Do Employees Read Mystery Shop Reports?
Question from a mystery shopper:
Do the employees who are mystery shopped read the reports submitted by shoppers? I sometimes return to shop the same location again, and I am concerned that employees will be able to figure out that I am the secret shopper if they have read the reports I wrote about past visits.
If they do read them, why would clients allow that? Doesn’t it make mystery shopping less valuable if the employees know exactly what was reported?
Many client companies do share mystery shop reports with the staff who were shopped. There are good reasons to do so. …continue reading Do Employees Read Mystery Shop Reports?


Have you ever looked at something on a mystery shop report form and wondered, “Who comes up with this stuff?” Most of us have, at one time or another, seen report questions, scenarios and other shop requirements that seemed unrealistic or just plain weird.
As mystery shoppers, we are often asked to present a specific scenario, and we may have to “act” the part of a customer much different from ourselves. However, the mystery shoppers described in a recent story in the
Question from a secret shopper:
Suggestive selling, or upselling, involves suggesting additional items when a customer makes a purchase, or encouraging a customer to upgrade to a more expensive option. Perhaps the best-known example of an upsell is when the order taker at a fast food restaurant asks, “Do you want fries with that?” However, upselling is used in almost every kind of business.
Some of the most interesting mystery shopping stories come out of the U.K. We have seen news reports about
One of the things many people believe about mystery shopping is that reports are often used to fire employees. In fact, employees may believe that secret shoppers have it as their goal to find bad things to put in their reports, and they arbitrarily add negative comments to mystery shop reports in order to “get” employees.
Most people think of stores and restaurants when they think of mystery shopping clients. You know, “get paid to shop and eat.” There are many retail and restaurant chains that use mystery shopping, but it certainly does not stop there.
