Our trade association, the Mystery Shopping Professionals Association, will be discussing the future of social media in mystery shopping at their conference in October in Atlanta.

According to the panel moderator, social media is changing the dynamics of the customer’s experience at every level, delivering power to the individual consumer.  Accordingly, businesses are making adjustments in the ways they view the customer experience and the ways they measure and respond to customers. These changes already have altered the mystery shopping business, but the changes to come will dwarf those we have seen thus far.

Using social media to seek mystery shoppers is the tip of the iceberg. Today and tomorrow, mystery shopping will be part of the “big data” discussion about integrating customer experience information, including data extracted through social media, interactions with marketing communications, and innumerable other customer-focused practices.