"Deirdre O'Gara, a well-known estate agent who has been in the industry for two decades, claimed in a text message to her now former client that she only wanted to find out what fees her rivals charged. The firm also insisted that mystery shopping - where businesses hire individuals to act as secret shoppers to gather information about the quality of service - is "common practice". However, while industry experts have said that mystery shopping is common, the events in this case were unusual."
"Lynn Carr, director of operations with Customer Perceptions, one of the biggest providers in Ireland, said: "Mystery shopping is used to measure operational and customer service standards, it is not used to uncover sensitive information, or as a spying tool. "In terms of assessing a competitor's performance, there are certain ethical standards that apply. That [pretending to be the owner of a client's house] would be extremely unethical because the homeowner wasn't aware. That, in my experience, is not common practice.""
Mullery O'Gara arranged for a third party to pose as the owner of a client's south Dublin house to obtain valuations without the homeowner's consent. The firm apologised after the operation came to light and a linked individual's LinkedIn profile was made inaccessible following journalistic contact on September 26. Deirdre O'Gara said she sought rivals' fee information and defended mystery shopping as common practice. Industry experts said mystery shopping measures service standards but warned that posing as an unaware homeowner to assess competitors would be extremely unethical and is not common practice.
Read at Irish Independent
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