2017: Mystery Shopper posts from the on-line Mystery Shopper team

What are Mystery Shopping Services?

A business uses a qualified independent shopping reviewer, to check out the business from a typical customers point of view. Mystery Shopping has been used by companies for many years. Now a lot of shopping is done online. Mystery Shopping services for websites is now the norm. Many companies outsource a website construction to a web developer. That might be all that’s done.

Trust is good, Control is better.

There could be a number of different suppliers are involved. SEO, Marketing, Advertising, Website maintenance, etc. We provide Mystery Shopper Services for business websites, call today, you maybe surprise and how quickly and beneficial our services are.

Small companies don’t usually have the time, larger companies employ consultants. But who knows the results?

We check out a business website as a typical visitor first. Are there broken links, slow loading times, typo errors, forms that don’t work, email addresses that nobody uses, etc. Then we check out the legal requirements of a Cookie Policy document, Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, Copyright, up to date sitemaps and much more.

It is easy just know a website is earning its keep and not turning customers off, complete the simple contact form and take it from there, does not cost anything to ask.

Home Page

What is a “Home Page”

According to Wikipedia, a “Home Page” is the first, start page or landing page from a web search engine. This simple fact makes a Home Page very important, but it is also misunderstood. A Google search for the two words finds 2.850.000.000 results. Not going to be easy find your website in that number. For the normal business person this is not interesting until it is realised that this can affect sales and profits.

Anatomy of a website page

A web page has a number of important parts.

Page name
Keyword
Title
Description
Text content
Heading
Images
Links

Page Name

If your first page is called home-page, home_page or homepage it should be changed because this is one of the most important parts that Google and Bing index. The name needs to identify the company and keyword in some way. This is not the same as the title.

Keyword

If the page name, title, description, contents, images and links contain the keyword then the search engines will understand what the page is about and index it correctly. Each page in a website needs to have a different keyword and only one for best results. For the first page this could be a brand name, company name or product.

Title

The title explains to the search engine what the page contains and should be between 120 to 150 characters in length. Google has change this amount but still good practice to aim around this figure. Including the site name is important.

Description

This describes the page contents, using the keyword and has around 135-150 characters.

Text Content

The information that the visitor will read. For the “Home Page” this should explain what the website is about and provide links or menus to additional information. The recommended minimum is 300 words and should naturally include the “Keyword” 2-3 times.

Images

Images play an important part in the web page layout, making it interesting and informative to the visitor. The image “Alt” tag should contain the page keyword.

Links

There are off page links which connect to other websites and internal links which guide the visitor further into the website and additional information.

Final thoughts on a Home page

If any of these important stages are missing or created incorrectly, then the results for the page will a lot lower down in the search results. This means that the website will not receive the number of visitors it is trying to attract.

These steps need to be repeated on every web page and all the pages linked together with a website site map. If you would like to know more please use the Contact form in the menu bar.

Website Check

What is a Website Check?

The question has possible already turned you off and you are ready to look at something else, but just wait a minute and give me time to explain.

Mysteryshopper is a website the conducts light, medium or extensive reviews of a website from a typical customers view point. This is important because often the webmaster or design agency is very involved with the site to check every part, and does not have time to double check the final results. This can happen to the largest companies and the smaller sole owner website. This means lost business and unhappy customers. To give some examples.

Henkel

One of the worlds largest customer products manufacturers. If you go to their contact link, fill in the form and click send, up comes a form requesting Authentication. So you can go no further unless you phone them and explain their website contact form is not working, should be fun and the answers.

Seriously, it is important for every website to have an independent check at least once a year, when did you last have a check-up of your website or health?

ASUS

Here is another company that has not done a basic check on the primary method used by customers, the contact form. Clicking on “Service” shows a “Support” link. If you know what the product is then ok, then maybe it works ok, but if a general enquiry, not useful, then there is the “Email Us” link at the bottom, only 2 options “Technical Support” and Complaint” Clicking on Complaint and completing the form, always comes an error message as shown.

The form is fully completed, but still the same error message. So this error in understanding customer requirements meant that we are going to purchase a high level PC from another supplier, that’s £700 plus ASUS did not receive. Have you checked every function on your website lately?, you know it makes sense.

Another update on ASUS

It seems that the company will only supply a single language version for each country. So if you are French and live in the UK, you can only purchase an English version, and only from local agents. Companies that have not adapted to the modern world will find the customers go elsewhere.

Website Owners

You have responsibilities owning a website

Legally every website must have certain documentation shown to visitors. This documentation varies from country to country, but the important part is, if the website is seen in a country and the information is not available in one form or another, then problems could arise. The UK has laws and the European Union has laws and many other countries. . The European General Data Protection Regulation makes the protection of personal data a priority. The Mystery Shopper site stores no personal data online.

The Cookie requirement

This document is important as it identifies what happens to user information and how it is used.

The Privacy Policy

Privacy is a hot topic after the revelations of Edward Snowden and Wikileaks.

Terms and Conditions

If you trade on-line then you will need a terms and conditions document published for customers to read. Keep it in the open and do not try to hide it.

This is where a Mystery Shopper visit can help

We visit a business website as a typical first time customer, but with the knowledge and experience to identify and report on missing items, broken links, missing images, slow loading web pages, sitemaps and much more from the customers point of view. You have a great web designer but they can make mistakes, and nobody looks at your website like we do. Take the first step and make contact, it is a lot cheaper than you might think and your customers will thank you as well. To the Contact Form

Need Help?

Sales going down? time to act

There could be many reasons why sales have started to fall. Every business owner knows that customer service, availability and pricing are important. What many owners do not consider is the effect on the business of their existing website.

A Mystery Shopper visit could help

Mystery Shopper visits have been used by many companies for years to evaluate the customer experience to business premises, including stores, restaurants, garages, hotels, shops, pubs etc. Nowadays many companies provide a website for the benefit of existing and potential new customers. Knowing what happens when a visitor arrives at a website is now considered a priority by successful companies of any size.

How an on-line visit works

The average visitor has found your website from searching or followed a link from articles, blogs, business directories or even your published brochures. 8-10 seconds is all the home page has to connect and interest the visitor. Does the page load quickly, is the information laid out in an organised manner, are there easy ways to make contact?, you might think so, but what does a potential customer think? If you don’t know what visiting customers do, you have lost a very important source of business information.

A Mystery Shopper has the knowledge and experience to evaluate a website from a visitors point of view and produce a detailed report on what actions should be taken by the business owner or manager. If you don’t know how many visitors view your website and what they do, you have failed.

What you get

With approximately 61% of the UK public using a mobile device to access the Internet, the most important step is to make certain the company website is responsive. See here for a good description of a responsive website. Apart from potential customers moving on to another website, Google will severely penalise any website in search results if it is not responsive. A Mystery shopper or secret shopper works for you, to independently report on many aspects of an existing company website. This is more than a website audit, this is really what happens when visitors land on your website.

Just complete the simple contact form now and we will respond quickly to your enquiry. Not convinced?, see a YouTube video for the UK market then make contact.

Mystery Shopper

Welcome to Mystery Shopper

We will not be making many Blog posts, most of the work we do is confidential. Occasionally we locate information that might be useful or is on a topic we strongly believe in. This post is about a topic we care about, conservation. The word may sound boring and have no benefits to you or your business. The following video is part of a group that explains in a highly creative manner, how we affect our environment and this affects us. This video from Conservation International is spoken by Julia Roberts, and sponsored by Hewlett Packard.