When a restaurant operator wants to evaluate their operation, it would be nice to be able to read customers’ minds. Secret shoppers, who are clandestine agents sent to evaluate your business, can provide that insight.

One leading secret shopper organization has combined that service with a technological component. Seventeen-year-old Satisfaction Services, Inc., uses customized internet reporting and e-mail alerts in order to keep its clients updated on their performance evaluations at all hours of the day. A competitor, Tell Us About Us, also offers customized solutions.

“We distribute and track all reporting for our Mystery Shop Program via the web,” says Brent Stevenson, vice pesident of client services for Tell Us About Us Inc. “It is managed through our custom made system, the Online Knowledge Management Console (KMC). Within the Online KMC, clients can manage their mystery shop reporting as well as any other feedback/operational program they might have.”

Satisfaction Services’s founder, president and CEO Mike Albert oversees a company with tens of thousands of shoppers worldwide and a vast array of industries to cover. Or as Albert puts it, “any industry you can imagine.” His shoppers and reporting system provide detailed evaluations to retail stores, various service-industry companies, full-service restaurants, and quick-service restaurants.

Albert says one of the toughest parts of making his business work was developing an effective IT system. Although Satisfaction Services has a full-time IT staff, redundant servers, and a regular maintenance routine, Albert says the biggest concern is in developing and enhancing reporting for clients.

Albert’s system allows his clients to peruse detailed evaluations of their operations within 24 hours of the secret shopper visit via a secure web site. Company managers receive an e-mail that alerts them about the completed evaluation as well.

The entire Satisfaction Services secret shopper process is also multi-faceted and more complex than a simple five-question survey of a single restaurant. “This is not your father’s mystery shopper anymore; there’s a lot of formality and focus in it. We want details from the shopper. Clients are demanding, and they very well should be. The managers, if not staff, have bonus money riding on the evaluation, so we had better give them an accurate one,” Albert says.

Satisfaction Services shoppers, who are all part-time, are scattered across the United States and in Guam, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Europe. Shoppers are assigned to match the client. “We understand how the client operates and select shoppers that align with the client’s customer profile,” Albert says. “The company works with each client to create a custom shopping evaluation.”

After the shopper is chosen, trained, and briefed on the client, he/she visits the restaurant for a meal. Most of Satisfaction Services’s quick-service clients want to know the same things: Are the bathrooms clean? Are the doors clean? Is the hot food hot and the cold food cold? Shoppers also look at customer service and wait times.

After going through the checklist, a shopper puts together a brief report on the experience. Satisfaction Services reviews each evaluation to make sure the reviewer’s answers and summary jive before being sent to the client.

Once the report is uploaded to the Satisfaction Services web site, clients use a password to access the material. Clients can access segmented shopper reports that show ratings for individual stores or for an entire region. Store managers can see their scores, regional managers can see regional scores, and corporate bosses can see the aggregate.

The process is repeated on a monthly basis. The more an organization is evaluated, the easier it is for clients to figure what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, Albert says. Combine a large data set with the online tools Albert’s company provides and it is clear how the evaluations can provide crucial information to quick-service restaurant managers.