A common misperception about mystery shopping is that it’s a way for managers to “spy” on their employees. The MSPA suggests there’s a much better way.

The most effective mystery shopping programs are designed to catch employees doing it right. The tool is best used as an objective, honest assessment of the customer experience. That assessment should be followed-up with training, new company standards or other actions to re-inforce employee expectations.

Sometimes mystery shopping is used in a rewards program, where employess receive cash, vacation days, company-wide recognition or other incentives for a job well done. Every program is different and the rewards, or the “carrots,” can be customized to your business needs, resources and culture.

To find more about how you can motivate employees and improve the service you provide, contact your mystery shopping provider.

That same celebrity needs to be sure that their likeness is removed from all retail locations to protect their interests.

A national chain must make certain that promotional signage and point-of-purchase displays are being posted properly. Or even that the customer restrooms are being cleaned!

A manufacturer who has paid a retailer hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in “shelving” fees to place end-cap displays of its product in their stores needs to be sure those displays actually made it onto the floor – in good condition, on-time – or millions more in product and inventory will be lost.

A consumer goods manufacturer wants to determine if the associates in retail stores where its products are sold have good product knowledge and whether their products (or a competitor’s) are recommended to the stores’ customers.

Many mystery shopping providers have tens (even hundreds) of thousands of reliable people waiting for the call to perform otherwise overwhelming tasks that you may have found too cumbersome or bureaucratic when working with a temp agency.

What could you do with an army of willing and able bodies as your eyes and ears from coast to coast?

Contact your mystery shopping provider for more details.

The Mystery Shopping Providers Association, the largest professional trade association dedicated to improving service quality using anonymous resources, has installed its newly-elected 2009 board of directors.

The MSPA North America board consists of 11 members, two of whom are new to the board. Each year four officer positions are elected – president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. The remaining members each serve three-year terms as directors.

“Every year, talented new people join the board, tackle new goals and work to create a better overall mystery shopping industry,” said John Swinburn, executive director of the MSPA. “Our experienced board members are sure to make 2009 another productive year that advances the industry, despite any economic challenges.”

The new board includes four officers, five returning directors and two new directors.

Judi Hess, President. Hess has been active on the MSPA board for eight years and served as vice president in 2008 and treasurer in 2007. She is the owner of Customer Perspectives, based in Hooksett, N.H., which she founded more than 25 years ago. Hess is a charter member of the MSPA and has served as board liaison to both the Government Relations Committee and the Member Services Committee. She also founded a travel agency and has been active in state and local politics more than four decades.

Susan E. Seiler, Vice President. Seiler was a Shopper Services Committee chairman, and worked with several MSPA members in developing the MSPA Gold and Silver Certification programs. She founded SG Marketing group in 1985 in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she now serves as vice president of financial services for Market Force Information. Seiler has a background in banking, consumer products and publishing, along with hands-on expertise in sales training, customer service, product development, advertising and public relations.

Ron Welty, Secretary. Entering his sixth year as an MSPA board member, Welty has previously served the association as the chair of the Communications Committee. In 1999, he founded IntelliShop, where he currently serves as president. Welty brings a broad background to the board, as he has worked with clients in more than 20 different industries in the United States and Canada.

Lynn Saladini, Treasurer. Saladini represents ath Power as a founding member of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. This is her second year on the board, and her input has helped MSPA to set higher standards for mystery shoppers and mystery shopping companies, successfully creating credible research packages for the end-user on an ongoing basis.

Two new directors join the MSPA Board for 2009: Elaine Buxton, president of Confero, Inc. (Cary, N.C.) and Paige Hall, president and CEO, AboutFace (Atlanta, GA).

Returning directors include Lise D’Andrea, president and CEO, Customer Service Experts (Annapolis, Md.); Candor Gutierrez-Vara, founder and president, Big K Mystery Shoppping (Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico); Carl Phillips, director, Customer 1st (Gressnboro, N.C.); Arcadio Roselli, CEO, Service Evaluation Concepts (Woodbury, N.Y.) and Christopher Warzynski, vice president, Beyond Hello, Inc. (Madison, Wis.).

About the MSPA

With more than 300 member companies worldwide, the MSPA has a diverse membership, including marketing research and merchandising companies, private investigation firms, training organizations and companies that specialize in providing mystery shopping services. Its goals are to establish professional standards and ethics for the industry, educate providers, clients and shoppers to improve quality of service, improve the image of the industry and promote the membership to other industry associations and prospective clients.

MSPA Cooperated in Investigation

Operators of a website that scammed unsuspecting would-be mystery shoppers into paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for empty and overinflated promises about mystery shopping settled with the Federal Trade Commission on December 4, 2008. (Details of the settlement may be seen at this link.)

MysteryShopLink.com ran advertisements online, in newspapers, on the radio and on television. Respondents to the ads were told by the company’s telemarkers that Mystery Shop Link had large numbers of unfilled mystery shopping assignments available. In exchange for a $99 fee, consumers were promised enough work to earn steady full-time or part-time income as mystery shoppers, the FTC said.

Rather than earning regular income, consumers received a worthless certification and access to postings for mystery shopping assignments controlled by legitimate companies. The FTC said consumers had to apply for these mostly low-paying assignments and had no advantage over anyone else who found the postings free elsewhere on the Internet. Most consumers got no jobs and earned no money, the agency said.

The companies charged by the FTC in March 2008 were Mystery Shop Link and Tangent Group, both based in Portland, Maine, and telemarketer Harp Marketing Services, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The FTC also charged five of the eight defendants — Mystery Shop Link, Tangent Group, Robin Larry Murphy, Andrew Holman and Kenneth Johnson — with contempt. The contempt charge alleged that Murphy violated the terms of a consent judgment in a prior telemarketing fraud case involving false promises of government jobs. The 1997 consent judgment barred Murphy from making material misrepresentations of fact while telemarketing, and required him to post a $100,000 bond.

Mystery Shopping Providers Association Executive Director John Swinburn said, “MSPA is committed to maintaining the integrity of the mystery shopping industry and will continue to denounce the practices of fraudulent and deceptive companies that use mystery shopping as a cover to take advantage of people. We were happy to cooperate with the FTC in this successful effor and we also are taking action to combat other mystery shopping scams, particularly scams involving an unsolicited cashier’s check.”

About the MSPA

With more than 300 member companies worldwide, the MSPA has a diverse membership, including marketing research and merchandising companies, private investigation firms, training organizations and companies that specialize in providing mystery shopping services. Its goals are to establish professional standards and ethics for the industry, educate providers, clients and shoppers to improve quality of service, improve the image of the industry and promote the membership to other industry associations and prospective clients.