Employers that Hire Mystery Shoppers

Mystery shoppers are hired for a variety of reasons and employed by a variety of different businesses. The practice of hiring mystery shoppers is growing in popularity and any area where the services of a mystery shopper might be utilized represents an area of potential employment. But why is mystery shopping so widely used by so many different businesses? The following is an explanation of the types of businesses that hire mystery shoppers and what they gain from employing a mystery shopper.

Market Research Companies

As we’ve discussed, market research and mystery shopping go hand in hand with one another. Mystery shopping has turned into a popular market research tool because it helps market research companies gain an understanding of customer satisfaction levels for the businesses they are investigating. Market research companies also use mystery shoppers to understand product satisfaction and a large number of other areas that are important in understanding the business-customer relationship. As such, market research companies have a lot of uses for mystery shoppers because shoppers provide them and the businesses they research with a bevy of valuable information.

Because of the popularity of mystery shopping in market research, many of these companies turn to mystery shopping providers in place of hiring independent mystery shoppers themselves.

Mystery Shopping Providers

Working for a Mystery Shopping Provider represents perhaps the best venue for new mystery shoppers to find employment. Since mystery shopping’s rise in popularity, Mystery Shopping Providers have grown extensively in terms of providing market research companies and businesses with well-trained and informed shoppers. Mystery Shopping Providers are essentially training schools for new mystery shoppers as well as a pool of potential market research tools for businesses. Thus, these providers gain business from the mystery shoppers they train and from the people they hire out in order to conduct shops for businesses and market research companies. These providers are now well established in the United States and Europe and are a great place for mystery shoppers to find future work. Shoppers can be trained, learn about the industry and find future employment when they utilize the resource of a Mystery Shopping Provider.

Businesses in search of mystery shoppers for market research are beginning to turn to these providers more and more. Many Mystery Shopping Providers almost act as if it were a market research company through the ways in which they coach businesses through the use of mystery shopping in outlining their goals and analyzing the results of shopping assignments.

Featured Mystery Shopping Provider: GAPbuster Worldwide (GBW)

Individual Businesses

Some businesses will look for independent shoppers in order to conduct their own market research. This is becoming less and less popular however, because of the increase in the popularity of Mystery Shopping Providers and the use of mystery shoppers via market research companies. Some businesses hire and train their own employees to act as mystery shoppers, especially in franchise situations in order to examine how facets of their own business are doing in comparison to others. As such, some businesses will hire mystery shoppers to conduct research, however, it is less likely for a new mystery shopper to find work in this way than through a market research company or Mystery Shopping Provider.

All of these venues gain the same thing from hiring mystery shoppers: a better understanding of their company and how their company relates to customers. This is essentially why all mystery shoppers are hired – to help businesses understand their clients.