by Elizabeth Kye

James T. Coyle is the founder and president of one of the most successful mystery shopping companies, Coyle Hospitality Group. With clients like Daniel Boulud, China Grill Management, Barton G Restaurant, and Affinia Hospitality he must be doing something right. A graduate of the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, Jim Coyle’s career path ultimately led him to his entrepreneurial venture starting a company in 1996 that specializes in hotel consulting. Coyle Hospitality Group later expanded to include consulting services for restaurants and bars. Jim Coyle found his niche and now here’s his insider’s account of his career and the mystery shopping industry.

Elizabeth Kye: What was your inspiration for creating Coyle Hospitality Group?

James Coyle: I was a hotel manager at the Radisson Empire, New York. One day a reveal shopper came to me and told me who he was and about his stay. I got his report a month later and my first thought was “This could be done a lot better.” That was my impetus.

EK: What expertise does your company provide clients?

JC: We provide high-end hotels and restaurants measurements of their value propositions that we articulate into our reports. We create a measurement program that evaluates service and performance. Those measurements are then compiled and logged into our database, and it is housed there for our clients to refer to.

EK: How many mystery shopper applications do you receive a month? How many shoppers do you currently work with?

JC: We receive about 1,000 applications a month and we have 700 shoppers registered in our database. We are very small in that regard. We have a significant amount of prescreening involved in the application process to ensure that our clients are getting a reviewer that is also a professional that shops instead of getting a career mystery shopper.

EK: What are the qualifications of your mystery shoppers?

JC: First we look for a demographic match. We also want to make sure the shopper has dined in the same caliber of restaurant we are reviewing. If we are reviewing Daniel then we want to make sure the shopper has dined in a restaurant on the same level as Daniel. It is essential that the reviewer have good writing skills. A part of our application process is a written test on our website. We ask the candidate to name 3 restaurants that they most recently dined at, their best dining experience and why. From this we can judge what type of restaurant they dined at, and how well they can write about a restaurant.

EK: What distinguishes you from other companies providing the same services?

JC: A lot of folks don’t care who their mystery shoppers are as much as we do. They’ll use anyone. Our reviewers are based on referrals from other reviewers. We also use a redundant and parallel fact checking system to ensure that the reviewer report is accurate. We use a scoring system on our reports and the reviewer has no idea what the final score is. That keeps the reporting aspect pure. We have an editorial team that does nothing but fact-check the material. If any material is inconsistent, we go back and ask the reviewer about it. For instance you may have a reviewer who wrote, “the maitre d’ sat us at our table and gave us menus,” this would be inconsistent with many of restaurants we work with as usually the server would present the menu to the guest.

Also you have to be careful with reviewers who only give positive scores. Some do this to reduce their workload, as they won’t have to write any more than necessary. Often the assessments include drinking alcohol. There are shoppers whose guest might drink too much while on assignment. Some shoppers may say something happened that really didn’t. If your recruiting is flawed, you end up getting novices. We have to be careful of who the reviewer is, and we convey our strict Codes of Conduct (which they sign) in advance of any assignments. We have many checks and balances in place to eliminate error. We have a sophisticated rating system in our database where I can see the entire portfolio of any of our shoppers with one click. All these things are in play before our reviewer gets their first assignment.

EK: How do you become a mystery shopper?

JC: Shoppers need to contact the companies directly and fill out as many applications as they can. Any site that charges you a fee to get assignments is a scam.

EK: Do you provide advisory services for your clients?

JC: No we do not give operations advice. My analogy is this, I’m an x-ray technician and the client is the doctor. I provide the slide that shows what’s wrong, the doctor (client) is the one that can fix it. We don’t like to cross that line because we don't work in the operations to successfully implement the changes, the client has to do that. However we can provide our clients with reports that demonstrate when something worked well, and they can use them to possibly improve their services.

EK: Do you ever have to contract private investigators?

JC: Yes. We have to hire a private investigator for all our clients in Nevada. It’s state law that mystery shoppers in Las Vegas need a sheriff’s card and have to work in a licensed private investigator’s office. Mystery shopping and private investigation are completely different. Outside Nevada, private investigators are usually used in the case where theft is suspected. Then we will refer a client to a local private investigator who can assist them if the case goes to court.

EK: What are some developments that you anticipate in the industry?

JC: I think the states will start to regulate mystery shopping in relation to the use of outside contractors. I also think that more companies will create their own mystery shopping system and will companies like ours us for our full-service databases.

EK: Do you have any tips for people who would like to get involved in the hospitality consulting business?

JC: They should take a really long hard look and realize that they will be judging a man or woman who is responsible for feeding their family and maintaining their livelihood. It is an awesome amount of responsibility. It’s that simple.