Questions we get asked
Plain answers. If yours isn't here, ask us and a person will reply.
What is a B2B mystery shop?
- An independent evaluator approaches your company and your chosen competitors as a real prospective buyer and goes through one complete buying cycle: the inbound form, the discovery call, the demo, the quote, and the follow-up. Every touchpoint is logged with a timestamp. You receive a written report that scores each vendor on the same criteria and attaches the evidence behind every finding. It is B2B mystery shopping, done by one experienced buyer rather than a panel.
Is B2B mystery shopping legal in the United States?
- Approaching a vendor as a prospective buyer and reporting on the experience is lawful in the US. The limits are at the edges, and we stay well inside them: we never impersonate a real person or company, never sign non-disclosure agreements under a buyer persona, never accept materials marked confidential, and never record a call without the other party's consent. We are not lawyers, and our engagement terms are reviewed by one.
Do you record sales calls and demos?
- Only with consent. Several US states require every participant's consent to record a call, and we treat every call that way. Our evidence is built from timestamped notes, exported emails, screenshots, and quotes. Where a vendor's own meeting tool records with notice, that recording may be referenced.
Will the vendors you shop find out?
- The evaluator behaves like a credible buyer and leaves the process the way a buyer who chose another vendor would. We do not waste sales teams' time beyond a normal buying cycle. Findings are delivered only to the client who commissioned them.
Do you ever share findings between vendors?
- No. What we learn about a competitor in your evaluation is reported to you. What we learn about you in someone else's evaluation is reported only to them. This rule is written into every engagement.
What does an evaluation cost?
- Evaluations are priced per engagement, by the number of vendors and buyer personas in scope. Quarterly tracking is included in every proposal as the default continuation and can be declined or stopped at any quarter. We reply to every request within 24 hours, and follow with a written scope and a fixed price.
How long does a shop take?
- Typically four to six weeks from scope to report, set by the vendors' own sales cycles rather than by us.
Who runs the shop?
- We select a buyer profile that fits your category and deal size, and you approve it before the shop starts. That one senior buyer then runs every vendor in your shop, start to finish, rather than a panel of shoppers. Our buyers' background is procurement and supply chain for construction, distribution, and software companies, which is why the questions asked on a demo are the ones real buyers ask. We don't publish who, for the same reason a vendor never knows which inbound is the shop; you meet your buyer on the kickoff call.
How is VettedIntel different from win/loss interviews or competitive-intelligence software?
- Win/loss firms interview real buyers after a deal is decided, so they capture memory. Competitive-intelligence software monitors public signals such as websites and pricing pages. Call recording tools show you your own reps on your own calls. VettedIntel records what actually happens during a live buying cycle, from the buyer's side, across you and your competitors at the same time. Keep the tools; our findings can be delivered formatted for them.
What happens to the data you collect?
- Evaluation records belong to the engagement and are delivered to the client. Separately, VettedIntel is building consent-based datasets for AI teams. Only records collected with written data-licensing consent from the participants enter those datasets. Competitors shopped during a client's evaluation are never included.
Where do you operate?
- VettedIntel is a US company. Shops run across North America and in English-language markets; field data collection starts in the US Midwest.