The two principals of MSETS are Harvey Gilbert and Helen Turner, both of whom are involved in every training course. They first met in 1997 when they were involved with the MRS subcommittee which first established guidelines for the mystery shopping industry in the UK.

Harvey Gilbert

Harvey has more than 18 years specialist experience in mystery shopping during a career of 30+ years in the market research and information services industries, much of which was spent working with clients in various retail environments.

Harvey has successfully built and sold two mystery shopping companies and has worked in partnership with a great number of clients setting-up and running mystery shopping programs across a very broad range of industries. Harvey has also helped a wide variety of clients to use the results to beneficially develop their businesses and organizations, and to increase service levels to their customers.

Harvey was a founder member of the MSPA Europe board [the Mystery Shopping Providers Association] and was President in 2006/7. He is still on the board. MSPA is the trade association for mystery shopping industry. It has over 400 members worldwide and more than 80 members across Europe. Harvey is also a member of the MSPA Global Council. Harvey was responsible for drafting the MSPA Europe guidelines, which are the foundation of ethical and effective mystery shopping in Europe. Harvey speaks at conferences around the world on mystery shopping and service improvement, writes articles, and is also a mystery shopping consultant and trainer.

Helen Turner

Helen Turner is an independent consultant and trainer currently working mainly in the areas of Quality Assessment and Training, including being a quality assessor for the market research industry. She has over 30 year’s research experience, working both clientside (Gillette, Spillers, Van den Berghs & Kimberly Clark) & for agencies (Sample Surveys/Synovate).

Helen is a Fellow of the MRS & has been a member of the PSC/Standards Board for many years. Helen’s experience has given her an expertise in all aspects of mystery shopping including its use in combination with other data inputs, especially customer opinion research. Helen developed the Mystery Shopping division of Sample Surveys and has been a member of working parties for both MRS and ESOMAR to develop Guidelines in this area. She has recently written a chapter on Mystery Shopping for the new ESOMAR Handbook to be published in 2007.