’ employees to improve their skills, knowledge and behaviour, rewards solutions for clients, and organising events in these fields for clients.

Grass Roots has over 2,000 clients worldwide including leading global brands such as Rolls Royce, Peugeot, BMW, Barclays, Lloyds TSB, Vodafone, Intercontinental Hotels, Sony, Siemens, Lenovo, Sainsbury, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Imation, Caterpillar, GlaxoSmithKline Beecham and Ernst & Young.