Accurate Mystery Shopping™

Although mystery shopping has been around for decades, the approach traditionally used has been anything but, “accurate mystery shopping.”  Mystery shopping has always provided “interesting” results, but those results often generate more questions about methodology than they provide answers to real business issues. 

This comment is in no way a “knock” on traditional mystery shopping, it is simply a fact that mystery shopping clients are often left wondering…

1. Are we really asking the mystery shoppers the right questions?  How can we be factually sure?  Is it just someone’s best guess? 
2. Do the mystery shoppers really act the same way as “real” customers?  Does the fact that mystery shoppers want to be taken seriously affect their behavior?  Do they have a “chip on their shoulder?” compared to how “real” customers act?
3. When we know that our salespeople, on average, act a certain way some apparently precise figure (ask for the sale 39.56% of the time), what does that actually mean?  Is that performance excellent or is it terrible?  Should it be a priority to change, or is it already better than all competitors?

We at Pied Piper Management Company LLC call those three points above the three fatal failures of traditional mystery shopping, and those challenges are what encouraged us to develop the patent-pending Pied Piper Prospect Satisfaction Index® (PSI®) process to overcome those “fatal failures.”

Traditional mystery shopping provides a qualitative approach--kind of like a focus group—while the Pied Piper PSI approach measures factually how effectively a dealership sells, and how the dealership’s performance compares to other same brand dealerships nationwide. 

Go to www.piedpiperpsi.com for more details.

Pied Piper develops and runs sales & marketing programs to maximize performance of dealer networks.

Examples of Pied Piper programs:

• Prospect Satisfaction Index® (PSI®)"Mystery Shopping" to Turn More Shoppers into Buyers™.
  • In-Person
  • Internet/Email
  • Telephone
• Defector Diagnostic Survey™ to Learn to Keep More Customers.
• Retail Effectiveness Monitor® to Measure and Improve the Overall Customer Experience.
• Dealer Health Check™ to Measure, Diagnose and Improve the Overall Sales Effectiveness of Individual Dealerships.
• Dealer Performance Bonus Programs to Increase Manufacturer and Dealer Profitability while Paying for a Better Customer Experience.
• "Spin-to-Win" Sales Incentive Programs with Reloadable Debit Cards to Encourage Effective Salesperson/Dealership Behavior
• Other Examples: Facility Evaluation/Audit Programs to Encourage Facility Improvement and Upgrades, Pied Piper Purchase Funnel™, Lease Return Programs, Vehicle Delivery Programs, Co-op Advertising Programs, Point-of-Sales Kiosk Programs, Brand Image Element Leasing Programs, Best Practices and Management Consulting.

Go to www.piedpipermc.com for more details about Pied Piper Management Company LLC.