Ipsos India appoints Sonul Verdia as ED to lead Mystery Shopping

In a recent development, Ipsos, an independent global market research has announced appointment of Sonul Verdia as executive director to lead its Mystery Shopping Services. Verdia takes up charge with immediate effect and will report to Amit Adarkar, chief executive officer, Ipsos India.

Commenting on his appointment, Verdia, says in a press release, “Mystery Shopping has gained prominence from the marketer’s standpoint as it is an unbiased approach of measuring customer service and compliance standards. With organized retailing and buyers’ market, it covers a multitude of consumer touch points – brick and mortar, call centers, websites, social media, employees and competitors – to capture performance.”

Commenting on Verdia's appointment, Adarkar says in a press release, “Ipsos India sees Verdia’s role as highly strategic. Verdia comes with a rich and deep experience in providing counsel to marketers in some of the key competitive global markets covering service, appearance, in-store promotions and product placement.”

Adarkar adds, “The role of Mystery Shopping cannot be overemphasised. The assessment is independent, efficient and agile and provides marketers discovery and service improvement. Which means marketers have a better handle on ROI, which was earlier done basis guesstimates and rudimentary methods.”

Adding further, Adarkar, says, “Mystery Shopping is becoming more specialized now. Apart from the traditional methods of face to face, telephonic and online, it is being done using mobile apps, audio and video recording. Ipsos also provides web and live mystery shops, micro shops and experiential mystery shopping. There are dashboards, drill down analytics, hot alerts and customisable reports, all in real time for timely action.”

Verdia joins from Bare International, where he was the managing director. In his eight years with the company, he held various positions. Previously, he was general manager, India, Middle East and Africa at Bare International.

Verdia started his career with American Express in 2000 and spent a decade across different departments of Corporate Customer Services, Risk Management among others.

An alumnus of IE Business School, University of Madrid, Spain, Verdia holds a degree in Operations and Strategy. He also has a Master’s degree in Commerce from the University of Mumbai; and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce and a Diploma in Software Engineering, from Aptech University.