Unveiling the (biased?) nature of mystery shopping in the tourism service sector

Mystery shopping is the practice of using trained shoppers to anonymously evaluate customer service, operations, employee integrity, merchandising, and product quality. This paper contributes with new insights on the role of mystery shoppers and the potential biases that can characterize their incognito reviews of services. The study is set in the context of tourism services, and uses an interpretative phenomenological approach. Prior studies raised issues about the reliability and validity of the mystery shopping technique, but failed to address this problem from the perspective of the mystery shoppers themselves. In this exploratory paper we address this lacuna, and offer a series of insights for both theory and practice. First, we develop a phenomenological definition of the mystery shopping experience. Second, we describe and classify seven distinct biases recognized by mystery shoppers during their work. We conclude with implications for theory, practice and future research.