Company Overview: Headquartered in Appleton, WI, MarketWise was founded in 1994. It was incorporated under its current name in 1997. The company is a member of both the Fox Cities and Wausau Region Chambers of Commerce, as well as the MSPA. Searching the internet and the chamber websites reveal no negative comments about this company….
We are pleased to present this interview with Shelly Martin, a scheduler for Kern Scheduling Services. Shelly is the 2014 winner of the Scheduler of the Year Contest presented by Mystery Shop Forum. She received quite a bit of praise from shoppers during the contest. If you’d like to learn more about Shelly, be sure…
Preparing for the Shoot As many shoppers soon discover, covertly shooting video is more than just wearing a secret camera. There are many steps for producing good video shops that need to happen before even leaving one’s house. A few are covered below. Packing Making and checking a list of what you need to bring…
Written by dspeakes After running the wheels off my car for two years as a mystery shopper, I finally decided I needed to find a “real” job – I was spending too much time in the search for work, planning routes, doing the routes, doing the reports, and then being wiped out with exhaustion the…
Written by kyninja One of the frequent topics of discussion on MysteryShopForum.com seems to be shoppers complaining about editors emailing them for clarification or rejecting their shops. Most of the these discussions are started by shoppers that are new to the industry and have not yet realized how important it is to read the shop…
There are many, many discussions at MysteryShopForum grumbling about scoring by one particular mystery shopping company(MSC), and other discussions grumbling about the amount of narrative required for some shops. Sometimes we get both topics in the same thread, grumbling about the amount of narrative required for some shops by that particular MSC with the fussy…
Research Services Group is the mystery shopping division of Mystery Researchers. Their website defines the company as a “business intelligence provider” which, in addition to mystery shopping, also provides audits and standards compliance inspections, online and phone surveys, pricing evaluations and app performance testing. Mystery Researchers started out as a home-based business in 2008 and…
At what point should we turn down a mystery shop because some aspect of it is beyond our capabilities? There was a recent discussion on www.mysteryshopforum.com about a shopper who was asked to do a shop that included evaluating a golf course at a resort. The shopper stated on the forum that, “The description did…
There are several different types of gas station/convenience store audits, and they can be broken down into basically two types, revealed and unrevealed. Both require at least one purchase, although the revealed audits usually require two purchases; one of gasoline, and one of an item from the convenience store. Having an economy car, it becomes…
Written by GypsyMonkey My life is about enjoying what is around me. Everywhere I go is a new experience. Stepping off the plane in Hawaii and smelling the fresh salt air is different than stepping off a train in NYC and feeling the sudden pace of the city. No one can really explain the difference…
Written by dspeakes Two years ago this month I tucked my old pocket tape recorder into the cell phone pouch on my purse and walked into a sub sandwich shop in a local strip mall to do my first-ever mystery shop. I was nervous as a cat on a freeway at rush hour. I had…
Aboutface Corporation is one of the largest mystery shopping companies in the United States. The company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and was founded in 1995. According to their Facebook page, they have won the most mystery shopping awards for five consecutive years, although they do not mention what the awards consisted of or who…
Company Overview: Who was that masked man? The Lone Ranger fought outlaws but kept his identify secret behind his mask. DJC’s pays at a lightning fast pace, is cited for quick and responsive interactions, but does not freely disclose the location of their brick and mortar location. Searches for that home office or website with…
James Bond is dead? Well, not exactly. Life, however, is getting busy and the weekly endeavor of editing this magazine is starting to affect my shops, and my freedom to shop. I’ve told Jacob that the September 29th issue will be the last issue of the magazine that I will edit, to give him time…
This column is aimed primarily at video route shoppers, although all shoppers can take something away from this, as it could provide a different aspect for the family vacation. As you are no doubt aware, hotel advertising that refers to “high speed” internet almost always refers to download speed, leaving you to guess how much…
Early on in my shopping career, I had a route of apartment shops that consisted of eight different locations in five cities over some 300 miles of interstate highway. Sounds easy enough until the mystery shopping company said they were all for the same client and once you visit one property, you’re in the system…
Company Overview: “Are you committed to meeting deadlines and providing quality reports with detailed narratives?” CSEKristina posted this on the forum and might have also asked if you like to golf. Customer Service Experts (CSE) focuses on airports, restaurants, financial services, and recreation locales such as golf courses. It was founded in 1994 and is…