Why We Are Different Why Our Clients Switched to Service Sleuth The Sherlock Difference Our Shoppers Licensed Private Investigators Why Our Clients Switched to Service Sleuth There are over 500 Mystery Shopping firms, so why Service Sleuth? In the early days of our company, we (the owners) performed many of the shops ourselves. We were familiar with the process; having been “shopped” ourselves during our early years in retail or, later, as managers, being in charge of securing mystery shopping services. We have also worked in restaurants and retail and fully understand what it feels like to be on the business side of the counter. Through this background we became thoroughly familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the Mystery Shopping Industry. Our aim in creating Service Sleuth was to offer a Mystery Shopping operation truly “above and beyond” the other providers. Below are some of the common issues companies have with Mystery Shopping companies, we designed every aspect of our services to overcome and eliminate these weaknesses—right from our beginning: •   Poorly qualified shoppers •   Poorly written reports •   Reports with few or no explanations •   Old reports (of little use to clients) •   Poor communication with the client •   Disorganization •   No opportunity to use results cumulatively or to gather statistics •   Inaccessibility of critical information and statistics •   No quick, easy way to sort, analyze and distribute data •   Poor value Our goal at Service Sleuth, from Day One, has been to avoid these problems. Our newest clients are amazed at the difference and are impressed. <back to top> The Sherlock Difference Are you buried under a mountain of reports? Do you spend hours putting together simple summaries of findings? Does it take days to send out all your reports to the field? Do you have to correct many reports before they are ready to be sent to the field? That’s all over with our Sherlock system. <back to top> Our Shoppers From our beginning in 1992, we knew we needed to be different and better to succeed. We knew that one day we would grow from a few shops to thousands. It was essential that unwavering quality went into each and every report and new client---it was not easy, and cutting corners might have made us more profit but we were sure it would pay off. It has--with extremely happy clients! Our methods to recruit, retain and continually improve our shoppers have allowed us to provide the best mystery shoppers to our clients. It is not easy to become a mystery shopper for our firm. Shoppers must submit a detailed questionnaire with an extensive narrative. This permits us to select the best and most qualified shoppers. Every time a shopper is selected for an assignment, he or she is evaluated for additional skills and specialties. Our shoppers are then measured by a Shopper Performance Rating (SPR). Every shopper has one of these ratings. When an assignment to perform a shop is being scheduled, we access every shopper in our huge database. These shoppers are screened for any specific requirements or demographics necessary to complete the assignment. Once this list is generated, our schedulers have instant access to these shoppers’ past scores and averages as well as direct access into the reports these shoppers have submitted. We then select the BEST shopper (among tens of thousands available) to audit your location. It’s a complex process, but it is done efficiently and correctly to provide the highest quality mystery shopping. <back to top> Nevada Mystery Shopping Service Sleuth is an independent division of Howard Services, which is co-owned and operated by a Licensed Private Investigator that is one of only a few thousand security professionals internationally that holds the Certified Protection Professional (CPP) designation. This PI license is required for mystery shopping in the state of Nevada. We have it! Many mystery shopping companies don't. Mystery shopping companies that do not have a PI license must either perform mystery shops illegally or hire a private investigator that most likely is not an experienced mystery shopper. Because we have this license, it can protect you in the event of litigation. <back to top>