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Mystery Shopper: Affordable Competitive Intelligence


To put competitive intelligence in simple to understand terms, I want to present the mystery shopper. Everyone has heard of mystery shopping. Not many have related this practice to competitive intelligence though. Really, this is what I would consider a very ethical form of intelligence gathering, especially if conducted like in the following scenario:

A manufacturer of skateboard decks hires a mystery shopper to hit up some shops that carry their product and also those of their competition. This hired gun is not very well versed in skateboards. This is a good thing. Sometimes it is hard to “play dumb.” The gatherer of competitive intelligence wants to get educated...What better test of the sellers understanding of their products pros and cons? They will also get an ear full of word-on-the-street information on how they compare to their competition.

If the mystery shopper is an elite skateboarder, and maybe even sponsored by some equipment manufacturers, his own fame and recognition would cause his cover to be blown as soon as he steps through the door. However, if he can pass undetected (good acting skills are a must) he will be better suited to get more detailed comparisons. He can steer the conversation and even stir up debate over the different minute aspects of the different brands. If the shop owner is knowledgeable, then the mystery shopper who also knows his stuff could get a better load of actionable intel.

If a start-up company with a tight budget is going to put anything into competitive intelligence, hiring a mystery shopper will get them quite a bit of ethical bang for their competitive intelligence buck. Companies don’t have to be little start-ups or in the fortune 500 class in order to benefit from knowing how they are being compared to their competition. Any business can benefit from authentic feedback.

I say “authentic feedback” because the mystery shopper approach I think gets a more naturally voiced opinion than say, a focus group. Sometimes when invited to give an opinion when you know it is being intently listened to, a person can kinda act like they are on camera. This can cause the person being knowingly and willingly pumped for information get a bit wooden. People can’t help it, it’s a natural reaction.

Mystery shoppers many times can be bought, trading for the products they are researching too, saving the business even more cash when gathering vital information that will keep them ahead of their competition or finding a niche in the industry where they can dominate. Focus groups can be very expensive and tough to organize and manage. The mystery shopper is more efficient.

Mystery shopping has an unethical side as well. In the previous example, the company is getting information about their competition from their customers and retailers, who would probably be willing to cough it up anyway. They are just being illusive about who they are. They aren’t wasting their competitor’s time and money. They’re not getting their info from the competition themselves, like they would be if they pumped their competitors for info by acting like a prospective buyer at a trade show for instance.

Judith Giusto, a self proclaimed corporate spy (unless she is speaking on the record, then she is a competitive intelligence agent for a legitimate agency named Fletcher CSI) used this approach on me and others to glean a boat load of valuable information by pretending to be in the market for major demolition and construction services. She even feigned a desire to collaborate on forming a nonprofit animal shelter that would help support her farm operation that is really just a front for her spying job that she works out of her home at Round Barn Merinos Farm in Ferrisburg Vermont.

Judith is the latest in a string of people who throughout my career dangled the prospect of a good job in my face while they received a lot of valuable brainpower from me in exchange for these empty promises. I have had this problem to varying degrees. I would say about 1 in 8 random bids is a window shopper, or mystery shopper. I am not including the group of customers that come by way of recommendation by another trusted client. These customers don’t pull that. They don’t want to look like a douche in front of their friends. This is why social networking and advertising within these new social networks is changing the way we trade. It’s in it’s infancy, but this word of mouth approach is going to completely overhaul advertising the way blogging has transformed journalism.

As a contractor, I’ve had a lot of my time and money wasted by mystery shoppers of the unethical sort. Unethical competitive intelligence operatives that have crossed my path have the same modus operandi: no intention of actually doing business with you. Builders, or any other contractor, who provide services as opposed to products, can lose big-time when a free estimate turns into a free design consultation. There are ways of doing a little counter intelligence to screen for mystery shoppers who utilize this trick....Stay tuned for “The Value of Competitive Counter Intelligence”

3 comments:

  1. That's terrible, it's not fair to waste someone's time and steal information from someone. The only type of mystery shopping I agree with is when a company wants to check up on their own employees to improve customer service. Calling up individuals to gather intelligence with lies and the promise of a contract is just not fair and they should be ashamed for misleading them.

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  2. My sentiments exactly. Thank you for your comment. I thank The Internet and Social Networking for allowing me the opportunity to "out" these unethical mystery shoppers, a.k.a. Corporate Spies. I'm planning on expanding into a full fledged 'counter competitive intelligence' and 'ethical mystery shopping' site. Judith Giusto makes much more than a living wage for herself, as she inhibits others from making a living at all. She tells people that she has just met that she is "an analyst" -- when you know the truth behind what she really does, on and off the clock, most folks would consider her "an asshole!"

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