mystery shopping

plural mystery shoppings

1. countableuncountableThe practice of using mystery shoppers to evaluate a business.

   Mystery shopping is used by many companies to assess the performance of their staff.

   2005, Alan Marvell, GCE AS Travel and Tourism Single Award for Edexcel

   3 more examples

   Younkers, a midwestern department store chain, carries out 12,000 mystery shoppings a year in support of its Satisfaction Plus quality and productivity effort.

   1990, James L. Heskett, Service Breakthroughs

   We were also keen to learn more about “mystery shopping" (something that was popular in the United States) and how it might help us to provide specific 'service' related information to individual managers.

   1997, Peter Murley, Gower Handbook of Customer Service, page 151

   Mystery shopping is, therefore, classified as an observational marketing research method even though communication is often involved.

   2012, Charles W. Lamb, Joe F. Hair, Carl McDaniel, Marketing

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of mystery shop