Mystery Shopping
Mystery shopping offers an alternative to the more customer focused perception based service quality analyses. Instead of determining how customers evaluate service levels, the intention of the process is to measure service as it exists, regardless of customer interpretation. This is achieved by employing trained shoppers who enter the service environment posed as customers, and, immediately following, rate the encounter according to specific criteria. The result of this process is a more immediate and impartial reflection of the service encounter.
It may be asked, what can an impartial reflection achieve? Perception based service quality measures are based on the assumption that positive attitudes toward an organisations service will result in future purchase behaviour. However, according to R&D conducted by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, attitudes do not precede behaviour, meaning that if we think favorably toward a brand, we won’t necessarily buy that brand. Therefore, the use of such measures becomes questionable. However, the research also found that past purchase behaviour precedes future behaviour, meaning that if we purchased a brand in the last encounter, we are more likely to purchase it later.
Therefore, it may be more important to measure what actually happened in the last purchase encounter, including the quality of service received, to influence future purchase.
Please email Elke.Seretis@MarketingScience.info for further information on any aspect of Mystery Shopping Research.