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Last year the UK’s second biggest mystery-shopping specialist, NOP,

bought the sector leader, BEM. This wasn’t, initially, one of those

made-in-heaven marriages. In fact, NOP managing director Ivor Stocker

blames the acquisition for putting a spoiler on the group’s growth last

year.

’The core NOP growth was as anticipated,’ he says. ’We think we were on

a par with the rest of the research industry. We got dragged down a bit

when we included the takeover figures. BEM did not have the growth in

1997 that was anticipated. In fact it shrank, but is back on song

now.’

Two things stem from this takeover, however. The first is that it has

created a clear market leader. It has also given NOP, with its pounds

67m turnover, a business it can invest in and develop.

Mystery shopping is the smallest area of specialisation covered in these

tables. Only 20 or so companies out of the 90 in this year’s main table

undertake mystery shopping. Their total 1997 turnover from this activity

came to pounds 12.4m, of which NOP’s share was pounds 5.4m.

Hidden market

It must be stressed, however, that this is purely the mystery shopping

turnover claimed by market-research companies in the main table. A

number of motivation companies also do mystery shopping as part of

incentive programmes. A significant new arrival is the specialist US

company Shop ’n Check, which set up in Chiswick two years ago, and also

operates on the Continent.

The image of the typical mystery shopper may be of a retired school

teacher or a housewife earning some pin money, checking out the service

levels in a local bank and then writing up the results in the car park.

But clipboards are being superceded by hand-held computers. Reports

collected today will be modemed this evening, processed overnight and

available for the client tomorrow.

’The future growth of mystery shopping will require more performance

monitoring, more staff evaluation and more customer satisfaction

measures,’ says Stocker. ’The next step will be an index, linking staff

evaluation to customer satisfaction. Staff bonuses will be tied to

it.’

The merger of BEM into NOP is the most striking development in the

sector.

The other surprise is the emergence of The Research Business

International (TRBI) in second place, with a claimed turnover of almost

pounds 1.9m. This again owes something to a merger, or at least the

decision to present joint figures, for TRBI and its sister company,

Maritz Research.

It’s the latter which has generated the mystery-shopping figures, and it

is a company that hasn’t featured in the tables before. Maritz has grown

in three years from two people to 60 full-time staff and a turnover

approaching pounds 6.5m.

In third and fourth places are Research International and WHF

(Southern), each reporting 1997 turnovers at around pounds 1m. RI is a

general research company with a specialist mystery-shopping division,

whereas WHF works exclusively in this sector.

Ian Mills, chairman of WHF, claims last year’s static performance was ’a

bit of an aberration. People say the market this year is buoyant, and we

were 30% up in the first nine months of this financial year,’ he

adds.

Kate Butterworth, managing director of Aba Quality Monitoring, confirms

the view that the sector is growing healthily. Her own company’s

turnover is up from pounds 330,000 in 1996 to pounds 496,000, earning it

a place in the table of fastest growing small agencies (page 45).

She believes, though, that many of the new users of mystery shopping

will become more demanding as their experience of the technique

increases.

Butterworth believes that the demand in future will be for more in-depth

analysis, requiring increased commitment to training and performance

monitoring.

Top 10 mystery-shopping research

Rk  Consultancy                 Consumer    Business-to-        Total

                                 (pounds        business      mystery

                                                (pounds)     shopping

                                                             (pounds)

1   NOP Research Group         3,371,000       2,023,000    5,394,000

2   Research International     1,869,000               -    1,869,000

3   Research International     1,046,000               -    1,046,000

4   WHF (Southern)               974,000          11,000      985,000

5   BPRI                         505,000               -      505,000

6   Marketing Sciences           497,000               -      497,000

7   ABa Quality Monitoring       496,000               -      496,000

8   MSS Marketing Research       367,000          55,000      423,000

9   Sample Surveys               300,000               -      300,000

10  IPSOS-RSL                        N/a             N/a      256,000

USING HIDDEN CAMERAS

Miniature video cameras are one of the latest technologies to be

harnessed in mystery shopping, but not always with happy results.

Ian Mills, chairman of WHF (Southern), says that it proved possible to

build a camera into spectacle frames. This worked well in the sense that

the camera took shots of everything the researcher looked at.

Unfortunately, the black frames were very heavy, with an over-large

centre piece. They had to be withdrawn because the sales assistants who

were being monitored clearly thought the researchers were odd.

An alternative tie-pin mounting, used by a rather corpulent researcher,

took videos mainly of car showroom ceilings.

There are also ethical considerations. Mills, who helped draw up the

Market Research Society’s guidelines on best practice in mystery

shopping, says that staff should know in advance that they might be

filmed, and that the results should be used to develop staff through

training, not for disciplinary purposes. It would be a breach of the

code to film inside a client’s competitors’ premises.

’Video is incredibly powerful if it used correctly,’ adds Mills.

’Unfortunately, it is also extremely powerful used incorrectly.’