Mystery Shopping

Mystery Shopping is qualitative market research that utilizes regular customers in your market to anonymously evaluate your guest experience. Mystery shoppers provide an independent, objective assessment of your entire operation using custom criteria specific to your attraction. They relay their experiences as a guest from start to finish, focused on areas such as customer service, cleanliness, safety and loss prevention. The detailed feedback defines what the average customer is experiencing and helps identify to what extent your attraction is delivering on your companies service expectations and brand promises. The findings help identify operational, policy, procedural and training changes or improvements that can be made. The reports also document staff behaviors that should be coached and developed or acknowledged and rewarded.

Industry Fanatics – Amusement Advantage is the only Guest Experience Solutions provider working exclusively with the attractions industry. Specialization creates instant synergy with clients through our understanding of the unique challenges associated with your environment. We work with all types of attractions, including amusement parks, theme parks, water parks, family entertainment centers, bowling centers, skating centers, aquariums, zoos, science centers, museums and other attractions and tourism related activities and facilities.  We don’t work with banks, grocery stores, apartment complexes or anything else not attractions or tourism related.

Proven Results – Our company has implemented various solutions for over 500 attractions of varying size, structure and annual attendance across the US and Canada. Our portfolio of clients includes independent owner operators, franchise locations, small chains and corporate clients with over 30 locations. We have extensive experience working directly with attractions and also with 2nd and 3rd party vendors and subcontractors.

Total Customization – We partner with you to completely custom-tailor a program that best meets the needs of your organization. We incorporate existing employee recognition and reward programs and offer on-the-spot employee recognition and award programs. We use industry-standard and facility-specific criteria to establish your unique evaluation criteria. Our programs are adapted and molded as needed to meet your changing goals and programs.

Shopper Scrutiny – The Independent Contractor shoppers utilized are screened for writing competence, narrative response content, previous experience, attractions interest or experience. Shoppers are held accountable to quality standards and program expectations.  We currently have over 40,000 shoppers registered to conduct projects with us.

Technology – Our use of technology, including custom web-reporting capabilities, digital photos and audio files of recorded phone calls are powerful and important tools that enable Amusement Advantage to provide clients with high-quality mystery shopping services.

Timely and Accurate – Results are submitted to you via email within 48-72 hours of the shopper visiting your facility. Results are thoroughly screened by our editors for validity, clarity and completeness. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed!

Mystery Shopping Programs

Amusement Advantage provides many types of mystery shopping programs to monitor guest satisfaction, cleanliness, safety, and loss prevention.

Onsite Guest Experience

Onsite Guest Experience mystery shopping is qualitative market research that utilizes regular guests in your market to anonymously evaluate your guest experience. Mystery shoppers provide an independent, objective assessment of your entire operation using custom criteria specific to your attraction. They relay their experiences as a guest from start to finish, focused on areas such as service, cleanliness, safety, and loss prevention. The detailed feedback defines what the average guest is experiencing and helps identify to what extent your attraction is delivering on your company’s service expectations and brand promises. The findings help identify operational, policy, procedural and training changes or improvements that can be made. The reports also document staff behaviors that should be coached and developed, or acknowledged and rewarded.

Group Sales

Group Sales evaluations are customized programs with a special focus on evaluating the process of requesting information and making reservations for any type of group events, group trips, or birthday parties. These evaluations can incorporate phone calls, website requests and email requests along with website content and follow up email responses. All of our group sales shops are conducted by real guests in your market. By utilizing a diverse range of shoppers with different demographics, you’ll receive the widest possible array of feedback. Sometimes different individuals will have different perceptions. Since perception is reality in the world of guest service, it is important to get as many different perspectives as possible. We also enforce long rotation periods to ensure feedback is fresh and unique each time.

Birthday Party/Group Event

Birthday Party and group event shops evaluate the entire process of planning, reserving and hosting a complete birthday party or event at your attraction. You set the event requirements and we handle the rest. Guest feedback surveys and comments cards provide a brief summary of a guest’s experience with hosting a party at your attraction; however, they don’t provide all the details of what transpired, when, and with whom. A guest’s birthday party or event experience starts with a visit to the website and a phone call to the facility and continues through the booking process. Once onsite, your party guests interact with many employees and observe and participate in all areas of the facility. Our comprehensive detailed reports give you the full picture of their entire experience so you can generate valuable positive online reviews along with repeat and referral busin

Reporting / Metrics

Regardless of the type of mystery shopping programs conducted we can provide a wealth of metrics.

Historical Comparison Data:

• Online historical summary reporting
• Custom options for various intervals and comparisons
• Additional custom development at no charge

Industry Benchmarking:

• Compare mystery shopping results with other similar attractions
• Attractions Industry standard criteria comparisons
• Compare public feedback data with direct competitors

Mystery Shopping Analysis

We can also help you go beyond the metrics and provide comprehensive analysis of all the data captured.

Staff Performance Analysis

In depth Staff Performance/Summary Analysis Reports are prepared based upon a series of Mystery Shopping reports.  These reports highlight trends and patterns in employee behavior along with providing employee development suggestions and potential leadership engagement strategies.  The reports can also provide insight regarding guest perceptions and moments of truth from their experience.  An introductory 30-minute pre-analysis call is conducted with appropriate members of the attraction’s leadership team to understand the organization’s expectations.  A post-analysis follow-up call is also conducted to answer questions or clarify statements made in the reports.

Reports include:

• In-depth analysis of mystery shopping reports, including overall strengths and areas of opportunity.
• Outline of employee rankings and behavioral trends, both positive and negative
• Recommendations based on report findings

The number of reports we analyze is up to you and your needs

• Analysis of 3-5 mystery shopping reports can be used to identify trends with current staff and can be used to initiate timely solutions
• Analysis of all reports from one season can help identify larger trends that can be addressed in the off-season to establish long term process improvements.