Run it with less chaos · Every business
Mystery Shopping Your Own Business: A Checklist
Owners rarely experience their own business as a stranger does, and a planned mystery visit, scored against a short checklist, shows the visit as a first-time customer actually meets it.
To mystery shop your own business, ask someone the team does not know to go through an ordinary visit from the first search to the follow-up afterward, scoring each step with a simple yes or no against a checklist like the one below, and repeat it every quarter with a different person. Tell the team in advance that mystery visits will happen, share the results as a team rather than with individuals, and fix the lowest-scoring step first.
The checklist to copy
| Stage | Check | Yes / No |
|---|---|---|
| Before: finding you | Hours, address and prices match across the website and Google profile | |
| Before: booking | The shopper could book or get a reply within the time your standard promises | |
| Before: booking | The confirmation states date, time, price range and what to bring | |
| Before: reminder | A reminder arrived before the visit | |
| During: arrival | Greeted within 30 seconds, even if staff were busy | |
| During: arrival | Told how long until the service would start | |
| During: space | Entrance, waiting area and restroom were clean and stocked | |
| During: service | The provider asked what the shopper wanted before starting | |
| During: service | Any extra cost was stated and agreed before the work was done | |
| During: service | The provider explained what they did and what to do at home | |
| After: checkout | The next visit was offered with a specific date and time | |
| After: checkout | The total matched the price quoted | |
| After: follow-up | A thank-you or care message arrived within 24 hours | |
| After: follow-up | A review request arrived, separately and once | |
| Overall | The shopper would return and would recommend you, scored 0 to 10, with one sentence on why |
How to run it
- Recruit outside your circle. A friend of a friend, a member of a local business group or a paid shopper works better than a relative the team has met.
- Pay for the visit. Reimburse the service so the shopper behaves like a real customer, including at checkout.
- Score the same day. Ask for the checklist plus three notes, the best moment, the worst moment and anything confusing, within a few hours.
- Share by stage, not by name. Present the results in the next team huddle as "checkout" or "booking," and agree on one fix.
- Repeat quarterly. The same checklist each time turns single visits into a trend.
Why it works
Businesses judge their own service by intent, while customers judge it by the visit they had. In a Bain survey of 362 companies, 80% believed they delivered a superior experience, while their customers said only 8% did. Researchers use the same simulated-customer method to measure what organizations cannot see from the inside, as in a study in JAMA Internal Medicine in which trained callers posing as new patients made 12,907 calls to 7,788 primary care practices and found that the chance of getting an appointment depended heavily on the caller's insurance. A small business will not need anything that elaborate, but a single honest visit, scored step by step, shows which part of the before, during and after is working.
Sources
- Allen, J., Reichheld, F. F., Hamilton, B. and Markey, R. Closing the Delivery Gap. Bain & Company, 2005. Survey of 362 firms.
- Rhodes, K. V. et al. Primary Care Access for New Patients on the Eve of Health Care Reform. JAMA Internal Medicine, 2014. 12,907 calls to 7,788 practices in 10 states.
Related reading: How to Check Your Own Front Door in 15 Minutes (Free Checklist) · Front Door Audit: The Salon Edition · Where Customers Drop Off, Step by Step, According to the Research · Service Standards: Writing Down What Good Looks Like
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