Explorations into B2B Mystery Shopping: Recruiting

An important component in developing a successful mystery shop campaign is the recruitment of the shoppers.

Mystery Shoppers

The most important characteristics of a good mystery shopper are:

• A sense of responsibility and a willingness to successfully fulfill assignments;
• An innate sense of curiosity; and
• Not being afraid to ask questions, including questions that go beyond those required in the questionnaire – so long as they meet the objective of the mystery shop.

Responsibilities of Recruiter or Project Lead

The responsibilities of the recruiter include the following:

• Recruit mystery shoppers who meet the required demographic characteristics (usually B2C mystery shops) or meet the profile of corporate decision-makers who purchase products and services for their employers (B2B mystery shops);
• Inform mystery shoppers of what they are expected to do during the project (e.g. travel, purchase products, meet with sales representatives, etc.)
• Inform mystery shoppers of actions that the targeted companies may undertake. For example, for B2B mystery shops, it is likely that companies may look up the shoppers’ LinkedIn profiles to ensure their authenticity;
• Inform mystery shoppers of the compensation for their efforts, and what is expected of them in terms of deliverables: e.g. completed survey, sales collateral, etc.
• Debrief the mystery shoppers immediately after the shop to a) ensure that they met their objectives and b) to uncover any unexpected insights that the client may want to explore further.

Importance of Mystery Shopping

Mystery shopping is an important research methodology because a) it provides real-world and real-time insights on the interactions between customers and frontline staff and b) many of the insights uncovered by mystery shopping simply cannot be attained by any other research method.

Whether your company is in the B2C or B2B arena, your company is affected by the interaction between human beings, customers and sales representatives.

Mystery shopping provides insights you need to make smart decisions on product development as well as sales and marketing strategies.