What is mystery shopping?

Mystery shopping (also known as customer experience research) is a research method where customers from the target group visit a store or webshop and evaluate their experience. Mystery shoppers, if possible, make a purchase and fill out a detailed questionnaire after the visit, assessing the customer experience. The results provide insights into service quality, employee performance, store presentation, and overall customer satisfaction.

Who are the mystery shoppers of Secret View?

Secret View has a community of over 65,000 mystery shoppers who are real consumers from your target audience. They are not professional mystery shoppers but authentic customers who choose assignments from brands they genuinely shop at. This ensures realistic and valuable feedback. Mystery shoppers can be filtered by age, gender, and region to match your specific target audience.

How does Secret View ensure the quality of mystery shoppers?

Quality is our top priority. Mystery shoppers must identify themselves via iDIN (digital identity verification), complete e-learnings on how to provide objective and reliable feedback, and build a reputation score based on previous assignments. Additionally, every completed questionnaire goes through an automated and manual quality check and is assessed for quality, reliability, completeness, and language. Only high-quality feedback is approved and shared with clients.

How quickly will I receive results?

Often within 24-48 hours after the visit. Once the mystery shopper has completed the questionnaire, it immediately goes through a quality check. Once approved, you will receive a notification via email or WhatsApp and see the results in your personal dashboard. For urgent assignments, results can be available within hours. The dashboard provides real-time insights with benchmarking across locations and AI-generated summaries.

Can I also conduct online mystery shopping research?

Absolutely! We carry out online mystery shopping assignments for several clients where products or meals are ordered and delivered. Mystery shoppers provide feedback on the entire online customer journey: website usability, ordering process, payment, delivery time, packaging, product quality, and customer service. This works for webshops, food delivery, and online services. Book a demo to discuss the possibilities for your organization.

Is there a trial period available?

Yes! You can schedule a free demo after which we start a pilot where a number of your locations are visited by mystery shoppers and you gain direct access to your personal dashboard. This way, you can experience how our platform works, what insights you receive, and how benchmarking across locations helps you improve customer experience. The pilot is completely free and non-binding, allowing you to test the full service before committing.

What makes Secret View different from traditional mystery shopping agencies?

Secret View differs from traditional mystery shopping agencies in several key ways: 1) Real consumers (not professional mystery shoppers) provide authentic feedback, 2) Results within 24-48 hours instead of weeks, 3) Interactive real-time dashboard instead of static PDF reports, 4) AI-generated insights and benchmarking across locations, 5) Fully customizable in-house platform that adapts to your needs, 6) Shopping credit model ensures shoppers only choose brands they genuinely shop at, resulting in more realistic feedback.

How does benchmarking work for organizations with multiple locations?

The Secret View dashboard allows you to benchmark performance across all your locations in real-time. You can compare scores by location, region, time period, and specific KPIs. The dashboard visualizes which locations perform best, where improvement is needed, and how scores develop over time. This helps you identify best practices, reward high-performing teams, and focus improvement efforts where they matter most. Regional managers can drill down into their own locations while head office maintains overview of the entire organization.

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mystery shopping

Mystery shopping
‍for large retail and hospitality organizations

Measure customer experience across all your locations. View results at the management, regional, and location levels. Monitor how your strategy is being implemented and train specifically where needed.

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View customer cases

Recognizable?

Do these issues sound familiar to you? Then Secret View is for you!

How do I make my training effective?

 With our data, you know exactly who in the organization needs what. No more one-size-fits-all training. This is your one-way ticket to modular training.

How do I measure if we're making progress?

Measure continuously, adjust where needed, and give compliments. In our dashboard, you immediately see the top performers and where there's room for improvement.

How do I create awareness of my employees' actions?

When you're often in the same place, you become blind to certain things. That's very human. Regularly hold up a mirror to your colleagues on the floor about how customers experience your employees.

I wish I had examples during evaluation meetings.

"Our NPS score is 14 and the annual revenue is 10% below average." The employee wonders, "Okay, and now? How can I improve this?". Our qualitative data provide direct points of reference to positively influence results.

How do I increase conversion?

Was an attempt made to upsell? Was a member card offered? With mystery shopping research, you can increase conversion in many ways.

Is our strategy being well executed on the floor?

The strategy comes from headquarters. But how do you know if it's being well executed on the floor? Measure where you stand so you know what to do to grow towards perfect execution.

You can't be everywhere at once.

We can. Our community of mystery shoppers is already visiting your location.

Insight at every level of your organization

Whether you have 10, 50, or over 500 locations, you know how challenging it is to maintain oversight. Is your strategy being implemented everywhere? Are all locations performing equally well? And where is training truly needed?

Secret View helps large organizations measure customer experience at scale. Compare locations in one dashboard, discover your strengths, and train specifically where improvement is needed.

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What clients say about Secret View

Why 200+ retail and hospitality organizations choose Secret View

Maarten, Business Manager

Albert Heijn

By using Secret View every week, you can see that the conversation between employee and store manager really takes off, that it encourages behavioral change, and that the team becomes more aware of what customers think.

Willemijn, Sales Associate

Marie-Stella-Maris

The research ensures that everyone becomes aware of their own behavior and that we give our customers the best possible experience.

Monique, Sales Associate

Holland & Barrett

I find the mystery shopping research very valuable. You get great personal feedback and see what you can focus on, or you discover how to collaborate better as a team.

Dino, Directeur Operations

FEBO

We want to learn from the facts. Secret View gives us the insights we need to fulfill our unique position in every location, for every guest.

Linda, International Retail Manager

NAME IT

Do you want to know what’s happening on the shop floor? Then look through the eyes of your customer. That’s why we work with Secret View: real customers, real experiences, detailed feedback.

Soufiane, CEO

MADAQ Chocolatier

Thanks to Secret View, we now have a clear dashboard that shows all our improvement points at a glance. This allows us to keep growing and offer our customers the best possible experience.

Pascal, Head of Retail

G-STAR

It is the most realistic tool for us to elevate the customer experience in our stores.

Kevser, Business Development Manager

POTAÉ

Secret View thinks along with us, is flexible, and helps us improve in a focused way when it comes to customer experience and ensuring quality and service.

4 steps to continuous improvement of customer experience

From onboarding to improvement: this is how mystery shopping works for large organizations.

1. Map the customer journey

We combine our experience with mystery shopping with your knowledge of the industry and organization. Together, we map the customer journey and translate your strategy into measurable questions.

Using our integrated survey tool, we collaborate on the questionnaire. This way, we quickly arrive at a questionnaire that aligns with your goals and challenges.

2. Receive direct feedback from your customers

Mystery shoppers from your target audience visit your locations as regular customers and provide detailed feedback. They receive shopping credits to make a purchase, allowing them to sign up for brands in their area that they are interested in.
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Community of over 65,000 mystery shoppers worldwide
Real consumers from your target audience, not trained inspectors
Results available within 24 hours after the visit and AI quality check available

Learn more about our community