Michael Mallett ’88, president and CEO of Corporate Research International (CRI), has grown his mystery shopping company into a $16 million enterprise based in downtown Findlay.  His use of technology revolutionized the mystery shopping industry in the late 1990s, with his company now one of the top two or three in the country.  Internet-based operations have allowed him to expand abroad to the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey, India and beyond to Asia and South America, with a small army of more than 600,000 mystery shoppers worldwide.  Mystery shoppers are sent to client locations to report on requested information such as customer service, employees’ product knowledge, wait times, cleanliness, etc. 

Mallett has developed an entrepreneurial style and a management team that adapts to change well and responds quickly to market conditions.  Hallmarks of the company are creativity and problem solving. Sometime solutions are simple, such as hiring only people who can speak English as mystery shoppers in other countries, so the company doesn’t need to translate all of its operations into another language for every new country it adds. 

Sometimes the answer is something new. “We turn away millions of dollars of business a year from small businesses,” Mallett remarked, saying that CRI currently doesn't work with companies with fewer than 500 to 1,000 locations. “So if someone calls us up, and they have 10 Burger Kings, we can't help them. In fact, they can't find anyone to help them,” Mallett said.  CRI is launching a new product to serve these small businesses called eyeonyourbusiness.com.  Eyeonyourbusiness.com is a self-service mystery-shopping tool that took two years to develop.  Small businesses can custom-design their own survey forms from a template offered and place their orders over the Internet.  “Our shoppers do the work, we report back to them the data, they can graph all the data online, and we never talk to these clients,” Mallett explained.

In another new venture, Mallett is partnering with the University's College of Business to develop a business called Real Customer Ratings.  It will use detailed surveys to determine customer service levels and trend analysis. Mallett matched funds from the Vernon E. Garner Endowed Fund for Entrepreneurial Excellence to help set up the student-run business on campus and to pay top business students who interview for the management positions. Students begin as sophomores and stay with the company until graduation, ensuring continuity. “What a great opportunity to graduate from college and have three years’ experience running a business!” Mallett said.

Mallett has plans to add more services through CRI, such as a customer insights division analyzing client data, and has a goal to develop within 10 years a full-service program to help clients develop customer loyalty.

He and his wife, Anne (Harrington ’89) have two children, Alexandria and Van, and live in Findlay, where they enjoy the small-city lifestyle that allows them to have a fulfilling family life.