Every business needs to ensure that quality control is effective and evenly implemented across clients, locations, and contracts. This is always a challenge, but especially so for franchisors who are trusting their franchisees with control of individual locations. While there are multiple tools available to help franchisors monitor quality and customer satisfaction at each location, mystery shoppers remain one of the most powerful arrows in the quiver. Online reviews such as post-visit Google reviews, customer surveys, and social media metrics are all important as well, but mystery shoppers often catch what surveys miss. Using mystery shoppers effectively and interpreting their data correctly gives franchisors direct insights into how their franchisees are doing and what needs improvement while giving franchisors ways to directly address all of the above.
Executive Summary
- Mystery shoppers, also known as secret shoppers, are professionals who engage with a business as a customer in order to evaluate performance, customer service, or other critical questions of business operation.
- Mystery shoppers are used in businesses of all sizes and across all sectors, with presentation and personas tailored to the needs of their clients.
- Franchisors find mystery shoppers especially useful, as they can offer insights and evaluations of franchisees and franchise locations.
- Having a mystery shopper is one thing, but the next step is knowing what to do with the data they collect and how to apply it to the situation at hand.
What Mystery Shoppers Are, and What They Do
Let’s start with a detailed look at what mystery shoppers are, what they do, and how that works in favor of the franchisor. Mystery shoppers—also known as “secret shoppers” in some contexts—are effectively business secret agents brought in to evaluate a business or franchise location. Whereas surveys, reviews, and social media interactions provide insights into how the target business is perceived by the broader audience, mystery shoppers measure how a location or franchise performs from the perspective of an individual client or customer.
Mystery shoppers can take many forms. Some are simple walk-in customers ordering a meal or a coffee drink from a franchise location. Others have more elaborately constructed backstories and personas that test how the target business handles different types of customers or customer demographics. Mystery shoppers can be tailored to meet the needs of the business owner or franchisor, measuring or evaluating different aspects of the location’s in-store performance, follow-up, or customer service.
How Mystery Shoppers Evaluate Locations and Franchisees
So what insights do mystery shoppers offer, and how can franchisors effectively interpret that data? Let’s take a look:
- Customer Paths and Points of Friction: How do customers move through the business, both physically and in terms of buying decisions? What are the points of friction, meaning where does the location or franchisee make it more difficult for the customer to make a buying decision?
- The Customer Service Experience: Related but distinct from the point above, mystery shoppers and secret shoppers reveal the truth of a location’s customer service experience. When a customer walks through the door, what happens? How do the location and its employees respond? Does the customer get what they need, and is the customer service on-brand for the parent franchise?
- Cleanliness, Maintenance, and Appearance: The reality is, nothing tells you how clean and well-kept a location is as well as visiting it in person. While franchisees are often adept at preparing for a franchisor visit or health inspection, a secret shopper can often get a sense of how the store looks and feels on a day-to-day basis. Most franchisees are responsible, some aren’t, and a mystery shopper visit can get a sense of how things are going and then relay that information to the franchisor.
- Follow-up and Problem-Solving: How well does the franchise location follow up with its clients or customers? Do they solicit feedback after a visit? If an issue arises, how do they handle it? Mystery shoppers are an important tool in evaluating how a location goes about these things in a “real-world” scenario rather than an indirect metric.
There’s a lot of data here, and if interpreted correctly, the aggregate information can provide some important insights into how a franchise location is doing or how a given business is handling its business and customers. If a franchisor or business owner correctly processes that data and then formulates an effective follow-up response, they can work through existing problems with the franchisee or location management while also anticipating potential problems before they arise. Making all of this happen involves more than just gathering mystery shopper information—it means having the experience, knowledge, and industry savvy to make best use of it.
That’s where the Mershimer Group comes in.
Effective Insights and Solutions for Franchisors
As we said earlier, franchisors place a lot of trust in their franchisees. Trust is built on transparency; however, verification is always important in building transparency. That’s where we come in—the Mershimer Group provides the services franchisors need. Founder and CEO Michael Mershimer currently serves as president of the Mystery Shopping Professionals Association (MSPA), but the Mershimer Group offers so much more. Royalty assurance audits, brand compliance intelligence, brand integrity, and yes, mystery shoppers. From single proprietors to multi-location franchise networks, we’ve worked with some of the most prominent franchisors in the United States. If it’s time to take a look at how your franchisees are doing, get in touch with us today.