About Us

How We Became a Premium Mystery Shopping Company

When Customer Perspectives™ was started in July 1983 by two friends in Hooksett, N.H., we were one of the country’s first mystery shopping companies. Our marketing plan was to penetrate the New Hampshire banking market and then expand in to Massachusetts and throughout the rest of New England

From Banking to ‘Chicken School’

While achieving this goal, we widened our focus as a mystery shopping company to include the retail and restaurant industries. One of our first retail clients was a national fast food chicken restaurant with multiple locations throughout New England. The very particular standards of this client required all potential shoppers for this account to meet for three days at a local motel for “Chicken School”. Duly trained and armed with thermometers (to take the chickens’ temperatures) and various other tools, off they went to do monthly mystery shopping evaluations of over 100 chicken restaurants, thereafter known as the ‘chicken routes’

Entering the Mid-Atlantic Region

As our mystery shopping company saturated the New England area with both retail and bank clients, we expanded our geographic range to include the Mid-Atlantic areas as far south as Washington, D.C. At the same time, our client base gradually shifted from banks to a well-rounded mix of bank and retail clients. This served us well as the banking crisis of the late 80′s and early 90′s resulted in shrinking bank budgets for mystery shopping services, and bank consolidations decreased the number of potential clients.

On to National Recognition

News articles about a mystery shopping company named Customer Perspectives™ soon began to appear in The Boston Globe, New York Times, New England Business Review and other publications. As a result, potential clients with locations outside our marketing area began requesting our services. We rose to the challenge and doubled the number of available shoppers over a one-year period. Ever mindful of our reputation and the quality of work we offered our clients, all shoppers had to meet the stringent requirements set by both Customer Perspectives™ and each of our clients to receive mystery shopping assignments.

National Blue Chip Award

In 1994, Customer Perspectives™ was awarded a Blue Chip Award by a consortium of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Nation’s Business Magazine and Connecticut Mutual Insurance Company. This award, given to small businesses which overcome a significant challenge, was given to Customer Perspectives™ in recognition of our success in refocusing our marketing efforts throughout the period of the banking crisis and in developing a staff that successfully worked and grew together as our needs constantly changed.

Further Expansion of Services

In the late 90′s, we added a new service: Customer Service Satisfaction Calls. This started with a staff of six making calls to regular customers of a large retailer and a bank to assess the level of satisfaction with customer services from actual customers. Shortly thereafter, we added e-mail and electronic reporting capabilities to our mystery shopping services. At the same time, we expanded our sales force as our target territory became truly national. At the end of the decade – and the century – one partner retired and founder Judith Ann Hess took over the business. A Simmons College graduate with an MBA from the University of New Hampshire, Judi directs all Customer Perspectives™ marketing efforts, as well as reinforcing the need to always exceed customer expectations.

Centralized Quality Control

Customer Perspectives™ has consciously decided not to franchise, despite being approached over the years by individuals who would like to purchase a mystery shopping company franchise or run branch offices. We feel we can best meet our clients’ needs through a centralized structure that gives us more quality control over the end product provided to each client. Since customer service is our business, we hold ourselves to a very high standard – the standard of Customer Perspectives™

The New Millenium

Although many of our competitors branched into other methods of research(e.g. – IVR), Customer Perspectives™ continued it’s “tight niche” philosophy. We still believe that by focusing on our core strengths, mystery shopping and customer satisfaction, we can offer our clients better quality service – at a greater depth – than they can find with just a research firm.

In 2008, Customer Perspectives™ celebrated its’ 25th anniversary with a cruise to the Bahamas for all staff. The average length of service among us is 15 years, bringing our clients an astounding level of empirical knowledge and continuity and unsurpassed institutional memory.

Call Toll Free 800-CPSHOPS, to find out how Customer Perspectives’ mystery shopping programs can improve your bottom line!