Performance Improvement through Mystery Shopping

May 1, 2008 - PRLog -- Shopping is a necessity for some and a hobby for others. But what if one makes a career out of shopping? Mystery Shopping is an emerging concept in India where people are paid on behalf of retailers to visit their establishment as normal customers, perform specific tasks - such as purchasing a product, asking questions, registering complaints or behaving in a certain way - and then provide detailed reports or feedback about their experiences.

This activity helps the organizations to evaluate the products on offer and service levels of staff as well as to help improve their business in today’s competitive world. More importantly companies get to know the customers perception about their organization. In a country like ours, where lot of women are home-makers, mystery shopping becomes an interesting option to shop to their heart’s content and that too whilst being paid to do so.  

Grass Roots Performance Services (I) Pvt Ltd is one such company that uses mystery shopping as a tool to measure the quality of retail service or gather specific information about products and services, and then to help retailers improve their performance by providing a range of tools, training & advice.

The mystery shoppers, who are also known as ‘secret shoppers’, provide an accurate picture of the customer service experience, at the point of customer contact. A mystery shopper may be asked to evaluate things such as customer service, cleanliness of an establishment, how helpful a salesperson is, and various other attributes that a company would like to know about their employees or stores.

Although Mystery Shopping is a fairly recent concept in India, it came into existence long ago, especially in the USA in 1940s as a way to measure employee integrity. It is a very widely accepted concept in USA, Europe, South America and Asia-Pacific. Grass Roots India’s parent company Grass Roots Group Plc. headquartered in UK has been doing Mystery Shopping for the past 28 years for brands like Lexus, Barclays, Lloyds TSB, Virgin Mobile, ASDA, B&Q, Sainsbury, New Look, Peugot, GAP, Vodafone, Disney Stores etc. The most common venues where mystery shopping is used are retail stores, movie theaters, restaurants, fast food chains, banks, gas stations, car dealerships, apartments, health clubs and hotels.

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Grass Roots India is a part of the Grass Roots Group PLC, an international business improvement services group, with offices all over Europe, Latin America, USA, Middle East and Asia Pacific with turnover in excess of $500 million.
Grass Roots offers a holistic range of performance improvement products and services for employees, customers and channel partners in the areas of communication, education, measurement, reward & recognition and events.

Website: www.grassrootsindia.in