Company Overview: One of the first things new mystery shoppers should be aware of is that it is never necessary to pay for the opportunity to obtain assignments. The overwhelming majority of the time, any entity that requests money from a shopper is usually a scam operation. Those that aren’t necessarily scams are still of dubious benefit to the shopper, and should be checked out carefully.
Satisfaction Services Inc. is a legitimate mystery shopping company that offers a “Rated Membership” to shoppers for a fee of $9.99.
The corporate headquarters are in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and SSI has been doing business since 1988.
Satisfaction Services Inc. has assignment opportunities in restaurant, hospitality, entertainment, tourism, automotive, age compliance, financial, grocery, and apartment sectors throughout the nation.
To sign up with SSI, visit their site at http://satisfactionservicesinc.com. Once there, you will have the option of registering for free, or pay a fee to receive “rated member benefits”. If you’re wondering what these benefits are, read on.
SSI states that your fee covers the administrative costs to review your evaluations and to rate them. This is ludicrous. Reviewing evaluations and rating them is something that is standard operating practice for every other mystery shopping company, even if some don’t share their ratings with their shoppers. There is simply no reason to charge shoppers for a function that will be performed anyway.
SSI also states that assignments will only be offered to non-rated evaluators only if there are no available rated evaluators. They also state that the rated evaluator will be entitled to special discounts from clients. I saw 10% off of footwear offered, which could hardly be considered very special. It’s definitely not worth paying a fee.
Once you have chosen to sign up for free, you will complete a brief application. Nothing happens after you submit it, so you don’t know if it went through correctly or if there are next steps to accomplish.
When you do gain access to the website as a shopper, you will see that it does not utilize the standard software platforms. SSI uses their own system, which looks and feels sketchy.
There is no true job board. There is a list with jobs, but no information is available. You have to check a box to indicate that you might be interested in an assignment. A scheduler will contact you via phone to tell you the details.
If you then agree to perform the assignment, you will be sent an assignment confirmation. However, this does not include tangible details regarding pay and reiumbursement. This is not a good way to conduct business, as all shoppers should always obtain pertinent information such as this in writing before expending their time and effort and money.
Payment is made by check on the 25th of the month for the work performed in the previous month.
So far no postings have been found on www.mysteryshopforum.com that indicate any shoppers have paid to sign up with this company.
Those that have worked with SSI state that the schedulers are likable and fair. Reporting is stated to be tedious and repetitive. Pay is in the low to reasonable range.
Shoppers dislike what they consider to be “archaic” and “annoying” practices in trying to obtain assignments.
Personal Experience: I have been signed up with Satisfaction Services, but haven’t spent the time to go through the tedious assignment sign-up process more than once. I make no apologies for this, as I think all shoppers should have at the minimum a general idea of what an assignment entails before they commit to it.