Next in Line- The Mystery Shopper

The mystery shopper technique was developed in the 1940's by companies that wanted to know what the customer experience was in their stores. It was started by banks to ensure the tellers were being honest and ethical when dealing with any of the customers. Since then it has evolved to become a popular way of collecting data from consumers and help improve the quality of customer service. Now instead of just making sure employees are representing the company in a good light, they use mystery shoppers to share their experiences shopping in the store. For example, what caught their eye, how they felt about the set up, how the prices are displayed, how many employees were present at the store. As we know in the eye of the market researcher, the customer is an always changing topic. To answer difficult questions like this, the best way is to send a mystery shopper in with these questions in mind and to report back their feelings. The reason they are a mystery shoppers is because if the store knew they were coming in, it would skew the results and feelings of the shopper. When the employees don't know they will act like they normally do. This is a great way to keep control over the experiment. 
I really like this kind of technique because the mystery shopper is a consumer so they are giving genuine insights as to what their experiences are and how they think the company can improve. Like social media, this is market research's form of communicating with the consumers/public.