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Once upon a time, the only equipment you needed for market research was a 1)brisk manner, a clipboard and a supply of HB pencils. Recently, however, we have seen the rise of the all-seeing yet anonymous mystery shoppers. They 2)pose as innocent customers, yet in reality they are on a 3)reconnaissance mission for the management.
These 4)undercover 5)operatives have become so common in the property world that some estate agents now spend half their lives wondering if the 6)prospective client in front of them is a 7)bona fide buyer or the carpet-level equivalent of a 8)spy in the sky.
9)Giveaway signs of a mystery shopper are not so much a fake moustache and dark glasses but a certain 10)wobbliness when asked where they live, how many children they have and whether they are free tomorrow to view a property. That, and 11)scribbling frantically on a 12)notepad when they think the agent’s not looking.
All of a sudden, though, mystery shoppers have become a whole lot harder to spot. This is thanks to the introduction of micro-13)surveillance technology which enables them to record the entire proceedings on film, undetected.
“I can’t possibly reveal to you where we hide our cameras, or exactly what they look like,” says Michelle Tempest, whose company, Pulse, carries out mystery-shopping missions. They work on behalf of leading estate agents as well as a range of housing developers to check the quality of services offered to potential and existing customers. “All I can tell you is that filming equipment these days can be concealed in all sorts of places: handbags, baseball caps and even 14)Mont Blanc pens.”
And it’s not just 15)set piece conversations in the sales agent’s office that today’s mystery camera operators seek to capture. They can also 16)turn their hand to 17)action sequences, where they record the helpfulness of those showing them around a property or a housing development.
As well as being 18)issued with James Bond-type surveillance equipment, they are also given cover names, identities, a special mobile phone number and email address with which to 19)field follow-up calls.
“Our mystery shoppers come in three different kinds,” says a spokeswoman for retirement developers 20)McCarthy and Stone, who use the technique to keep staff 21)up to scratch. “They can be an elderly customer on their own, an elderly customer accompanied by a younger family member, or a family member seeking property for an elderly relative. And the people who carry out the mystery shops for us are, in the main, 22)Equity members.”
Yes, sales agents of Britain, if you think that customer looks familiar, it may well be you’ve glimpsed them 23)hovering in the background in the 24)Rovers Return or lying bloodstained on a 25)stretcher in 26)Holby City.
“We have a huge choice of in-between-jobs actors on our 27)books,” says Tempest. “They come in all ages and sizes—our oldest is 72, our youngest 19. Most are what you would call 28)character actors, who are used to taking on a completely different identity. After all, it’s important that they get their story 100 per cent right and are convincing in their role. We soon see if they aren’t, of course, because we get to watch the video.
“Believe it or not, the work can be quite tiring. Not only does the performance take it out of you, there’s quite a lot of travelling involved. You can’t have the same person covering the same area all the time or they’d soon get recognised. So we limit our mystery shoppers to just three jobs a day.”
That said, the work doesn’t have to be 29)draining if you do it only occasionally. “I do my mystery shopping either during my lunch hour or in the evenings after work,” says 45-year-old Avis Cowell, who works for Mystery Shoppers Ltd. The firm has 1,500 30)regulars and 200,000 31)occasionals on its books.
“My task is to go into an estate agent’s and register, pretending I’m looking for, say, a two-bedroom flat. I assess the level of customer service I receive and the efficiency or otherwise of the follow-up. Some agents are very good and others not so good. I visited a place the other day and got completely ignored by the agent, who was clearly on a personal phone call.”
This raises the question of what happens to the employee when Avis’s report comes out. 32)Cue the sound of estate agents hastening to 33)reassure staff. Because although agencies are obliged to inform their employees that they may at some point be mystery shopped, they don’t want them to feel in constant fear for their jobs.
“It’s not meant to be a 34)witch hunt,” stresses Lindsay Cuthill, south-west London manager for 35)Savills. “We don’t do a mystery shop and then start the 36)Spanish Inquisition.”
Robert McLaughlin, regional sales director for 37)Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, agrees. “It’s important always to focus on the positive outcomes and to give praise for 38)exemplary service,” he says. So, rather than forcing staff to watch video 39)nasties of themselves, estate agencies prefer to highlight possible areas of improvement in procedures, rather than people.
The general 40)consensus among property sales agents is that mystery shopping 41)unearths little 42)nuggets of information which can give one company that vital 43)edge.
“Where I work, in 44)Islington, there are at least a dozen rival agents in the same streets, all competing for the same work,” says Christian Thomas of the north London agents Currell. “If you want to know why we use mystery shoppers, just look out of our front window.”
So here is a tip: the next time you go into an estate agent’s, make it look like you have a camera hidden about you or buried in your bag. Who knows, you might even get a cup of coffee while you wait.
从前，进行市场调查只需要凭借勤勉积极的态度、一块写字夹板和几支HB铅笔。然而近来，我们看到越来越多的神秘顾客，他们不露声色，一切都看在眼里。他们伪装成不知情的顾客，实际上是在为管理层开展侦察行动。
这些秘密的卧底在地产界如此司空见惯，一些地产经纪在面对顾客时甚至有一半时间是在思考眼前这位未来客户，究竟是如假包换的买家，还是“间谍飞机的地面部队成员”？
神秘顾客露出破绽的征象并非一撇假胡须或者一副墨镜，而是当他们被问到住在哪里、有几个孩子、明天是否有空看房子时所表现出来的迟疑不定。他们还会在以为地产经纪没留意时在记事本上疯狂记录。
突然之间，神秘顾客变得很难被识穿。这有赖于微型监控拍摄技术的引进，它让卧底神“购”们能够拍摄下整个过程而不被发现。
“我不能告诉你我们把摄像头藏在哪里，或者它们看起来是什么样的，”米歇尔•藤皮斯特说，她所经营的“庖斯”公司为顾客执行神秘询购任务。他们不仅为大型地产经纪公司工作，也会为一系列房地产开发商考察员工给潜在及现有顾客提供服务的质量。“我能告诉你的是，现代的拍摄设备可以被藏在各种地方：手提包、棒球帽，甚至是万宝龙钢笔里。”
如今，神秘摄影者希望捕捉的不止是在销售经纪办公室里进行的例行对话，他们还会把系列事件一一拍摄，记录下带他们参观物业房产的那些经纪是否热忱敬业。
除了配有詹姆斯•邦德式的监控器材之外，他们还被赋予卧底姓名、身份、一个特殊的手机号码以及电邮地址，以便即时接听跟进电话。
“我们的神秘顾客分为三种类型，”养老院开发商麦卡锡—斯通的一位发言人说，他们利用这种方法来使员工保持良好的服务水平。“他们可能是一个单独的老年顾客、一老一少的家人组合，或者一位为长辈物色房产的亲戚。而为我们进行这些神秘购物行动的主要是英国演员工会的会员。”
是的，英国的销售经纪们，如果你觉得某位顾客很眼熟，很有可能你曾经看过他们徘徊在“流浪者之家”旅馆门前，或是血迹斑斑地躺在霍尔比市医院的担架上。
“我们的名册上有大量临时演员可供选择，”藤皮斯特说，“不同年龄段和体型的都有——年纪最大的演员72岁，最小的才19岁。他们之中的大多数可以被称为性格演员，他们已经习惯扮演完全不同的角色。毕竟，能百分百地说出自己的故事并让人信服这一点很重要。当然，我们很快就能知道他们是否够专业，因为我们可以观看拍摄下来的录像。
“不管你相信与否，这种工作挺累人的，不仅仅是因为要用心投入表演，还要到处跑。你不能只让固定的一个人在某个地区活动，否则他们很快就会被认出来。所以我们会限制神秘顾客每天只能接受三次任务。”
也就是说，如果你只是偶尔接受任务，这种工作也不至于使人身心俱疲。“我在午餐时间或下班之后开展神秘顾客的工作，”艾维斯•科维尔如是说，45岁的他现受雇于神秘顾客有限公司。这家公司的名册上有1500名固定职工和20万名临时员工。
“我的任务是去一家地产经纪公司那里注册，假装我想找，比如说，一个两房的公寓。我会评估我接受到的客户服务、经纪的办事效率或是其他跟进服务。有些经纪非常棒，但有的则不太好。有一天，我去了一家经纪公司，那个经纪完全无视我的存在，显然他正在接听一个私人电话。”
这提出了一个问题：当艾维斯的报告出来时，这个员工会面临什么问题？想必地产经纪正抢着发话，安抚员工。因为虽然经纪公司有义务提醒他们的员工，公司可能会遇到卧底顾客，但他们实则不愿意员工长期处于担惊受怕的工作状态。
“这并非什么政治迫害，”林赛•卡特希尔强调说，她是第一太平戴维斯公司伦敦西南区经理。“我们不会先来个神秘购物行动，然后严刑逼供。”
罗伯特•麦克拉福林是金雷•福尔卡德和海沃德房地产公司的区域销售总监，他也认同这一点。他说：“重要的是，我们要长期关注积极的结果，褒扬模范服务。”因此，与其强迫员工看自己在录像里的丑态恶行，地产经纪公司更倾向于强调服务过程中可以改善的地方，对事不对人。
地产销售公司之间的普遍共识是，派遣神秘顾客能挖掘不少有用信息，能为公司带来至关重要的优势。
“在伊斯灵顿我工作的地方，同一条街上就至少有十几家地产公司，全在竞争同样的工作，”伦敦北部地产代理科勒尔公司的克里斯蒂安•托马斯说，“如果你想知道我们为什么派遣神秘顾客，只要朝我们前面的窗户外看看就知道了。”
那么，这是一点小贴士：下一次你走进一家地产经纪公司时，假装自己身上或包袋里头藏着一台摄像机。谁知道呢，也许你等候的时候会有人递给你一杯咖啡呢。
小资料：
What does it take to be a mystery shopper?
卧底神“购”是如何炼成的？
Acting ability: You need not just to assume an identity, but know your character inside out.
A cool head: Yes, you’re clandestinely(秘密地) filming the person you’re talking to, but you mustn’t show any outward signs of nervousness.
A good memory: If you’re operating without a hidden camera, you’ll need to have clear recall of how your mystery shop went.
Knowledge of the subject: If you’re registering to buy a shared-equity(财产价值) or First Buy？ property, you need to have a grasp of how the finances work, otherwise you’ll get rumbled(俚语，察觉，识破).
Versatility(多功能性): It’s not just property assignments you can be given. The clients for whom Mystery Shoppers Ltd work include funeral directors(丧葬承办人), motorway toll roads(收费公路), department stores and car-repair garages.
These 4)undercover 5)operatives have become so common in the property world that some estate agents now spend half their lives wondering if the 6)prospective client in front of them is a 7)bona fide buyer or the carpet-level equivalent of a 8)spy in the sky.
9)Giveaway signs of a mystery shopper are not so much a fake moustache and dark glasses but a certain 10)wobbliness when asked where they live, how many children they have and whether they are free tomorrow to view a property. That, and 11)scribbling frantically on a 12)notepad when they think the agent’s not looking.
All of a sudden, though, mystery shoppers have become a whole lot harder to spot. This is thanks to the introduction of micro-13)surveillance technology which enables them to record the entire proceedings on film, undetected.
“I can’t possibly reveal to you where we hide our cameras, or exactly what they look like,” says Michelle Tempest, whose company, Pulse, carries out mystery-shopping missions. They work on behalf of leading estate agents as well as a range of housing developers to check the quality of services offered to potential and existing customers. “All I can tell you is that filming equipment these days can be concealed in all sorts of places: handbags, baseball caps and even 14)Mont Blanc pens.”
And it’s not just 15)set piece conversations in the sales agent’s office that today’s mystery camera operators seek to capture. They can also 16)turn their hand to 17)action sequences, where they record the helpfulness of those showing them around a property or a housing development.
As well as being 18)issued with James Bond-type surveillance equipment, they are also given cover names, identities, a special mobile phone number and email address with which to 19)field follow-up calls.
“Our mystery shoppers come in three different kinds,” says a spokeswoman for retirement developers 20)McCarthy and Stone, who use the technique to keep staff 21)up to scratch. “They can be an elderly customer on their own, an elderly customer accompanied by a younger family member, or a family member seeking property for an elderly relative. And the people who carry out the mystery shops for us are, in the main, 22)Equity members.”
Yes, sales agents of Britain, if you think that customer looks familiar, it may well be you’ve glimpsed them 23)hovering in the background in the 24)Rovers Return or lying bloodstained on a 25)stretcher in 26)Holby City.
“We have a huge choice of in-between-jobs actors on our 27)books,” says Tempest. “They come in all ages and sizes—our oldest is 72, our youngest 19. Most are what you would call 28)character actors, who are used to taking on a completely different identity. After all, it’s important that they get their story 100 per cent right and are convincing in their role. We soon see if they aren’t, of course, because we get to watch the video.
“Believe it or not, the work can be quite tiring. Not only does the performance take it out of you, there’s quite a lot of travelling involved. You can’t have the same person covering the same area all the time or they’d soon get recognised. So we limit our mystery shoppers to just three jobs a day.”
That said, the work doesn’t have to be 29)draining if you do it only occasionally. “I do my mystery shopping either during my lunch hour or in the evenings after work,” says 45-year-old Avis Cowell, who works for Mystery Shoppers Ltd. The firm has 1,500 30)regulars and 200,000 31)occasionals on its books.
“My task is to go into an estate agent’s and register, pretending I’m looking for, say, a two-bedroom flat. I assess the level of customer service I receive and the efficiency or otherwise of the follow-up. Some agents are very good and others not so good. I visited a place the other day and got completely ignored by the agent, who was clearly on a personal phone call.”
This raises the question of what happens to the employee when Avis’s report comes out. 32)Cue the sound of estate agents hastening to 33)reassure staff. Because although agencies are obliged to inform their employees that they may at some point be mystery shopped, they don’t want them to feel in constant fear for their jobs.
“It’s not meant to be a 34)witch hunt,” stresses Lindsay Cuthill, south-west London manager for 35)Savills. “We don’t do a mystery shop and then start the 36)Spanish Inquisition.”
Robert McLaughlin, regional sales director for 37)Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward, agrees. “It’s important always to focus on the positive outcomes and to give praise for 38)exemplary service,” he says. So, rather than forcing staff to watch video 39)nasties of themselves, estate agencies prefer to highlight possible areas of improvement in procedures, rather than people.
The general 40)consensus among property sales agents is that mystery shopping 41)unearths little 42)nuggets of information which can give one company that vital 43)edge.
“Where I work, in 44)Islington, there are at least a dozen rival agents in the same streets, all competing for the same work,” says Christian Thomas of the north London agents Currell. “If you want to know why we use mystery shoppers, just look out of our front window.”
So here is a tip: the next time you go into an estate agent’s, make it look like you have a camera hidden about you or buried in your bag. Who knows, you might even get a cup of coffee while you wait.
从前，进行市场调查只需要凭借勤勉积极的态度、一块写字夹板和几支HB铅笔。然而近来，我们看到越来越多的神秘顾客，他们不露声色，一切都看在眼里。他们伪装成不知情的顾客，实际上是在为管理层开展侦察行动。
这些秘密的卧底在地产界如此司空见惯，一些地产经纪在面对顾客时甚至有一半时间是在思考眼前这位未来客户，究竟是如假包换的买家，还是“间谍飞机的地面部队成员”？
神秘顾客露出破绽的征象并非一撇假胡须或者一副墨镜，而是当他们被问到住在哪里、有几个孩子、明天是否有空看房子时所表现出来的迟疑不定。他们还会在以为地产经纪没留意时在记事本上疯狂记录。
突然之间，神秘顾客变得很难被识穿。这有赖于微型监控拍摄技术的引进，它让卧底神“购”们能够拍摄下整个过程而不被发现。
“我不能告诉你我们把摄像头藏在哪里，或者它们看起来是什么样的，”米歇尔•藤皮斯特说，她所经营的“庖斯”公司为顾客执行神秘询购任务。他们不仅为大型地产经纪公司工作，也会为一系列房地产开发商考察员工给潜在及现有顾客提供服务的质量。“我能告诉你的是，现代的拍摄设备可以被藏在各种地方：手提包、棒球帽，甚至是万宝龙钢笔里。”
如今，神秘摄影者希望捕捉的不止是在销售经纪办公室里进行的例行对话，他们还会把系列事件一一拍摄，记录下带他们参观物业房产的那些经纪是否热忱敬业。
除了配有詹姆斯•邦德式的监控器材之外，他们还被赋予卧底姓名、身份、一个特殊的手机号码以及电邮地址，以便即时接听跟进电话。
“我们的神秘顾客分为三种类型，”养老院开发商麦卡锡—斯通的一位发言人说，他们利用这种方法来使员工保持良好的服务水平。“他们可能是一个单独的老年顾客、一老一少的家人组合，或者一位为长辈物色房产的亲戚。而为我们进行这些神秘购物行动的主要是英国演员工会的会员。”
是的，英国的销售经纪们，如果你觉得某位顾客很眼熟，很有可能你曾经看过他们徘徊在“流浪者之家”旅馆门前，或是血迹斑斑地躺在霍尔比市医院的担架上。
“我们的名册上有大量临时演员可供选择，”藤皮斯特说，“不同年龄段和体型的都有——年纪最大的演员72岁，最小的才19岁。他们之中的大多数可以被称为性格演员，他们已经习惯扮演完全不同的角色。毕竟，能百分百地说出自己的故事并让人信服这一点很重要。当然，我们很快就能知道他们是否够专业，因为我们可以观看拍摄下来的录像。
“不管你相信与否，这种工作挺累人的，不仅仅是因为要用心投入表演，还要到处跑。你不能只让固定的一个人在某个地区活动，否则他们很快就会被认出来。所以我们会限制神秘顾客每天只能接受三次任务。”
也就是说，如果你只是偶尔接受任务，这种工作也不至于使人身心俱疲。“我在午餐时间或下班之后开展神秘顾客的工作，”艾维斯•科维尔如是说，45岁的他现受雇于神秘顾客有限公司。这家公司的名册上有1500名固定职工和20万名临时员工。
“我的任务是去一家地产经纪公司那里注册，假装我想找，比如说，一个两房的公寓。我会评估我接受到的客户服务、经纪的办事效率或是其他跟进服务。有些经纪非常棒，但有的则不太好。有一天，我去了一家经纪公司，那个经纪完全无视我的存在，显然他正在接听一个私人电话。”
这提出了一个问题：当艾维斯的报告出来时，这个员工会面临什么问题？想必地产经纪正抢着发话，安抚员工。因为虽然经纪公司有义务提醒他们的员工，公司可能会遇到卧底顾客，但他们实则不愿意员工长期处于担惊受怕的工作状态。
“这并非什么政治迫害，”林赛•卡特希尔强调说，她是第一太平戴维斯公司伦敦西南区经理。“我们不会先来个神秘购物行动，然后严刑逼供。”
罗伯特•麦克拉福林是金雷•福尔卡德和海沃德房地产公司的区域销售总监，他也认同这一点。他说：“重要的是，我们要长期关注积极的结果，褒扬模范服务。”因此，与其强迫员工看自己在录像里的丑态恶行，地产经纪公司更倾向于强调服务过程中可以改善的地方，对事不对人。
地产销售公司之间的普遍共识是，派遣神秘顾客能挖掘不少有用信息，能为公司带来至关重要的优势。
“在伊斯灵顿我工作的地方，同一条街上就至少有十几家地产公司，全在竞争同样的工作，”伦敦北部地产代理科勒尔公司的克里斯蒂安•托马斯说，“如果你想知道我们为什么派遣神秘顾客，只要朝我们前面的窗户外看看就知道了。”
那么，这是一点小贴士：下一次你走进一家地产经纪公司时，假装自己身上或包袋里头藏着一台摄像机。谁知道呢，也许你等候的时候会有人递给你一杯咖啡呢。
小资料：
What does it take to be a mystery shopper?
卧底神“购”是如何炼成的？
Acting ability: You need not just to assume an identity, but know your character inside out.
A cool head: Yes, you’re clandestinely(秘密地) filming the person you’re talking to, but you mustn’t show any outward signs of nervousness.
A good memory: If you’re operating without a hidden camera, you’ll need to have clear recall of how your mystery shop went.
Knowledge of the subject: If you’re registering to buy a shared-equity(财产价值) or First Buy？ property, you need to have a grasp of how the finances work, otherwise you’ll get rumbled(俚语，察觉，识破).
Versatility(多功能性): It’s not just property assignments you can be given. The clients for whom Mystery Shoppers Ltd work include funeral directors(丧葬承办人), motorway toll roads(收费公路), department stores and car-repair garages.