Mar 8, 2013
Startups & Venture Capital
Mobee deploys mystery shoppers with app
Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal
W. Marc Bernsau
Everybody shops, and an ever-increasing percentage of people have smart phones.
With those facts in mind, Boston-based Mobee is offering an app that aims to be mutually beneficial to stores and their patrons. The app essentially allows anyone to become a mystery shopper, and, in doing so, provides businesses with detailed, valuable data that likely wouldn’t be gleaned from traditional mystery shopper visits.
Launched in mid-November, and with “tens of thousands” of users already, the company built its app on the crowdsourcing model to create a literal smartphone army, CEO Prahar Shah said.
“They can go out across anywhere in the Boston area, collect any type of data,” Shah said. “(They provide) eyes and ears as an extension of the auditing and monitoring that store owners are doing.”
Currently the app is only available on Apple iOS, but the company expects to release an Android version soon. The app is currently mostly focused on quick-service, franchised restaurant chains within Greater Boston.
Users go on various “missions” at a certain location — their local Starbucks, for example — and rate it on anything from service speed, to cleanliness, to staff appearance, knowledge or hospitality. Mobee doesn’t currently partner with any businesses. But the firm is collecting the data to show how the service works and eventually plans to pitch its service to restaurant chains and other retailers.
With each mission, users collect points that can eventually be redeemed for gift cards, PayPal cash payments, and possibly $1,000 shopping sprees or Red Sox tickets.
“It’s the first of its kind in being an app that pays you,” said Shah, who launched the company in October 2011 with Thibault Le Conte and Jef Chedeville.
Businesses, meanwhile, will get detailed data and feedback they can’t get anywhere else, Shah said.
Missions are available at more than 500 stores, with users collecting more than a half-million data points so far.
Through the rewards that user Lisa Nowak Wilkins of Brookline has earned, the stay-at-home mom has cashed in about $600 in Amazon.com gift cards — in $50 increments — since January, which she uses to buy essentials for her 9-month-old son.
She said she is eager to see more stores included, and she said she could see a trend emerging — people going out “to go Mobeeing.”
Mobee has 10 employees, and is backed by $1.1 million led by TiE Angels, and also including LaunchCapital, Hub Angels and other angel investors.
Shah said he would like Mobee to eventually tailor its service to a retailer’s particular goals and specifications.
To that end, Mobee will soon begin a pilot project with Au Bon Pain to solicit feedback on the app and its capabilities, and they’re identifying other potential partners as well.
Ultimately, the app’s popularity has surpassed nearly all the goals the company set for it, and at this point, the company’s founders are thinking way beyond Boston, quick-serve restaurants, and mystery shopping. The model could be applied to retail merchandising, market research and field intelligence, Shah said, and could be deployed nationally and internationally. The company already has a waiting list of thousands of users in different U.S. cities, he said.
“Not in our wildest dreams could we have assumed that this would be so popular,” Shah said.
Original story link.
With those facts in mind, Boston-based Mobee is offering an app that aims to be mutually beneficial to stores and their patrons. The app essentially allows anyone to become a mystery shopper, and, in doing so, provides businesses with detailed, valuable data that likely wouldn’t be gleaned from traditional mystery shopper visits.
Launched in mid-November, and with “tens of thousands” of users already, the company built its app on the crowdsourcing model to create a literal smartphone army, CEO Prahar Shah said.
“They can go out across anywhere in the Boston area, collect any type of data,” Shah said. “(They provide) eyes and ears as an extension of the auditing and monitoring that store owners are doing.”
Currently the app is only available on Apple iOS, but the company expects to release an Android version soon. The app is currently mostly focused on quick-service, franchised restaurant chains within Greater Boston.
Users go on various “missions” at a certain location — their local Starbucks, for example — and rate it on anything from service speed, to cleanliness, to staff appearance, knowledge or hospitality. Mobee doesn’t currently partner with any businesses. But the firm is collecting the data to show how the service works and eventually plans to pitch its service to restaurant chains and other retailers.
With each mission, users collect points that can eventually be redeemed for gift cards, PayPal cash payments, and possibly $1,000 shopping sprees or Red Sox tickets.
“It’s the first of its kind in being an app that pays you,” said Shah, who launched the company in October 2011 with Thibault Le Conte and Jef Chedeville.
Businesses, meanwhile, will get detailed data and feedback they can’t get anywhere else, Shah said.
Missions are available at more than 500 stores, with users collecting more than a half-million data points so far.
Through the rewards that user Lisa Nowak Wilkins of Brookline has earned, the stay-at-home mom has cashed in about $600 in Amazon.com gift cards — in $50 increments — since January, which she uses to buy essentials for her 9-month-old son.
She said she is eager to see more stores included, and she said she could see a trend emerging — people going out “to go Mobeeing.”
Mobee has 10 employees, and is backed by $1.1 million led by TiE Angels, and also including LaunchCapital, Hub Angels and other angel investors.
Shah said he would like Mobee to eventually tailor its service to a retailer’s particular goals and specifications.
To that end, Mobee will soon begin a pilot project with Au Bon Pain to solicit feedback on the app and its capabilities, and they’re identifying other potential partners as well.
Ultimately, the app’s popularity has surpassed nearly all the goals the company set for it, and at this point, the company’s founders are thinking way beyond Boston, quick-serve restaurants, and mystery shopping. The model could be applied to retail merchandising, market research and field intelligence, Shah said, and could be deployed nationally and internationally. The company already has a waiting list of thousands of users in different U.S. cities, he said.
“Not in our wildest dreams could we have assumed that this would be so popular,” Shah said.
Original story link.
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