In today's world, there is fierce competition in the tourism sector, and therefore, the businesses need to improve their service qualities constantly and enhance their service processes to meet customer expectations swiftly and effectively. In recent years, tourism operators have been focusing on customer-oriented research and programs to avoid negative results that may be caused by unsatisfied customers. The service quality of tourism businesses is directly based on the performance of the employees; therefore, it is very important to evaluate the performances of the employees and improve service processes to avoid potential problems. Mystery shopper programs show the true picture of the services offered to the guests by the tourism businesses. Therefore, mystery shopper programs are widely used in the world for the evaluation of employees, especially in service-provider companies. The mystery shopper programs provide information on service quality, employee performance, and customer satisfaction, which is used by the businesses to improve or develop their service delivery processes.
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In today’s world, there is fierce competition in the tourism sector and therefore the businesses need to improve their service qualities constantly and enhance their service processes to meet customer expectations swiftly and effectively. In recent years, tourism operators have been focusing on customer-oriented research and programs to avoid negative results that may be caused by the unsatisfied customers (Kotler, 2000). The service quality of the tourism businesses is directly based on the performance of the employees, therefore it is very important to evaluate the performances of the employees and improve service processes to avoid potential problems.
In the hospitality industry, the businesses are required to provide quality products or services and offer them to their customers at expected standards consistently. Providing quality service is one of the biggest challenges that tourism managers will face in the next years; because it is an essential condition for success in intensely competitive, global hospitality markets. There are several tools to measure and improve service quality, as well as the quality recognition mechanisms in the tourism sector (Kapiki, 2012: 53). In terms of tourism businesses, mystery shopper programs are an effective way to measure and improve the performances of the employees. Mystery shopper program is a good tool for the depth analysis of the perceptions of the employees.
Today, the businesses identify their weaknesses by looking through the eyes of their customers and use mystery shopper programs to find solutions to the problems and increase customer satisfaction. For this reason, mystery shoppers operate at the markets, banks, hospitals, restaurants, hotels -in short, everywhere where service is provided- in order to inspect the service of the business. Although, the mystery shopper programs are used in many sectors, they are more widely used in restaurants, banks and retail sectors.
Mystery shopper programs show the true picture of the services offered to the guests by the tourism businesses. In addition to the customer satisfaction surveys and customer complaints, the mystery shopper programs help businesses to identify and solve problems in their services and improve existing service standards. Therefore, mystery shopper programs are widely used in the world for the evaluation of employees, especially in service provider companies. The mystery shopper programs provide information on service quality, employee performance and customer satisfaction, which is used by the businesses to improve or develop their service delivery processes. In this section, the concept of the mystery shopper, mystery shopper programs, process of mystery shopper programs, mystery shopper programs in tourism sector, the advantages and disadvantages of mystery shopper program and problems caused in terms of ethics have been explained and then, the examples of tourism sector have been described.