Mystery Shopping Association elects Jill Spencer as President

The Mystery Shopping Providers Association has appointed Jill Spencer as President. She is a director of ReactCX, a leading UK customer experience research specialist.

The MSPA is the international association for the mystery shopping industry and has over 450 member companies worldwide, covering market research and merchandising, private investigation, training and mystery shopping services.

“With unrelenting pressure on profits, the retail, hospitality and entertainment sectors call on MSPA members to help them understand what customers want and to test each step of their experience – from entering a store, to selecting goods and services, asking for help from staff, to paying and making a complaint. The MSPA and its members are at the forefront in services and systems to measure, benchmark and report on performance from the experience of mystery shoppers,” Jill Spencer says.

Research can be organised on a regular basis to check service levels, to address specific concerns or to evaluate new premises, promotions and changes in shop practices, she says.

The MSPA publishes an international quarterly report on customer experience, the Net Happiness Score survey: for the latest report, mystery shoppers visited 43,775 stores, entertainment and other venues to assess how happy employees appear to be in engaging with each customer, with a possible maximum score of 100.

“The UK continues to perform relatively well on this measure compared to the rest of Europe, but a fall from 57 to 55 per cent will be a concern for businesses given the close link between high employee engagement, a positive customer experience and a healthy bottom line”, says Jill Spencer.