Frequently Asked Questions

Because it's the only way you can find out how your customers are actually treated when they come into contact with your business. Of course, you and your managers can observe your staff in action, but how employees behave when they know they are being watched may be quite different to how they act when only customers are around.

The only way you can be sure what your customers experience, and what they expect, is by having a well-designed, implemented and managed independent mystery shopping program.

We have been in the mystery shopping business since 2004 and have provided services for a wide range of industries. In 2005 we launched Shadow QC, software which enables retailers, businesses and franchisors to run their internal quality compliance systems. www.ShadowQC.com In 2006, with the development of Shadow Surveys, we became Shadow Organisation Pty Ltd. www.ShadowOrg.com

Shadow Shopper and Get Paid To Shop are both owned by Shadow Organisation. We have separate sites for different sections of the business and www.GetPaidToShop.com.au is our shopper site. Since 2004 we have trained and certified many thousands of shadow shoppers.

You can see individual reports within 24 hours of the visit or call being done. This includes the report going through the QA process. Weekly, monthly or quarterly reports are ready within 2 working days of the end of the period.

Your results will be on your secure customised website, and will normally have a link from your company website. When you login you have access to the information that your login permissions determine. For example, CEOs would see all data, while store managers usually see their own detailed reports and a comparison with the average, best and lowest for that period. All reports have 'printer friendly' options so that you can print them or forward them.

Yes. We set it up and manage your website and your data. It's part of the Shadow Shopper service. It is hosted securely at Netregistry's Global Switch Data Center in Sydney. You can read about the data centre and the security by clicking here.

There is an Online Query facility to enable you to contact Shadow Shopper directly. At the bottom of your results there is a 'Raise a Question' form, and we will respond within 1 business day.

All the way. You can see any reports right to the start of your program. Reports and graphs are generated dynamically (when you click)and because the database contains ALL your data you can get reports for any time frame at any time.

You can download data anytime. A simple click of the mouse, and you can have your data in Excel or other formats

Yes. You can upload sales or any other data so that it can be included in the analysis. It's a great way to spot correlations and trends - so that you can demonstrate that a high score on customer service means a better bottom line.

Yes. You can upload data from previous mystery shopping programs.

Yes, we have 25,000+ shoppers all around the country. What's more, they can be segmented by demographics (age, income, education, home, etc) and shopping habits (how often they eat out, stay in hotels, etc) so you can be sure that your shoppers match your customer profile.

All our shoppers have to go through our Training Course, and pass a timed Certification Test. If they don't get 80% then they don't get accepted. After that they have to fill out their profile, and from this we can ascertain their ability to write clearly and coherently, and any who don't measure up get weeded out at that point.

We also have a preferred Shopper Program. Every report submitted by a shopper goes through our quality assurance process, and the shopper gets graded on how good a job they did, and are given feedback on how they did. If they did a great job then they earn a Preferred Shopper Point. Shoppers with the most points get priority for assignments, so the more points they get the more assignments they do.

We do it again at our expense. All reports are checked in our Quality Assurance process, and anything substandard (like bad spelling, missing answers, lack of detail, internal inconsistency)get picked up.

We do the shop again with a different shopper, and the shopper who did the bad report gets feedback about what wasn't up to standard. They will lose preferred shopper points, or get put on our Do Not Use list. This way, shoppers who don't measure up are identified and not used again.

We require all shoppers to send in their receipts. We do not pay or reimburse shoppers until it has been received. We keep all receipts for 6 months in case of a query. If a purchase is not part of the assignment then we ask for a written quotation, a business card or similar. We do not simply ask them what business was next door!

Our servers are hosted at Netregistry's Global Switch Data Centre, which has the highest levels of security. Data security, physical security, and data redundancy are all covered. Read more about it by following this link to NetRegistry Data Centre

Absolutely. There are daily back-ups with offsite archives of weekly and monthly backups.

No. Since 2004 (when we started) we have had a perfect security record

No. Our systems are all developed in house. We do not rely on any outside company for the development or maintenance of the software. We do not use 'off the shelf' software as we find it limited, inflexible, and some of the reports quite nonsensical. We value the power and flexibility of developing systems to suit our clients and an ongoing enhancement program.

Developing a good questionnaire requires a high level of skills in both questionnaire design and cognitive psychology. It's not as easy as just throwing together a few questions and hoping that gives you the information you want.

We have seen a lot of mystery shopping questionnaires created by companies without the requisite skills, which will never give accurate or reliable information, no matter how good the shopper.

Shadow Shopper questionnaires are developed using techniques to maximise what shoppers can remember. We also start with the end point - the report - in mind. We design the report first, and then develop the questionnaire to give you the information in the report. If you want to read more about this see Methodology .

We have an extensive question bank of 5,000 questions. It's added to every day as our systems are developed in house and are always expanding and enhancements being added.

We have the widest range of question types in Australia. As well as the expected text, radio buttons, select lists & checkboxes we have number ranges, 1 - 10 scales (needed for NetPromoter questions), arrays, List+ & List-, and calculated questions (where the questions vary based on external data).

There are also 'priority' questions, where the priorities that were set in a previous audit come up in the next audit to check progress.

We have an extensive Questionnaire Library, with over 150 questionnaires. As well as 50+ different business areas, some are designed for small businesses (who need more narrative) and some for large business (who will need more statistical and trend analysis.) To find out all about it (Click Here)

Yes. We know that the difference between recognition and recall is important, so we have the ability to 'hide' questions so that shoppers don't see them until they have filled in the factual side of the report. It's a great way to find out customer future behaviour and if they noticed promotions without being prompted.