Title: Mystery shopping considering lifestyle heterogeneity

Authors: Hiroki Takahashi; Shohei Kawasaki; Takeshi Takenaka; Hiroshi Nishikoori

Addresses: Department of Technology Management for Innovation, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan; National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan ' Department of Technology Management for Innovation, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan; National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan ' National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan ' MS & Consulting Co. Ltd., Chuo-Ku, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract: A mystery shopping company accumulates numerous subjective evaluations of services by mystery shoppers in various industries. Mystery shopping companies can develop more sophisticated sending plans of mystery shoppers if they understand the tendency of subjective evaluation of each mystery shopper. We examined the possibility of using lifestyle factor scores to represent the mystery shoppers' tendency of subjective services evaluations. Using multi-group structural equation modelling on mystery shopping data of Japanese pubs, reported by 4,686 mystery shoppers, we demonstrate that their lifestyle factors influence their service evaluation. Our results suggest that considering the lifestyle of mystery shoppers provide a new avenue in understanding mystery shopping.

Keywords: lifestyle; multi-group structural equation modelling; mystery shopping; factor analysis; service; subjective evaluation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2024.137315

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2024 Vol.47 No.3, pp.382 - 403

Received: 04 Aug 2021
Accepted: 08 Dec 2021
Published online: 12 Mar 2024 *

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