Secret View Client Day 2026

On Friday, October 2, clients, partners and other retail and hospitality professionals came together at Pathé Tuschinski in Amsterdam. Alongside our founder Niek Koning, Rick Wegeling from Norah, Marc Kramer from Heineken and Megan Heurter from My Jewellery shared their experiences from practice.

A year of growth and new developments

Niek kicked off the afternoon with a look back at the past year. In 2026, we expect to complete nearly 70,000 mystery shopping assignments, almost 20% more than last year. Since the previous Client Day, more than 20,000 new mystery shoppers have also joined our community. In addition, 92% of our clients stayed with Secret View and we welcomed 31 new clients.

One of the biggest developments for our community was the launch of the Secret View app at the end of August. The app has already been downloaded more than 10,000 times and makes it easier for mystery shoppers to find and complete assignments.

Information security also received a lot of attention over the past year. We are working toward ISO 27001 and NIS2 Supply Chain certification and introduced Single Sign-On for the Secret View dashboard.

At the same time, we continue to build on our international growth. In France and Italy, among other markets, we are expanding our community so we are ready for new assignments in these countries.

Norah: growing with a continued focus on the customer

Norah is growing quickly and now has 123 stores. As the retailer expands, it wants to hold on to what the brand stands for: making women feel truly seen.

Rick Wegeling, Head of Retail at Norah, showed how mystery shopping helps make that brand promise measurable on the shop floor. Each store is visited eight times a year. Six research rounds have now been completed, giving Norah an increasingly clear picture of where the foundation is strong and where there are still opportunities to improve.

The results are actively put to use. Store managers and area managers select concrete focus areas and create an action plan where needed. Norah has also appointed an internal retail trainer who supports teams in areas such as personal attention and service.

Rick also showed what this kind of development can look like at store level. At one store, the Secret View score increased from 52% to 83% over six rounds. During the same period, revenue also increased and ultimately came in 15% above budget.

Heineken: from a quality program to guest experience

Around 500 million Heineken beers are poured in the Dutch hospitality industry every year. At that scale, delivering a consistent experience matters. But how does a guest actually experience the glass of Heineken that is served to them?

Marc Kramer, Channel Specialist Drinks at Heineken, took us inside the Heerlijk Getapt program. Heineken trains more than 10,000 hospitality professionals every year to pour the perfect beer. Heerlijk Getapt now also makes it possible to see how guests experience that quality in practice.

Multiple mystery visits are carried out across 2,500 hospitality locations. The research looks not only at pouring technique, but also at hospitality and atmosphere. Locations that achieve an average score of 80% or higher receive the Heerlijk Getapt recognition.

And that recognition deserves to be seen. Hospitality operators receive materials including a recognizable sign for outside, which Marc described as a kind of “Michelin-style plaque,” as well as materials for inside the venue. This allows them to show guests that their quality and guest experience have been recognized.

In this way, Heineken uses the experiences of real guests not only to identify opportunities for improvement, but also to make strong guest experiences visible and celebrate them together with hospitality operators.

My Jewellery: customer feedback as a basis for targeted training

Over the past fifteen years, My Jewellery has grown into an international retailer with 66 boutiques across the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France. As the company grows, it becomes increasingly important that customers recognize the My Jewellery experience wherever they shop.

Megan Heurter, Retail Development Manager at My Jewellery, explained how mystery shopping has grown alongside the organization. What once started with interns and friends & family has developed into structured mystery shopping research with Secret View, with 18 visits per boutique each year.

The results are actively used by retail, Learning & Development and the training ambassadors within My Jewellery. This makes it clear where extra attention is needed and allows training to be tailored accordingly.

One concrete example is how customers are welcomed and approached. The results revealed differences between boutiques. My Jewellery translated that insight into a shared starting point for the first interaction with customers, while still giving employees room to bring their own personal approach.

Two new developments in the dashboard

We also introduced two new developments in the Secret View dashboard. Comments from mystery shopper surveys can now be translated directly, while the original text remains visible. Especially for clients conducting research across multiple countries, this makes it much easier to understand feedback quickly.

Niek saved the biggest new development for the end of the afternoon. For an in-depth analysis, you can dive into the results in the dashboard right down to individual questions. But not every work situation requires the same information. Sometimes you are preparing for a team meeting, gathering input for a training session or selecting a few relevant insights to take into a management meeting. When dozens or even hundreds of customer experiences have been collected, identifying the most important patterns manually takes time.

With that challenge in mind, attendees at the Client Day got their first preview of Secret View Lenses. With Lenses, we are taking the next step in how research results can be used, without having to go through dozens of reports manually first.

We will keep exactly what Lenses does and how it works under wraps for just a little longer. On Wednesday, we will tell you all about it.

From measuring to using

The three practical stories showed just how many different ways mystery shopping can be used. Norah connects insights to concrete focus areas and targeted training, Heineken uses feedback to make quality in hospitality visible, and My Jewellery uses research results to support the development of its teams.

The common thread was the same throughout. Measurement is only the beginning. The real value comes when feedback is discussed, translated into action and becomes part of day-to-day operations.

A big thank you to Rick, Marc and Megan for sharing your stories, and to everyone who joined us at Tuschinski. We look back on a great seventh edition of the Secret View Client Day!