Mystery Shopping in Food and Beverage Operations Through Managers' Perspective

Abstract

Mystery shopping is an evaluation technique that determines the quality of service standards set by an operator with a professional eye and from a customer's perspective. Although mystery shopping is usually customer oriented within the context of marketing applications, it is also necessary to treat this issue from managers’ perspectives and to evaluate the mystery shopper and mystery shopping to understand the situation from the other side of the coin. Evaluating the opinions of managers about mystery shoppers and mystery shopping is important for opinions of the people
who manage the services to be covered within the marketing literature. Within the scope of this study, managers of food and beverage establishments have identified mystery shopping as a necessary practice in order to reach targets and try to maintain quality standards, but there are also some problems in the implementation process that are also expected to be solved. This study consists of two parts which both aim at creating the theoretical infrastructure of mystery shopping in food and beverage business and evaluating managers' opinions on mystery shopping. In the first part, the concept of mystery shopper and the usage areas of mystery shopping are discussed. In the second part, food and beverage managers’ perspectives towards mystery shopping are examined who use mystery shopping in various destinations in Turkey (Antalya, İstanbul, Muğla).