Mystery Shoppers

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
1

I just finished reading an article in my favorite pizza publication (PMQ Magazine) about mystery shoppers.

Does anybody use them?

What’s the cost?

How accurate are the results?

-J_r0kk

2

my company uses them, or we used to… haven’t had them in a while now. I’m not sure what the cost is since I didn’t look at the pnl closely when I was an assistant. As for how well they work, I’m divided on that. If you know your customer base really well and can recognize your customers by phone number and voice, then it’s easy to tell when you get a mystery shopper phone call. I was able to tell every time that I got one when I answered the phone, and therefore I belted out the phone script perfectly. Since in most places employees answer the phone it might work a little better, but even them these mystery shoppers aren’t too hard to spot.

If you’re talking about the mystery shoppers who come in and eat at your establishment, then they are worth the money because you get imput from the customers point of view.

3

I’m talking about customers who live in your area and come in to eat or order for delivery. They then grade you on service, product, and image.

Thanks,

     J_r0kk
4

Mystery shoppers can cost you very little. Find some customers or friends that are willing to be extremly honest, and very picky. make up a questionarre for them to fill out. Tell them to order and pay for a product. When they are done you get them to fill out the questionare and you will refund them the cost of the order when they bring you back the completed questionare. In the questionare ask everything and anything you want to know. Know that some things they write may be silly, but it truly gives you an insight to your customers and thoughts that a customer may have that you would never even consider. Like…delivery drivers car was dirty, or pizza tasted great but dont like the pepperoni over the cheese, get 3 of these comments and you know you may have to relook at things. They say for every customer complaint there are 20 who dont complain, but also dont revisit your store. That is they way I have dont it in the past, the things that people commented on always suprised me, like the time I had spent trying to make a certain company happy, lowered my price, responded to every request etc. only to find out that what they really wanted was a certain delivery guy everytime, they thought he was funny! I mean seriously, could I have ever known without serious investigation? With the amount of money they spent with us every month, they got the funny guy everytime!!

5

I have not read that article yet, although it sounds like what Nordstrom’s(department store) calls secret shoppers and they just use people they know, perhaps doing them a favor like a free meal or makeover.
I have even done it for an acquaintance with a pizzeria, was happy to do it for nothing. I think it is done more than people think, I even do it in a more casual way, asking friend how the service was when I was not there.
Otis

6

I’d be worried about using any friend or customer as I’m sure they will never be totally honest if there were a major problem. Maybe family’s the best bet if you can trust them to be totally honest.

If a customer is getting a refund or something for free I’m sure they’ll go easy as they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them (so to speak).

I think its certainly worth getting someone with no direct interest to come in so maybe it is worth paying someone to come in (or even asking a fellow operator from PMQ that you’ve never met?)

7

I don’t know how comfortable I would be with asking my customers to grade us like that. Almost like asking them to be professional mystery shoppers. What we do is several callbacks a day(2 for lunch 2 for dinner) to ask 1)How was your order ? 2)Was the driver polite and did you receive your order when quoted 3) Was the call center csr taking your order polite and knowlegeable ? 4. How was your overall experience with us ? 5. How can we better serve you ?

We try and call back within an hour and half of them placing the order to insure the best feed back. Calling different customers each day let’s more than a selected few know that you’re committed to insuring they had a good experience with you.

I think that if you’re looking for anything more detailed you should hire a mystery shopper. We’ve dealt with those before. They work really well. You get a nice report on everything about your store from cleanliness to the appearance of your crew. We used to get pictures of the food they ordered to go with a description of how everything was.

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8

I think that if you’re looking for anything more detailed you should hire a mystery shopper. We’ve dealt with those before. They work really well. You get a nice report on everything about your store from cleanliness to the appearance of your crew. We used to get pictures of the food they ordered to go with a description of how everything was.

td,

Yeah that’s what I’m talking about.

What’s the cost?

-J_r0kk