What does your
customer experience?

Mystery shopping: an outside view of everyday work.

You may have described exactly how customers should be served. It is harder to know what happens each day: who returns calls, how prices are explained and whether promises are kept. Sometimes we also find an employee whose approach the whole team can learn from.

We prepare someone to approach your business as an ordinary customer, in person, by phone or online. We agree what they will assess beforehand. Afterwards, they describe what happened: what they asked, the answers they received and how the conversation ended.

We start with the question that concerns you. Why are enquiries not leading to appointments? Why does one branch perform better than another? Do customers understand what you offer?

How it helps your business.

Finding gaps on the path to purchase.

Before increasing your advertising budget, it is worth checking what happens to enquiries. If nobody responds or offers a next step, more advertising may simply create more missed opportunities.

Checking whether the product's value is understood.

A customer may hear every feature and still not know whether the product meets their needs. We check whether the employee asks what the person needs and explains the offer clearly.

Focusing training on specific skills.

“Improve customer service” does not explain what to change. An observation such as “the customer's deadline was not established” gives you something to work with: an exercise, a question to ask or a process change. The same approach identifies good practices that teams can share.

Checking whether the brand keeps its promise.

If you promise a quick response or personal attention, customers should receive it. We check whether your advertising and service tell the same story.

From the premises to the follow-up email.

The service suits shops, hotels, restaurants, showrooms, fitness centres and organisations that sell through consultations. We adapt the scenario to the business: booking a visit, choosing products, making a corporate enquiry or requesting membership information.

We can also assess a sequence of channels: website information, a phone call, a visit and a follow-up quotation. Gaps often appear between channels: different terms, repeated questions or no clear commitment.

An online purchase assessment is planned separately from a technical website audit. Here the focus is customer experience: understandable information, clear steps and the quality of communication.

How we organise the assessment.

1. Agreeing what you want to find out. We clarify the business problem, target customers and important points of contact, then agree the scope, resources and expected outcome.
2. Creating a realistic scenario. The assessor has a specific need, a suitable profile and a natural reason to contact the company. The scenario should resemble a normal customer interaction.
3. Preparing criteria and a pilot assessment. We clarify what meeting the standard means and how it will be documented. A trial run checks that the questions are relevant and understandable.
4. Carrying out and checking observations. We distribute interactions according to the objective, for example across branches, times or channels. We review reports for omissions and inconsistencies.
5. Deciding what to change. We distinguish a one-off incident from a recurring pattern, set priorities, assign responsibility and agree a follow-up assessment.

What you receive.

We agree the final report's contents before starting. Depending on the scope, it may include:

• A map of the interactions, scenarios and criteria assessed.
• Descriptions of observed situations, distinguishing facts from impressions.
• Comparisons between locations or channels where conditions allow a meaningful comparison.
• Good practices, gaps and priorities based on their importance to the customer.
• Proposals to improve service, sales and follow-up communication.
• A team meeting and a reassessment plan, where included in the project.

You should finish knowing what works, what to change and how we will check for improvement.

Interpreting the findings responsibly.

One visit does not tell the whole story about a business or an employee. We consider workload, timing and the complexity of the enquiry. Where needed, we repeat the assessment and compare observations with feedback from real customers.

The assessment shows where customers may be lost and what could improve. Whether it leads to more sales also depends on the changes you make afterwards.

We agree in advance how employees will be informed and how you will use the findings. Recordings are discussed separately. A single report is not sufficient grounds for disciplinary action; the aim is to help the team work better.

Start with the question you are struggling with.

“Why do enquiries not lead to appointments?” is a more useful starting point than “we want to check our staff”. Tell us how you sell, what you promise customers and where you suspect a difficulty. We will propose an assessment scope, suitable scenarios and ways to use the findings.

Methodological reference: MSPA Europe/Africa — Ethics & Standards ↗. Citing this source does not imply MSPA membership or certification.