Video Mystery Shopping: Overpriced or Underestimated?

Video shopping is becoming more and more popular with each passing year. Forming a strong foundation in the real estate industry for new home buying shops and quickly moving into the automotive industry, video shopping is now seen across multiple industries, including retail, banking, education, insurance, and even civil services.

Video shops are very desirable among clients, because of the perspective it permits. A client can view a video and observe emotion through facial expression, tone of voice, and body language, things that just don't come through quite as strongly in a written report. Clients get a very good idea of the entire customer experience when viewing a video, including everything the customer hears and sees, and even sometimes what the customer feels, like the palpable emotion during the uncomfortable silence before a greeting or closing. Video takes in so much more than our eyes ever could. It also adds an even greater degree of objectivity to a shop. Mystery shoppers in the written world learn very quickly to be objective, report the facts, and not make judgments or assumptions, but at the end of the day, you're still reading an account of that shopper's observations and perceptions. With video, the client is literally watching the interaction through the shopper's eyes, free to make his or her own judgments and form opinions regarding what that client feels is most important.

Video also adds an additional layer of verification. Mystery shoppers work very hard, implementing tips and tricks and developing their own methods to ensure that the information they report is accurate. However, it is not uncommon for there to be an occasional error or inconsistency in a written report. There may also be a situation where so much information is being requested that the shopper just simply doesn't recall the sign on the wall, or even if it was present. To combat this, mystery shopping companies have extensive quality control measures, where a single report may be reviewed by two or even three different editors. To ensure quality and accuracy, mystery shopping companies also include control questions on reports. With extensive briefing and sometimes even testing before a shopper completes a shop, the shopper's professionalism and practice in the field, and a variety of quality control measures, the occasional error is still possible. When a video shop is performed along with a written report, the quality control team will review that video and compare it against the written report. This helps to eliminate the possibility of such errors and adds that extra layer of validation and verification.

For shoppers, video is more often than not the preferred format because typically written reports accompanying video shops are minimal, the consensus being that there's no need to discuss in writing what can easily be seen. Typically, the written reports are required in order to obtain the statistical data that is used for comparison from one location to the next and one evaluation period to the next. This written report is where the quantifiable data comes from that clients and mystery shopping companies will use when making recommendations and discussing progress over time. So, while the numbered and scored questionnaire items may be the same, what's different is typically the amount of narrative that's required. In the written shopping world, the purpose of a narrative is to "tell the story" and give the client an accurate reporting or "picture" of what took place. With video, that step often becomes minimized, if not obsolete.

Typically speaking, video shops are a specialty, provided by only a small handful of mystery shopping companies. Additionally, out of the hundreds of thousands of mystery shoppers working in the field each and every year, there are only a very small percentage of those who are video shoppers. There's an even smaller percentage yet of those shoppers who own their own equipment, making it very difficult for mystery shopping companies to meet their clients' service orders and often resulting in overloaded and overworked video shoppers.

Most video shoppers are route shoppers, because they have to be, because there's no one else available in the areas where qualified video shoppers are needed so desperately, and those who choose to be wouldn't necessarily travel as often as they do if the need weren't so strong. The positive outcome for the shopper is that they typically make a very good living, with shops paying $50-$200 each, completing multiple shops per day, and travel compensation being paid when applicable. With all of this, though, there are still a large number of shops that either don't get completed or don't completed as quickly as both the mystery shopping company and client would like. The amount of video shopping work available is growing every day.

I believe that the answer to this demand is to have more video shoppers in the field. Video shopping has always cost more than traditional written or telephone mystery shops, because of the additional work involved, because of the added value it provides, and because it really is a specialty. I understand that some video shoppers fear that increasing the number of video shoppers in the field would decrease their pay or decrease the amount of work available to them; however, I truly believe that we could see 10,000 more video shoppers in the field right now today, and the only changes we would see are companies being better able to meet their clients' service orders in a timely manner and even more clients turning to video or utilizing video to supplement their existing programs. I do not anticipate a reduction in shopper fees at all. Personally, I feel that video shopping is a specialty niche, and there will always be a much higher percentage of written shoppers than there are video shoppers, even with a huge influx, and as such, video shopping will continue to have a higher value to the client, mystery shopping company, and shopper. In fact, with more video shoppers in the field, mystery shopping companies providing these services would be able to offer them to even more of their clients. Ultimately, and over a long period of time, this could result in video shoppers becoming regional specialists and could reduce the amount of travel that clients and companies are having to pay, but I don't believe it would prevent those video shoppers who wanted to continue to travel throughout the country from doing so. With the way this part of the industry is growing, we could add 10,000 video shoppers in the field today and by the end of the year still be facing a shortage of shoppers. Video shopping is definitely on the rise, and I don't have any reason to think that this trend isn't permanent. It's just one of the many directions that the mystery shopping industry is headed with the help of technology.

Video Shopping Companies:

Automotive Insights - http://www.automotiveinsights.com/

Clear Evaluations - www.clearevaluations.com

Impact Marketing - www.impact-mrkt.com

Instant Replays - www.instant-replays.net

Integrity Consultants - http://www.integrityconsultants.us

Intellishop - http://www.intelli-shop.com/

LeBlanc & Associates - www.mleblanc.com

Measure Consumer Perspectives - www.measurecp.com

Melinda Brody & Company - http://www.melindabrody.com/

The Shadow Agency - http://www.theshadowagency.com/

To Learn How to Video Shop:

Undercover Essentials - Offering Certification Workshops

http://www.undercoveressentials.org

Independent Mystery Shoppers Coalition - Offering Video Shopping Instruction at IMSC Conferences

http://www.imscinfo.com/

To Purchase Equipment:

http://www.measurecp.com/store/

*The PV500 ECO is currently the standard accepted among video shopping companies and clients.

PV500 ECO Kit Comes With:

PV500 ECO DVR Hi-res button camera with extra buttons 3-hour battery Remote control 4GB SD card USB cable Wall charger

The camera comes with a one year warranty from the manufacturer.

The cost for the kit is currently $400.