Is anyone Mystery Shopping their competitors? If you are, what are your main takeaways?

#21

Mystery shopping is completed. Information was incomplete for the following reasons:

  • I hired wrong mystery shopper (I should have used PM from out of the area)
  • I was not in the queue to be called and I am 50% of business development
  • Shopper seemed to look for the good and focused on that side of things.
  • Report format was somewhat not very useful

So what did I learn.

  • There is a need to define what we expect to check in mystery shopping
  • There is not a good company in the US to outsource this to
  • You cannot do it yourself
  • Begin with the end in mind

So just don’t mystery shop to say you did it and be one of the :cool::man_technologist:

Note to Self

This might be a business opportunity.

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#22

Hi @glenn thanks for sharing these trials and tribulations with your mystery shopping. It is often best to design a template for your mystery shoppers to use where they are just ticking and flicking what they find or hear. In Oz we have found ex PM’s that have started a family or recently retired from the industry are ideal for this work.

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#23

So do we have templates? What kind of information would people want to know?

#24

Great post @glenn, carefull @adam would love to partner up with you on that new business venture! Haha…

#25

I don’t do mystery shopping…but I do pretend every call I get (that is not from a contact ) is from a mystery shopper!!! Polite, helpful, engaging, and answer a question or query or let the caller go knowing they have been heard…unless you are from Nigeria and you tell me I have to give you my account number.

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#26

Hi @Shadi that’s awesome that you treat everyone that calls as a prospective new customer. Have you thought about phoning some of your competitors to see if they do the same thing?

That Nigeria scam cracks me up every time :rofl:

#27

Thanks. Hmmmm no not really, never ring them aside from the times I need to speak with another property manager. Some are absolute gems. :slight_smile:

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