Communications sector retail sales practices review – Secret Shopper Project

The CRTC is seeking to engage a Contractor that can collect high quality data using reasonable and believable
scenarios. The project must use a mixed-methods research design that gathers both quantitative and
qualitative data from secret shoppers about how telecommunications and broadcasting products and/or
services (jointly referred to as Communications Services) are sold.
The purpose of the Secret Shopper Project is to gather factual information to further inform the CRTC’s ongoing
assessment of misleading or aggressive sales practices and the priority setting of solutions identified in the
CRTC’s Report on Misleading or Aggressive Communications Retail Sales Practices, as well as to measure
compliance with the industry codes of conduct created by the CRTC.
To ensure consistency in methodology from year to year, this Secret Shopper Project is to continue the secret
shopper work undertaken on behalf of the CRTC in 2019-2020 and 2021-2022. That is, to provide yearly insights
to the CRTC from a nationwide secret shopper exercise examining the sales practices of Canada’s largest
communications service providers (Service Providers). The CRTC requires a Contractor to design and
implement this Secret Shopper Project while operating within the CRTC requirements as set out in this
Statement of Work.