Understanding Your Customer Experience Through Real Eyes

Profiled to your business, our mystery customers are real customers providing genuine experiential feedback to help you understand the reality of, and provide high detail of, the customer journey in your business.

Mystery shopping is where Service Monitor started 35 years ago and remains at our core today. It’s still the best approach to understand the detail behind a customer’s experience in your business, both factual and emotive.

With a database of 25,000 customers - not inspectors, but real customers with real opinions - we help you understand your strengths and weaknesses through authentic guest experiences.

What Makes Our Mystery Customer Programme Different

Real Customers, Not Professional Inspectors Our mystery shoppers are genuine hospitality customers who match your target demographic. They visit as they normally would, providing authentic feedback based on real expectations and experiences.

Comprehensive Operational Insight We develop criteria that engage all areas of your business - operations, marketing, training, HR - with set standards to measure and report on. Photos bring the reporting to life and allow dish-by-dish analysis where required.

Flexible Programme Design When combined with Online Surveys and Online Review Collection, we offer fully flexible mystery customer programmes, targeting areas which need the most assistance.

Video Mystery Shopping

Bring the mystery customer visit to life with video recording. See exactly what the customer sees, providing powerful visual feedback for training and staff development.

High-definition edited highlights create exceptional training tools, capturing critical moments in the customer journey that written reports can’t fully convey. Video mystery shopping is particularly valuable for:

  • Training new team members on service standards
  • Demonstrating best practice across your estate
  • Identifying operational inconsistencies
  • Providing evidence of protocol compliance
  • Creating engaging internal communications

Brand Compliance Audits

As your hospitality brand grows, maintaining consistent identity and standards across your estate becomes increasingly challenging. Our mystery customer programme includes comprehensive brand compliance auditing tailored to your exact requirements.

What We Monitor:

  • Menu pricing accuracy and consistency
  • Promotional offer implementation
  • Stock availability and presentation
  • Point-of-sale material compliance
  • Service protocol adherence
  • Licensing compliance (Challenge 21, etc.)
  • Brand standard implementation

We help you track and monitor exactly what’s happening across your estate, ensuring your company’s brand and marketing activities align with internal guidelines and external regulations. The goal is to protect your reputation, maintain consistency, and minimize risk of legal or regulatory issues.

Competitor Benchmarking

Understanding your competitive position is essential in the hospitality sector. Our mystery customer programme includes focused competitor benchmarking to help you understand what competitors are doing, how they compare, and how you can maintain your edge.

Laser-Focused Product Analysis We run highly targeted programmes examining food and drink delivery: cooking quality, taste, portion size, appearance, value for money, and more - all benchmarked against specification sets, trends, and direct competitors.

Strategic Decision Making Use competitor insights to inform key decisions about:

  • Supply chain optimization
  • Kitchen equipment investment
  • Product specification refinement
  • Staff training priorities
  • Menu development
  • Pricing strategy

Key Benefits of Competitor Benchmarking:

Identify Strengths and Weaknesses Compare your performance against competitors to identify areas where you excel and where improvement is needed, helping focus resources effectively.

Stay Current with Industry Trends Constant monitoring of competitor activity keeps you informed about new products, services, and operational approaches emerging in the hospitality sector.

Drive Innovation Observing competitor practices and strategies helps identify new ideas and approaches that can be adapted and improved for your business.

Enhance Decision Making Clear understanding of the competitive landscape enables more informed business decisions on pricing, product offerings, and marketing strategies.

How It Works

Programme Design - We work with you to develop criteria covering all aspects of your customer experience and brand standards

Customer Profiling - We match mystery shoppers to your target demographic from our database of 25,000 real customers

Visit Execution - Mystery customers visit your sites (and competitors if benchmarking) as genuine guests

Detailed Reporting - Comprehensive reports with photos, video where applicable, and actionable insights

Ongoing Refinement - Programme adjusts based on results, focusing on areas requiring most attention

Delivering Actionable Intelligence

Our mystery customer programme isn’t just about collecting data - it’s about providing actionable intelligence that drives real operational improvement. Reports are delivered through your online dashboard, integrated with your other customer experience data for comprehensive insight.

Whether you need operational audits, brand compliance monitoring, competitive intelligence, or comprehensive customer experience measurement, our mystery customer programme provides the detailed, authentic feedback you need to maintain and improve standards across your hospitality business.

Ready to see your business through your customers’ eyes? Contact us to discuss designing a mystery customer programme tailored to your needs.