Businesses that need the services of a mystery shopping company too often look at the quantity of reports that a company can provide when, really, it should be about quality, according to one expert.

The primary purpose of a mystery shopping company such as Customer Perspectives is to gather and provide data, but the business should certainly consider how much data it can absorb and who will be reading the reports provided. Another consideration is the “actionable” quality of the data—does the data provide the business with a clear picture of what should be done to correct any deficiencies? What an individual business needs (improve sales; improve customer satisfaction in the store) may very well dictate exactly what data needs to be gathered and how it needs to be reported back to management.