Mystery shopper questions a briefed shopper can actually answer
A field form rather than a satisfaction survey: fourteen checks recorded during one visit, written so two shoppers in the same branch produce the same answers. About three minutes to complete on the way out. Answer it below, or open it in the editor and put your own standards in.
- 14checks
- about 3 minto complete
- observablenot opinion
- 1 visitper response
What a mystery shopper form measures
Whether a defined standard was met on one visit, recorded by somebody briefed to check it.
Execution, not perception. This is the one template on this site filled in by an observer rather than by the person whose experience it was. That single fact changes everything about how the items are written: they have to be checkable, so that two shoppers in the same branch on the same day record the same answers.
Observable beats interesting. "Were you acknowledged within about thirty seconds" is a fact. "Was the service friendly" is a mood that varies more between shoppers than between branches, and a branch ranking built on it measures the shoppers. Opinions go in the open note at question 13, where they belong, and stay out of the score.
Nobody is named. No item records who served the shopper, and question 13 says so inside the question. If you want a real customer rating their own visit instead, that is the retail customer survey. Every check here is already loaded in the online form and survey builder.
The 14 mystery shopper checks
Every check, the answer options it takes, and what it is for. Copy one block or the whole set.
The visit
Two fields first. A Tuesday morning and a Saturday afternoon are different shops, and a score that does not record which is not comparable with anything.
- Which site did you visit?The site as the business names it, so results roll up without hand-matching later.
- When did you visit?Daypart, because staffing and queueing move with it. Compare like with like or the ranking is a rota chart.
Arrival
The first thirty seconds, recorded as a fact and a count rather than an impression.
- Were you acknowledged within about thirty seconds of entering?A time-bounded check, so two shoppers agree. "Could not tell" is there to stop a guess being recorded as a No.
- How many staff were visible on the floor when you arrived?A count, not a judgement about whether it felt busy. It is what makes a low acknowledgement score interpretable.
The state of the place
Three checks a shopper can verify without talking to anybody, which is what makes them the most reliable items on the form.
- Was the entrance area clean, lit and free of obstructions?Entrance only, deliberately. Asking about the whole store invites a general impression.
- Were prices clearly displayed on the items you looked at?On the items they actually looked at, which keeps the answer checkable.
- Was the item you asked for in stock and findable?Stock and findability together: an item in the stockroom that nobody can locate is not available to a customer.
The interaction
Three items about what staff did, with no item about what they were like. That is the line that keeps this form usable and fair.
- Did a member of staff ask what you were looking for?Did somebody ask. An observable event, unlike whether they seemed willing to help.
- Did they answer your question accurately?Accuracy, which only works if the briefing gave the shopper a question with a known right answer. Set that before the visit.
- Were you offered anything additional, such as a related item or a service?Whether the offer was made, not whether it was any good. Reads as a process check on the sales standard.
Paying and leaving
The end of the visit, which is where a good experience is most often undone and least often measured.
- How long did you wait to pay, from joining the queue?Banded rather than exact, because a shopper estimating to the second is inventing precision.
- Were you thanked or acknowledged as you left?The cheapest standard in retail to meet and the most frequently missed.
In their words, then the score
One open note and one comparison against the brief. The instruction not to describe staff is part of the question, not a footnote.
- Describe anything a customer would remember about this visit, good or bad. Do not name or describe any member of staff.Anything a customer would remember. The no-naming instruction sits inside the question because that is where it gets read.
- Overall, how did this visit compare with the standard you were briefed on?Against the briefed standard, not against the shopper own taste. It is the only item that produces the branch ranking.
"Could not tell" is on every yes-or-no check on purpose. Without it, a shopper who did not get the chance to observe something records a No, and a branch is marked down for a check that never happened.
One swap-in. Running this in a service business rather than a shop, replace question 7 with the equivalent step in your own process and keep everything else.
Scoring it, and comparing branches fairly
A count of met standards, split by daypart, with the open note read separately.
Score the checkable items, not the impression. Count Yes answers across questions 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 and 12 as standards met. That count, out of seven, is the branch score. Question 14 is the shopper judgement and is reported beside it rather than added to it.
Never rank branches on one visit. Two or three visits per site per quarter, spread across dayparts, is the smallest pattern that says something about the branch rather than about the shift. Question 2 exists so you can check you have that spread before you publish a league table.
Read "could not tell" as a signal. A check that comes back unobservable again and again usually means the standard is written for a shop layout that no longer exists.
| If this check fails repeatedly | What it usually means | What to change |
|---|---|---|
| Acknowledged within thirty seconds (Q3) | Cover at the door during known busy periods, not attitude | The rota against the daypart in Q2 |
| Prices displayed (Q6) | A promotion changed and the labels did not follow | Who owns label changes, and when they happen |
| Item findable (Q7) | Stock exists in the system and not on the shelf | Replenishment timing, and the stock file |
| Answer accurate (Q9) | Product training missing for a specific line | Training on that line, not a general service course |
| Thanked on leaving (Q12) | The till is the busiest point and the standard is unrealistic there | Either the standard or the staffing at the till |
Running a mystery shopping programme
Three decisions before anybody walks into a store.
Brief the shopper with a task, not a feeling. Tell them what to buy and what to ask, with a question that has a known correct answer. Question 9 is meaningless otherwise, and an unbriefed shopper produces a review rather than a measurement.
Have them submit before they leave the car park. Detail like the wait band and the number of staff visible degrades within minutes, and those are the items that make the form comparable.
Publish the rules to the people being measured. Staff who know the standards exist and know the results cannot be used against them individually behave like staff, not like people hunting for the shopper. Professional research standards require that observation of staff is not used to the detriment of identifiable individuals, which is a floor rather than a nicety.[1] Question wording and ordering follow published survey practice on clarity and bias.[2]
Then pick the adjacent check. Execution and perception are different questions, so run the customer satisfaction survey questions alongside this and read them together.
Shopping a venue rather than a shop. A hotel, a gym or a conference floor is scored on a stay rather than a transaction, and the observations that matter are different ones, so use the guest experience survey for those. A meal has its own sequence of courses, timings and covers, which the restaurant survey questions already set out.
Mystery shopping FAQ
What questions should a mystery shopper form ask?
Things a briefed shopper can observe and record the same way every time: whether they were acknowledged within a set number of seconds, how many staff were on the floor, whether the entrance was clean, whether prices were displayed, whether the item was findable, whether anybody offered help, whether the answer was accurate, how long the queue took, and whether they were thanked. Opinions about friendliness belong in the open note, not in the score.
How is this different from a customer satisfaction survey?
The respondent. A satisfaction survey asks a real customer how their visit felt, which is the truth about perception. A mystery shop sends a briefed observer to check whether a defined standard was met, which is the truth about execution. You need both, and they are not interchangeable: this form cannot tell you whether customers are happy, and a satisfaction survey cannot tell you whether the greeting standard is being followed.
How many mystery shops do you need per site?
More than one, and at different dayparts. A single visit is one shift, one queue and one person having one kind of day. Two or three visits per site per quarter, spread across question 2, is the smallest pattern that supports comparing branches rather than comparing Tuesdays.
Can the results be used in a disciplinary process?
No, and the form is built so they cannot be. Nothing on it records who served the shopper, and question 13 instructs the shopper not to describe an individual. Research standards on observing staff require that findings are not used to the detriment of identifiable people.[1] Used as evidence against a named person, the programme also stops working: staff start identifying shoppers instead of serving customers.
Should shoppers be told what to buy?
Yes, and told what to ask. Question 9 only means something if the briefing set a question with a known correct answer, and question 11 only means something if a purchase was actually attempted. An unbriefed shopper produces a review, not a measurement.
A shopper records what happened at the counter. What people believe about your brand next to a named competitor, without either being visited, is what the brand perception survey template measures.
Mystery shopping tells you what a trained observer saw. The customer feedback survey tells you what your actual customers say.
A mystery shopper reports what the buying process looked like from the outside. To hear it from somebody who actually paid and then waited for the parcel, the post-purchase evaluation survey template asks at the checkout, on delivery and two weeks after that.
A shopper you sent is checking whether the process was followed. To hear from people who actually buy from you, on a wave you can set beside the last one, run the VoC survey alongside the audits.
Methods and sources
What this template is based on
Fourteen items written for this page as a field form rather than a satisfaction survey, ordered as a visit happens: the site and daypart, arrival, the state of the place, the interaction, paying and leaving, then one open note and a comparison against the brief. Most items are observable checks so that two shoppers produce the same record.[2]
Question licensing
No item here comes from a licensed or proprietary instrument. Professional research standards on observing staff are cited for the ethical floor the page states, and none of their wording is reproduced.[1]
Limits and disclosure
A mystery shop is one visit by one briefed observer, and it measures execution against a standard rather than what customers think. It cannot tell you whether customers are satisfied, it is sensitive to daypart, and a single visit says nothing reliable about a branch. It also observes staff who did not consent to that visit, which is why the results carry the restriction stated above.
SuperSurvey builds the editor this template opens in. Nothing on this page depends on using it.
References
- ESOMAR and the Market Research Society. Professional standards for research involving observation of staff, including the requirement that findings are not used to the detriment of identifiable individuals. mrs.org.uk
- American Association for Public Opinion Research. "Best Practices for Survey Research." aapor.org
Give your shoppers a form two of them would fill in the same way
Fourteen observable checks, about three minutes on the way out, and a branch score you can defend. Put your own standards in and send it.
Use this template