Quality – Speed – Price. These are the top priorities of clients searching for a mystery shopping partner.

  1. Quality – Look for an established mystery shopping firm which is a member of its trade association – the Mystery Shopping Professionals Association (MSPA). MSPA member firms must pledge to a rigid ethics agreement – for clients and for shoppers.

    Look for established, responsive companies with reliable employees who follow up quickly with answers. Choose a firm with quality control editors who will uncover and correct any inconsistencies, subjectivities, or lack of detail in the shopping reports. They should also rate each shopper and correct any spelling or grammatical errors.

    Look for mystery shopping firms who specialize only in mystery shopping, not checking companies who offer mystery shopping as part of a deal or full research companies who dilute their mystery shopping efforts with all sorts of other research.

    Look for experienced companies who can uncover your specific needs, then develop both a questionnaire and data reports to reflect you unique needs rather than offer a cookie-cutter approach.

    Choose a company who will get your “shops” done when expected, all the time.

  2. Speed – Look for a mystery shopping firm which transmits shopping reports via the internet within 3 business days – immediately after review by their quality control editors.

  3. Price is, of course, always important. BUT you should never sacrifice either quality or speed for a low price.