SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
There are many ways to gain feedback on your products and services, including the popular method known as mystery shopping. Mystery shopping consists of hiring or contracting individuals to pose as a customer to gain feedback on things like customer service, employee engagement or store performance.
To ensure you will get the most out of mystery shopping, it’s important to find the right mystery shopping provider. These companies can help recruit unbiased shoppers who can conduct assignments in-store, over the phone or online and provide fast and valuable insights for any type of industry, including restaurants, retail and financial services. Whether you want to test how well your employees have mastered their training or customer service, measure the performance of your store, product or brand or see how your competitors are faring, these companies can give you the tools and shoppers you need to gain valuable insight. Contact these companies to find out how they can help you with your mystery shopping needs.
Ann Michaels Ltd.
Founded 1998 | 11 employees
Kathy Doering, CEO
Customer experience management firm assisting clients with customer loyalty, consumer online sentiment analysis, competitive intelligence, brand awareness, customer satisfaction and customer experience measurement. Today’s consumer has higher expectations, a larger reach and a louder voice. Keeping up with it all can be challenging even for the most customer-centric company. That’s where we come in. Our customer experience measurement programs allow us to listen, engage and monitor the customer experience across all channels.
Phone 866-703-8238
www.annmichaelsltd.com
Anonymous Insights Inc.
Founded 1996 | Over 400,000 independent contractors worldwide
Patti Lengel, President and Co-Founder
What’s your “WOW” factor? Are you Winning customer loyalty through Operational excellence and World-class service? Anonymous Insights can help you improve customer experience by utilizing mystery shops, satisfaction surveys, audits, exit interviews and competitive shops to determine how well you are meeting the needs of your customers. We offer industry-related experience, a worldwide network of shoppers, state-of-the-art technology and proven success in increasing customer satisfaction levels. We provide comprehensive, actionable data that allows you to see your business as your customers see it. This information provides you with the tools to develop employee behavior through reward/recognition and coaching/training programs. The result is increased customer loyalty and revenues.
Phone 844-WOWFACTOR
www.a-insights.com
BARE International
Founded 1987 | 302 employees
Dale Bare, CEO; Mike Bare, President
BARE International is a family-owned business celebrating 30 years leading the customer experience research industry, setting the standard as the largest independent provider of customer experience research, data and analytics for companies worldwide. BARE has built a reputation on innovation, ethics and seamless client service management. Every business challenge is unique, so each solution BARE International offers is customized to meet specific needs, providing actionable feedback to help companies make critical business decisions. BARE’s extensive field force and dedicated project teams give each client the attention deserved and an infrastructure spanning the globe, providing the resources needed to understand and enhance customers’ experiences.
Phone 800-296-6699
www.bareinternational.com
BestMark
Founded in 1986 | 200+ employees
Meredith Harper, Main Client Contact
For 32+ years, BestMark has been a customer experience feedback pioneer and innovator and has continued to fine-tune our proprietary processes and approach. Today, in the era of digitization and emergence of cognitive science, BestMark remains agile in helping companies achieve individualized, precise real-time insights and actionable feedback through the integration of multichannel customer experiences. We apply exclusive methodologies to anticipate marketplace changes and make needed course corrections, which allows our clients to stay on the cutting edge. Services include: mystery shopping, mobile surveys, competitive intelligence, auditing, customer satisfaction, VOC, text analytics, reputation management, benchmarking and more. Fast facts: 15+ million evaluations completed – 600,000+ field reps – mobile and Web surveying – 24/7 analytics and reporting.
Phone 952-922-2205
www.bestmark.com
Confero Inc.
Founded 1986 | 48 employees
Elaine Buxton, CEO
Confero’s customized solutions measure, monitor and report on employee performance, brand presentation, customer experience, user experience and compliance. The firm has 32 years of experience in mystery shopping, with deep experience with complex omnichannel fielding, data integration, brand representation at retail and on-the-spot rewards incentives programs. Confero was recognized with a Stevie Award for Customer Service Consulting Practice of the Year and is WBENC-certified. Our CEO Elaine Buxton has served as president of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. Confero offers mystery shopping services on-site, on the Web, on mobile devices and using recorded telephone calls.
Phone 800-326-3880
www.conferoinc.com
DSG
Founded 1981 | 25-50 employees
Butch Nievera, CEO; Jennifer Mason, Main Client Contact
DSG is a leader in mystery shopping and field services for a broad range of businesses. If you need information about what happens between your company and your customer, DSG can help design and execute a program to collect it. DSG offers the capability and capacity to work as a partner in creating and managing programs for clients who demand integrity, reliability and responsiveness. The higher standards clients have for programs, the more they appreciate our unique perspective and commitment.
Phone 818-966-3950
www.dsgai.com
IntelliShop
Founded 1999 | 186 employees
Ron Welty, CEO
IntelliShop partners with clients and research firms to deliver customer experience research solutions for every touchpoint. For research firms, whitelisting our services and Web portal (InSite™) allows you to maintain your brand presence with your clients. Our panel of more than 1 million shoppers can reach any geographic location quickly and efficiently for a variety of projects. We combine the most innovative Web-based intelligence and analytics platform with our team of exceptional people to provide you with a level of expertise and extreme service that is unmatched.
Phone 419-872-5103
www.intelli-shop.com
MaritzCX
Founded 1973 | 824 employees globally
Mike Sinoway, CEO
MaritzCX has been managing mystery shopping programs for over 35 years. Our approach to mystery shopping means our clients receive near real-time insights on the execution of their brand, operating standards and CX programs across all customer channels. We have vertically integrated all operations in-house to offer the best in high-tech efficiencies without giving up the high-touch human element that allows us to focus on people. MaritzCX manages a national network of over 100,000 mystery shoppers who can be quickly deployed to ensure your brand’s promise and standards are delivered on a consistent basis.
Phone 913-234-3875
maritzcx.com/what-we-do/mystery-shopping
Market Analytics International Inc.
Founded 2002 | 50+ employees and consultants
Michele McKenna, CEO
Market Analytics’ mystery shopping capabilities include B2C, B2B and a wide range of industries globally. Through offices in the U.S. and Asia, we cover the world with thousands of shoppers. Our programs include in-person, phone and online shopping and inquiries. Market Analytics’ shoppers cover a wide range of demographics, diverse multicultural backgrounds and native speakers of foreign languages. Our programs focus on measuring customer experiences and service levels, benchmarking and analyzing competitors, evaluating staff performance and ensuring compliance to standards and regulations. Our clients gain actionable insights that drive positive change within their organizations.
Phone 201-556-1188
www.marketanalytics.com
Market Viewpoint
Founded 1996
Angela Megasko, CEO and Owner
It’s no secret: customer retention is the key to higher levels of profitability. To gain and retain customers, your customers must have positive, memorable experiences – every time they interact with your company or staff. For over 20 years, Market Viewpoint has provided clients with honest mystery shopping evaluations conducted with integrity and discretion. We create customized customer satisfaction programs recognizing your company’s unique assessment needs. All with our guarantee: Every report will provide useful information for your company – or we reshop it for you. The powerful data obtained from our programs, along with our training services, creates solutions to your customer service and employee motivation needs.
Phone 610-942-7030
www.marketviewpoint.com
Quality Assessment Mystery Shoppers Inc.
Founded 1984
Mary Furrie, CEO
Great customer service is an art, not a given! Quality Assessments Mystery Shoppers has been a national provider of location and call center mystery shopping services for all industries for over 25 years. We help our clients think about what is important to their customers and then make sure those things are consistent everywhere and all the time. Our tailored mystery shopping programs are guaranteed to promote excellent service that your customers will prefer for generations to come. From program design to back-end analytical online tools, our team can ensure you receive high online reviews! We believe great customer service is an art!
Phone 800-580-2500
www.qams.com
Second To None
Founded 1989 | 65 employees
Jeff Hall, CEO
Second To None is a leading customer experience research agency, specializing in omnichannel mystery shopping, voice of the customer surveys, compliance audits and social media reputation monitoring. We help regional and national brands deliver consistent, intentional and authentic customer experiences. Full-service solutions include program design, data collection and real-time analytics, grounded in solid statistical science and strategic relevance. Brand leaders leverage our assessments of operational standards through mystery shopping, integrated with voice of the customer and employee feedback surveys for competitive advantage. Our services enable transformative insights and priorities to emerge, allowing clients to take action, affect positive change and drive improved business performance throughout their organization.
Phone 734-302-8400
www.secondtonone.com
Secret Shopper
Founded 1990 | 50 employees
Paul F. Ryan, CEO
Secret Shopper® has been focused on evaluating client-customer engagement online, over the phone and in person since 1990. As a full-service mystery shopping company, we offer a range of customizable tools and training services. An in-house social media team increases brand recognition and following across platforms. Our audit systems evaluate user Web site experience and manage your search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) strategies, while our coaching services train employees to provide customers positive experiences every time. Visit our Web site at www.secretshopper.com to learn more.
Phone 763-525-1460
www.secretshopper.com
The Sentry Marketing Group LLC
Founded 2005 | 13 employees
David Agius, CEO
With employee engagement and purpose as its focus, Sentry Marketing partners with its clients to create unique assessment tools that go beyond mystery shopping. We work with our clients to focus on their culture and values to bring purpose and impact to the assessment. Our goal is to help our clients create a culture where their employees are engaged, fulfilled and give their best effort every day with programs that provide tools that help improve hospitality levels and quality of operations.
Phone 972-987-1696
www.sentrymarketing.com
Service Evaluation Concepts Inc. (SEC)
Founded 1987 | 22 employees
Arcadio Roselli, CEO
With over 27 years of experience, we at Service Evaluation Concepts Inc. (SEC) have built a unique research concept that has worldwide reach. We uniquely help to translate strategy into action using a global panel of over 650,000 brand agents (certified research participants) and our proprietary Enterprise Feedback Management System (EFMS). Our brand agents operate as undercover CEOs (mystery shoppers), empowering brands to measure the human dimension of the designed customer experience (employees and customers) to maximize conversion and maximize advertising. SEC validates return on investment by using cause-and-effect linkage that clearly impacts positive the corresponding financial key performance indicators.
Phone 516-576-1188 ext. 3530
www.serviceevaluation.com
SIS International Research
Founded 1984 | 75 employees
Ruth Stanat, CEO
SIS International Research is a leading market research and strategy research company. Our consumer and B2B mystery shopping services include price checks, product comparison research, customer service experience research, retail research and store audits and competitive pricing studies. Uniquely, we have a strategy group that does high-level B2B mystery shopping, market opportunity research and competitive intelligence. Our coverage is nationwide and worldwide. SIS also has a focus group and product testing facility in the heart of Manhattan and in Central London.
Phone 212-505-6805
www.sisinternational.com
TrendSource
Founded 1989 | 90 employees
Jim Caltrider, CEO
For over 25 years, TrendSource has been the leading provider of mystery shopping services. In 1998, TrendSource became a founding member of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association. Each TrendSource mystery shopping program is developed to ensure the right questions are being asked and that the data being collected is on target. Findings are presented in easy-to-interpret summaries that identify economic benefit, ROI and recommended actions. Our comprehensive in-house systems allow us to be nimble and provide our clients with high-quality solutions.
Phone 619-718-7467
trendsource.com
Visit Mystery Shopping for a complete list of companies offering these services.