A mystery shopping program is an essential tool that businesses can’t afford to leave out of the equation when it comes to optimizing the restaurant customer experience.
Restaurants are typically known for their food, since it is, of course, their product. However, the atmosphere, the service, and the interactions are just as much of a deciding factor for whether patrons will return. Therefore, understanding the state of restaurant customer experience—through CX evaluation methodologies including mystery shopping—can be a huge boost to their bottom line.
In this article, we’ll explore the key differences between customer experience (CX) and restaurant customer experience. We’ll also show the varied benefits of restaurant mystery shopping, how it works, and some best practices and tips for running a restaurant mystery shopping program.
The Importance of Restaurant Customer Experience
In the post-pandemic world, the restaurant industry is facing internal competition that is unapologetically fierce. According to recent statistics, Americans are eating out more than ever—with restaurants taking 56% of the family food dollar. Since customers are out to eat with more than half their budget, there’s a lot of cash at stake. Restaurant customer experience is often the deciding factor, so businesses must step up on this front if they want to survive.
However, optimizing CX is currently its own challenge. Turnover rates in the restaurant industry are at an all-time high of 80%, meaning businesses are dumping funds and efforts into hiring and re-hiring… and CX is likely to suffer in the transitions.
With all this in mind, it’s more important than ever to take restaurant customer experience seriously.
Mystery Shopping and the Restaurant Customer Experience
There are plenty of ways to improve the restaurant customer experience through various CX evaluation methodologies. However, undeniably, the best way is through mystery shopping.
Mystery shopping gives business owners and executives an inside look at their restaurant customer experience and provides objective, data-driven, and actionable intelligence. That way, they can make strategic decisions for improvement and optimization on even the smallest aspects of the experience.
How does it work? Restaurant mystery shopping functions similarly to CX evaluations in other industries, like retail. Skilled evaluators act as customers to assess service, compliance, operational standards, and more—without letting staff know what they’re doing or who they are. This allows for more authentic results and a stronger data set.
Additionally, they can test specific aspects of the restaurant customer experience with targeted objectives and specific scenarios in mind. Here are a few common mystery shop focus areas:
- Speed and efficiency of service
- Staff professionalism and adherence to training
- Food quality and consistency
- Cleanliness and ambiance
- Compliance with identification checks and other legal elements
After a shop, evaluators provide reports that detail what they found. They’ll often use pre-determined criteria or rubrics for these reports to maintain a standardized, high-quality outcome every time.
The Benefits of Mystery Shopping for Restaurants
Once business owners and executives receive reports that detail the highlights and problem areas of their restaurant customer experience, it’s time to make a move.
To that end, here are some ways that mystery shopping data can help restaurants refine their CX:
- Identifying Pain Points: Although there’s no accounting for the unpredictability of individual customers, restaurants should provide a pain-free and enjoyable experience to the best of their ability. Thus, any current pain points should be ameliorated as soon as possible. For example, an evaluator may identify issues like long wait times on certain dates, underwhelming customer service, or poorly-maintained facilities. The restaurant can then directly address those issues—whether by having more staff on hand during busy times, improving training, or renovating buildings.
- Testing New Initiatives: Trying something new is bound to attract some fresh attention, especially for returning customers. But determining the success of a recent change is essential to decide if it should become a permanent fixture. A mystery shop program can help restaurants discover how the initiative is received by customers. Perhaps it has some initial popularity that’s short-lived, and should be retired or only return seasonally. Without hard, objective data from a restaurant customer experience evaluation, it can be challenging to weigh its return on investment (ROI).
- Fostering Accountability: The best way to maintain high standards is to incorporate integrity and accountability into a company’s philosophies. The same is true for the restaurant business. Regular evaluations can encourage employees and managers to consistently meet brand standards. As stated earlier, this is especially beneficial in an industry with such a high turnover rate.
Specific Benefits for Multi-Location Chains
Although these applications can benefit restaurants of any size, mystery shopping is particularly beneficial for chains and franchises. After all, owners and executives can’t be everywhere at once.
To that end, here are several additional benefits of restaurant customer experience evaluations that apply more as a brand grows in size and reach:
- Compliance Across Locations: If a restaurant is doing well and decides to branch out, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. In fact, doing more of the same in another place will encourage customer confidence and loyalty. With targeted mystery shops, restaurants can ensure that each location operates with the same branding across every touchpoint.
- Staff Onboarding and Ongoing Training: To maintain compliance and standards across locations, it’s important to ensure that staff members at every restaurant follow the same training protocols. This enables more consistent operations across the board, even from the get-go. Mystery shops can check for this as well, and suggest improvements to streamline training for the future.
- Small-Scale Experiments, Large-Scale Results: With multiple locations, restaurants have the capacity to test new initiatives in just one spot to determine their potential early on—before they apply it across the board. By using targeted mystery shops, they can get an early look at how well a new product or strategy is received. Then, with this strategic data, they can make the decision to run with it or leave it behind. This minimizes potential losses and capitalizes on successes.
While small or single-location restaurants can still benefit from CX evaluations, it’s clear that the bigger they get, the better ROI they receive.
3 Best Practices for Implementing a Mystery Shopping Program
While these are a few ways mystery shopping can benefit the restaurant customer experience, they demonstrate just how beneficial it can be. However, there are a few best practices that can allow restaurants to get the most out of a mystery shopping program.
Firstly, take the time to customize the program. While generic CX evaluations can still provide great data, a tailored rubric will generate even better results. Businesses that align evaluations with specific business goals, like upselling or drive-thru efficiency, can get more precise results, leading to stronger strategizing outcomes.
Another way to optimize ROI is to balance the mystery shopping schedule. One-off evaluations can provide a baseline of information, but they won’t gauge improvement unless follow-up evaluations occur. Similarly, scheduling a mystery shop immediately after launching a new initiative will give only one quick impression of the restaurant customer experience at that point. The most effective mystery shopping programs conduct visits at regular intervals. This allows them to monitor progress over time and ensure continuous improvement. Plus, it allows restaurants to catch and resolve new issues as they arise—before they turn into bigger problems.
It’s also important to remember that both quantitative and qualitative data are required to provide a comprehensive evaluation. Effective CX evaluation programs use both numerical scores and written feedback. With just hard data, businesses can see measurable change—but tend to lose valuable nuance. On the other hand, when opinions and impressions are the only metric, major trends could be overlooked.
Get the Best ROI on Your Restaurant Customer Experience
While managing a mystery shopping program is objectively beneficial, there is one way to get the most out of your restaurant customer experience—and that’s by working with the right CX agency.
When you team up with IntelliShop, you get more than a CX expert. You get a brand partner that will help you evaluate and elevate your CX at every touchpoint, through every channel.
- Our nationwide network of skilled evaluators conduct high-quality mystery shops that result in data you can rely on.
- We’ll check for brand consistency to ensure that each location maintains the same level of excellence for your customers.
- You can even leverage your restaurant customer experience and our intelligence to create a distinct competitive advantage.
We offer a variety of customizable CX solutions, including loss prevention, auditing, and even online review management. You can trust that your restaurants are in good hands—and providing your patrons with the best you can give them, every time.
Learn more about what it means to partner with IntelliShop and get started today.
Customers Will Be Eating Out of Your Hands
An outstanding restaurant customer experience doesn’t just happen—it’s the result of deliberate effort, continuous evaluation, and a commitment to excellence. Mystery shopping serves as a powerful tool for restaurants, particularly those with multiple locations, to uncover valuable insights about their operations, customer service, and overall dining experience.
From identifying pain points to testing new strategies, mystery shopping empowers business owners and executives to refine every touchpoint of the customer journey. For large restaurant chains, the benefits are amplified. Ensuring consistent brand experiences across all locations maximizes ROI and reinforces customer trust and loyalty.
By partnering with a CX agency like IntelliShop, restaurants can unlock the full potential of mystery shopping, leveraging data to drive improvement and create a competitive edge. After all, a great restaurant customer experience isn’t just good for business—it’s the secret ingredient to long-term success.
