IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v7y2015i9p12279-12294d55381.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Developing a Mystery Shopping Measure to Operate a Sustainable Restaurant Business: The Power of Integrating with Corporate Executive Members’ Feedback

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel J. C. Chen

    (Center for Sustainable Business and Development, The University of Tennessee, 311 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4134, USA)

  • Clayton W. Barrows

    (Department of Hospitality Management, Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire, 10 Garrison Ave., Durham, NH 03824, USA)

Abstract

Mystery shopping has been used to objectively measure whether employees follow the visions of a company’s quality service standards. It then creates a feedback loop that allows companies to train their employees to consistently deliver quality services. The main purposes of this project are aimed at examining (1) the overall benefits of mystery shopper projects in the hospitality business through literature reviews; and (2) the importance of how a company can work with an outside agency (consultant, academic institution, etc. ) to develop a mystery shopping program that can enhance and complement ongoing service quality programs. A casual steakhouse restaurant in the Eastern U.S. was selected as our pilot project. The basic concept of using secret shoppers is to have individuals experience real-time and onsite quality of services and record how the mystery shoppers felt about the quality of services and if the employees met or exceeded the company’s standards. For this reason, the authors believe that mystery shopping, especially in hospitality, is an important means of developing and maintaining a sustainable business. While the sustainability of a business is largely dependent upon “people, profits and planet” in the hospitality industry, it is also dependent upon meeting service standards and developing a feedback loop. Mystery shopping programs have demonstrated their ability to contribute to organizations in this regard.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel J. C. Chen & Clayton W. Barrows, 2015. "Developing a Mystery Shopping Measure to Operate a Sustainable Restaurant Business: The Power of Integrating with Corporate Executive Members’ Feedback," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(9), pages 1-16, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:9:p:12279-12294:d:55381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/9/12279/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/7/9/12279/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cristian Valentin HAPENCIUC & Pavel STANCIU & Mihai COSTEA, 2014. "Integration Of The Sap Concept In The Employee Assessment Of Travel Agencies In Suceava County Through Mystery Shopping Type Methods," Revista de turism - studii si cercetari in turism / Journal of tourism - studies and research in tourism, "Stefan cel Mare" University of Suceava, Romania, Faculty of Economics and Public Administration - Economy, Business Administration and Tourism Department., vol. 17(17), pages 22-29, June.
    2. Hesselink, M. & van Iwaarden, J.D. & van der Wiele, A., 2004. "Mystery shopping: A tool to develop insight into customer service provision," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2004-082-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    3. Alan M. Wilson, 1998. "The Use of Mystery Shopping in the Measurement of Service Delivery," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 148-163, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eger, Ludvík & MiÄ Ã­k, Michal, 2017. "Customer-oriented communication in retail and Net Promoter Score," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 142-149.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Block, Sidney T. & Friebel, Guido & Heinz, Matthias & Zubanov, Nick, 2022. "Mystery Shopping as a Strategic Management Practice in Multi-Site Firms," IZA Discussion Papers 15599, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Julián Chaparro-Peláez & Emiliano Acquila-Natale & Ángel Hernández-García & Santiago Iglesias-Pradas, 2020. "The Digital Transformation of the Retail Electricity Market in Spain," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Murto, P. & Jalas, M. & Juntunen, J. & Hyysalo, S., 2019. "Devices and strategies: An analysis of managing complexity in energy retrofit projects," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Estebania Teyeliz Martínez-Jiménez & Julie Le Gallo & Enrique Pérez-Campuzano & Alonso Aguilar Ibarra, 2022. "The effects of land price in the peri-urban fringe of Mexico City: Environmental amenities for informal land parcel purchasers," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(1), pages 222-241, January.
    5. Lai-Yu Cheng & Chih-Wei Yang, 2013. "Conceptual analysis and implementation of an integrated CRM system for service providers," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 7(2), pages 307-328, June.
    6. Francesca Checchinato & Lala Hu & Tiziano Vescovi, 2013. "The communication of foreign products in China through the store: an empirical analysis," The International Journal of Economic Behavior - IJEB, Faculty of Business and Administration, University of Bucharest, vol. 3(1), pages 41-57, December.
    7. Ulf Schrader, 2006. "Ignorant advice – customer advisory service for ethical investment funds," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 200-214, May.
    8. Hesselink, M. & van der Wiele, A., 2003. "Mystery Shopping: In-depth measurement of customer satisfaction," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2003-020-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    9. Matthews, Lindsay & Lynes, Jennifer & Riemer, Manuel & Del Matto, Tania & Cloet, Nicholas, 2017. "Do we have a car for you? Encouraging the uptake of electric vehicles at point of sale," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 79-88.
    10. Blessing, Gerald & Natter, Martin, 2019. "Do Mystery Shoppers Really Predict Customer Satisfaction and Sales Performance?," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 47-62.
    11. I. Eskytė, 2019. "Disabled People’s Vulnerability in the European Single Market: The Case of Consumer Information," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 521-543, December.
    12. Eger, Ludvík & MiÄ Ã­k, Michal, 2017. "Customer-oriented communication in retail and Net Promoter Score," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 142-149.
    13. Alessandro Bonadonna & Simona Alfiero & Massimo Cane & Edyta Gheribi, 2019. "Eating Hamburgers Slowly and Sustainably: The Fast Food Market in North-West Italy," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-14, April.
    14. Murto, Pekka & Jalas, Mikko & Juntunen, Jouni & Hyysalo, Sampsa, 2019. "The difficult process of adopting a comprehensive energy retrofit in housing companies: Barriers posed by nascent markets and complicated calculability," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 955-964.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:7:y:2015:i:9:p:12279-12294:d:55381. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.