I have mystery shopped for several years. I came across one company by accident and shopped for the other one a couple years ago but recently returned to them.
The goal of mystery shopping is to improve or maintain an excellent customer experience and improve or keep performance standards.
I mystery shopped in popular fast food restaurants and grocery stores, ordered pizzas, inquired about digital cameras, checked into maternity stores, “attempted” to get loans, checked the cleanliness of restrooms in gas stations, and the list goes on and on…
I thoroughly enjoy it but the pay is little. However I am learning a lot about companies and their standards.
Do Mystery Shoppers Really Get Paid? How much?
Both companies have never missed to pay me. And I never had to pay them to get a job. There are lots of scams out there soliciting mystery shopping. The most important rule is to never pay anyone to work for them. If someone wants your money in order to work, it is most likely a scam. Before you give your bank account number or social security number to a company make sure you researched the company thoroughly by reading forums, googling the company and checking in with the better business bureau. Usually rebuttable mystery shopping companies have a website and a business name and are not listed under private names.
The pay varies by jobs, urgency and distance. You get exactly told what you will be making upon completing the job before you accept it. Locations in remote unpopulated areas often have a distance pay attached since they don’t’ have too many shoppers living there. Sometimes mystery shoppers drop a job last minute which often raises the pay for the job, since companies have to have their shoppers shop by a certain deadline. It is very beneficial for you to check in on the website regularly.
You will always have to read a manual and complete a quiz before you take a new job. This way you know what you are looking for while shopping. Once you have passed the exam you are often free to accept that particular assignment again. However sometimes companies require you to do refresher exams for their clients.
Do Mystery Shoppers Get To Keep The Stuff?
Very rarely you will find a job where you don’t have to purchase anything. As a matter of fact your purchase verifies to the company that you completed the assignment. Always keep the receipt. Mystery shopping companies tell you exactly what you can purchase and/or how much they are willing to reimburse you. It’s quite simple if you are going to order a burger from a fast food restaurant or a pizza you are free to eat it after you have inspected or took pictures of it according to the manual. Sometimes you just buy a candy bar or a soda for job verification proving you completed the assignment at the time required. For example you are told to inquire about the Touch Pad in a computer store but then you buy a candy bar or a pack of paper proving you were there. They reimburse you for a certain amount of the paper or for the whole candy bar. There are certain items requested for you to purchase when you shop grocery stores and as listed in the above example you only get reimbursed a certain dollar amount even you may be purchasing additional groceries. The same goes with gas stations. You are still able to fill up your car even so you may only get a five dollar reimbursement. I have found that companies who offer you to keep a high priced product after you tested it are usually scams.
Is Mystery Shopping Easy?
Sometimes a lot of information comes on fast and a good memory or discrete writing techniques are required. Usually you have to remember the name, looks and attire of the person who assisted you. In addition to this sometimes it is required to remember the model or make of a certain product the customer representative recommended to you. There are certain scenarios you have to keep in mind and tell upon being asked.
Discretion is very important. Your job is to blend in with regular customers. Even so you may have a stop watch in your pocket, nobody supposed to see that you are using it. Memorizing how many lanes were open and how many people were ahead of you in every line can be tricky. Finding a way to record it fast and discreetly is very hard.
You also don’t want to look like an inspector when you go through a grocery store or fast food store checking cleanliness. Sometimes it’s hard to discretely scan the store or try to get a name of a representative who just merely looked or smiled at you.
And to be honest there are sometimes people you connect with instantly and you want them to do well and do it right. When I started a couple years ago it was hard for me not to help someone out or prompt a person to say the right thing like advising me that they are not on commission or things like that. I had to learn that my job is to improve customer experience for everyone and that I am not spying or failing people I simply report on what had happened.
Creating your report without judgment can be hard for some people. The client doesn’t know what nice or rude means. When you write: “He was really nice”, doesn’t ad anything to your evaluation. But when you report: the Customer Service Representative smiled upon entering the store and immediately asked to assist me. He/ she listened to my entire questions and recommended that product to serve my needs. That will help him/her. The same goes for rude. If you write: “The Customer Service Representative almost run over me trying to get out of the door. ” Then they know what rude means.
You have to deal with deadlines and timely submitting of evaluation is necessary regardless of your schedule. It is a job.
What Are The Requirements of Mystery Shopping?
We are living in a digital age and a computer with internet access is required for all mystery shopping companies I have come across. A scanner is a big plus since you can send in your store receipts quickly and can keep them on your computer for six months. More and more companies what photos of their product produced or displayed by the store. It is hard to get mystery shopping jobs without a good digital camera especially revealed shops.
Who should be a Mystery Shopper?
Anyone can be a mystery shopper who pays attention to detail and can recall manuals and standards in the store. If you have a desire to improve customer experience and maintain performance and are outspoken and open about it, mystery shopping might be for you. I don’t think you can become rich with it but it certainly adds another 60-100 dollars to my monthly income..
A giant list of mystery shopping companies can be found here which includes the companies I work with. As with everything it is important to do your research before you reveal your financial information to any company as I did not research every company on that list.