Mystery Shopping For A Food Chain

Objective:

The client wanted to evaluate the overall dining experience and operational efficiencies at its restaurants in order to identify gaps with respect to consumer experience. Channelplay carried out mystery shopping at the specified outlets and assessed key service parameters.

• Arrival experience in restaurant
• Seating arrangement and table layout
• Physical condition of the restaurant and rest room
• Lighting arrangement and background music
• Condition and presentation of crockery
• Staff grooming, knowledge and behavior
• Billing experience
• Overall dining experience

Approach:

The key activities in project execution involved:

• Questionnaire designing to evaluate all the desired parameters
• Mystery shopper profiling and sourcing as per defined criteria
• Developing a pool of diverse shoppers to capture different perspectives
• Mystery shopper training on the audit process and flow of activities
• Visit planning as per the dates and time frames provided by the client
• Visit validation and report validation with appropriate proofs

 Some of the challenges that we faced were:

• Conducting evaluations within the specific time frames and dates set by the client
• Finding qualified shoppers having rich experience in restaurant mystery shopping

Outcome:

The audits were done on a monthly basis and after each round a detailed report with improvement suggestions was shared with the client. The client actively implemented the suggestions and a rise in overall health score, from 65%-70% to 85%-95%, was recorded in subsequent rounds.

 Looking at the improvement the client expanded the scope of the project to cover other outlets as well. Major improvement areas that were identified included - active selling, service standards, restroom hygiene and the billing experience. We also suggested the linking of incentives to audit score which helped significantly in driving improvements.