One trend of the new century has been that companies have seen the value in getting buy-in for corporate initiatives from dealer organizations having them, literally, buy in. In this case, ConocoPhillips wanted station owners to buy mystery shopping, by the instance - or 'shop' - to get a real sense of the value of the feedback.

The email from Al Goldsmith, VP of mystery shopping at Maritz Research, said: "I just got off the phone with [the ConocoPhillips research dvision] and the feedback on the brochure we developed – "This is the best marketing piece that they have produced." "