Agents from mystery shopping companies are being hired by a lot of firms from different industries today. The firms belonging to the travel, retail and industries that carry out work from home, hire the services of these agents. These agents are also hired by the internet and telephone based call centres to know the grievances of their clients.

A firm might hire the agents to visit their retail outlets which may be a store, a fast food joint, client services wing of a bank, vehicle maintenance and repair centre or any other place specified by the firm. These agents pose as clients to get the real picture of the performance of the sales and public relations staff out there. The mystery shopping companies convey instructions to the agents regarding the factors on which they have to evaluate the performance of the staff and the executives.

The agents might actually have to purchase goods if required to show that they are genuine buyers. The agents have to conceal their identities because if the staff and the executives at the outlet come to know that they representatives of their firm and have come to evaluate and report their performances they might start showering unnatural attention on them which will not give the agent the true picture. They might also take memberships of clubs to assess the quality of facilities given and the member satisfaction felt.

The agents from the mystery shopping companies are hired by the travel industry to assess the client satisfaction being given by their staff. The agents travel on the flights, trains, ships and buses and assess the quality of hospitality meted out by the crew. They report their experiences to the firms that own or run these modes of transportation. The client response that is meted out by the ground staff at airports, at the railway and roadway reservation counters are all observed and assessed by the agents and reported to the firms that hire them.

The agents might also be hired by firms that primarily run the home delivery business to assess the efficiency of the staff responsible for the delivery. The agents sent by the mystery shopping companies order products for home delivery and then estimate the time taken for the delivery, if all the ordered goods are correctly delivered and the condition in which the products were delivered.

When it comes to assessing client satisfaction over the telephone and internet the agents call the public relationship executives of the firms posing as clients. They report to the firm about how the executives presented themselves and whether what they conveyed was useful, accurate, reliable and easily understood by the clients. They also study e-mail responses given by the public relations staff. Sometimes the agents pose as client relations executives and handle their grievances. The mystery shopping companies also appoint personnel to see how the staff responsible for handling internet queries from clients performs. They pose as dummy clients and evaluate the responses given over the online medium.

The agents also directly interview the clients and ask them how they feel about the client satisfaction that they are getting from the client relations staff of a given firm. They either interview the clients over the telephone or face to face. This gives the impression of the client about the firm and what needs to be done to improve the present situation.