I had an epiphany while reading this post on Mystery Shop Forum. It is so easy to picture the scene: A jaded and bored employee being led into proper behavior by the frustrated shopper who just wanted to follow her script I’ve worked for corporations before. The headquarters are staffed with brilliant people who come…
Mystery shopping is extremely time-consuming. So how does a mystery shopper handle the burden of housekeeping, laundry, auto maintenance, yard maintenance, and pet care in addition to their shopping? It’s not easy. It helps to be sure your priorities are straight. The biggest thing is to prioritize the use of one’s time. It doesn’t pay…
We MUST proofread. And the older we are, the MORE we MUST proofread. I took typing back in my senior year of high school, when personal computers had not been invented. I learned to touch type on an IBM Selectric typewriter. I’m also a competent speller, and had an excellent grammar teacher who hammered punctuation,…
One unique thing about mystery shopping is there is nobody to train us. We have to teach ourselves how to do this. Oh, sure, there is the forum, and conferences with seminars that will help us with the rules, the how-tos, the techniques for using apps or equipment. But the real tools of our trade…
This is a time-intensive occupation, this mystery shopping thing. I remember in the early days spending hours looking for jobs on a hundred or more job boards, trying to see what I could cobble together into a worthwhile route, then more time sending emails asking for bonuses, then getting on the mapping software and figuring…
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…
Editor’s note: Mystery Shop Forum [www.mysteryshopforum.com] is a website of mystery shoppers with varying degrees of experience. The members attempt to assist new shoppers who have legitimate questions, while at the same time explaining why some questions can’t be answered because to do so would violate the Independent Contractor’s Agreement [ICA] that shoppers sign when…
Threads on the forum occasionally raise moral issues. I’ll leave aside the generic question of whether it’s right to lie to people; that’s an occupational hazard. But we lie like actors and actresses lie. We’re playing a part, not lying to hurt someone else or get ourselves out of trouble. I’m talking about things that…
I was contemplating a $13 bonused fast food shop today and debating about asking for another $5 when it hit me how my standards have changed in the last three years. When I started out, it was $5 fast food shops and $10 bank and cell phone shops for the most part and I was…
Someone on the forum recently mentioned having returned to a restaurant they had shopped previously because they had enjoyed the food and being asked, “How did you hear about us?” and was wondering how to answer and whether it would be okay to say that they had mystery shopped the location in the past. Of…
I like to do business verifications, even though the pay is usually nothing to get excited about. I like that they are revealed and there is a script, and all I have to do is go through the questionnaire, mark yes and no answers, and take pictures of the door locks and file cabinets. Easy…
Gigwalk is a cell phone app you can use to find quick merchandising “gigs” on the fly. You download the app to your phone, enter some basic information and your Paypal address, and then you can have it search for gigs near you. I find it often reports gigs to me that are up to…