One area of the business world which stands dynamic and most aggressive in terms of advancements and innovation is Marketing, and it’s a no-brainer to realise how heavy companies are investing into marketing and trying to reach customers organically!

The term “Organic” is currently all the rage, from social media followers to companies tempting consumers to try their brands. Companies need customers who will be devoted long-term customers.

In contrast to social media posts and videos, which make it simple to target an audience, there are very few ways to draw customers to a business when we talk about generating some footfalls. One such tactic that will help businesses grow and better understand their clients but is slightly unfamiliar to the Indian market is Mystery shopping!

The whole idea of this blog is to let you know how the Indian market is unaware about the concept of Mystery shopping, yet & why its implementation is crucial for better marketing & establishing competitive benchmarking.

The term Mystery & shopping itself is evident enough to understand what this concept means, it basically involves shopping in disguise, known as Mystery shoppers. These mystery shoppers are hired by an organisation and are asked to experience their services just like normal customers.

Getting paid to shop, to eat, to review their performance? Mystery shopper
Does savour these perks.

But the question still remains relevant, in what ways does mystery shopping help?

1. Helps to improve customer retention-
Understanding how customers feel about your brand and your services, improving on the flaws is what stands as a big advantage to the business. It will help to analyse the activities better and get an overview of the operations.

2.Helps to keep a check on Staff and their activities-
Every business has their set of standard operating procedures and business systems which needs to be followed and with the help of mystery shoppers one can keep a check on the employees and their activities while at work.

Employees who perform well can be rewarded & the ones who are not,suitable action can be taken w.r.t to their negligence.

3. Provides an edge over Competitive Benchmarking-
Hiring Mystery shoppers for your brand? Legends.
Hiring mystery shoppers to keep an eye on your Competitor? Ultra Legends.

Exactly what stands out as the biggest advantage of this technique, sending mystery shoppers to your competitor brands in the industry will help to better understand what makes their brand stand out and how different it is from ours.

It will also help to gain insights about the industry and its trends. Mystery shopping has its own set of perks and this one is our personal favourite for obvious reasons!

4. Understand the scope for improvement
This trick will definitely help to get a detailed understanding of how the business is functioning and help to get a better SWOT analysis of the organisation.

5.Helps generate employment-
Mystery shoppers can be freelancers or an employee of a mystery shopping company too, but what matters is it helps to employ people and creates job opportunities in the market.

6.Helps to improve customer Satisfaction –
The basic aim of the whole mystery shopping process is build better customer relations and create a loyal customer base for the business.

In a world where cut-throat competition exists and businesses are trying to make customers feel special with their services, this technique is most useful for gauging competitors and their business procedures, understanding where our business stands and what strategies can be used to stand out in the market.

Although this idea is slightly unfamiliar in India right now, with the growing number of brands and customer services, implementing mystery shopping as a business strategy will soon become a trend.

So to the entrepreneurs (aspiring entrepreneurs) who want to understand their business better (mysteriously) and become an edge over your competitors, you now know the strategy- and as far as hiring mystery shoppers is concerned, we are here for your rescue!

Market Intelligence VS Business Intelligence 

Now that Business Intelligence tools are flourishing, and their popularity as a dynamic job profile is on the rise, let me explain how these two areas are different and why they matter!

But let me tell you a tool that connects both these teams, a concept slightly unfamiliar to the Indian public – Mystery Shopping!

By the end of the blog, I am sure you will know how mystery shopping aids in business Intelligence and Market Intelligence.

What is Business Intelligence ?

Data is what drives the world today, not just the corporate world, even the smallest of public surveys and choices are used as raw data for research. 

By its very nature, business intelligence is nothing more than an extensive process to assist decision-making and enhance strategy implementation by using data sets in a manner that is designed to analyze where business is today, where it was in the past, and what is required to achieve future goals.

Irrespective of the industry, data analytics and access to instant databases are what matters today. Predicting future trends and formulating strategy accordingly is the goal of Business Intelliegence.

The purpose of Business Intelligence is to study business activities and identify whether the current system and processes are sufficient to reach organizational goals. The focus here is on internal management and activities and what can be done to improve them. The primary data used in business intelligence are sales data, accounts data, and financial statements. The data is compiled to analyze business activities and assist with further research.