A mystery shopper is not a professional spy. Mystery shoppers are the secret eyes of service companies that need reliable judgment of their market competitiveness. However, earning an income as a mystery shopper is not getting paid to deceive the company employees, but rather a legitimate job to assess the service quality of a company, and help it grow and prosper. In return, you get an exciting job, traveling in your area, using various services for free, even taking your family to amusement parks and bonus vacations, etc. Becoming a mystery shopper is easy, while growing a reputation of a mystery shopping pro gives you huge chances to expand your income.
What does it take to become a mystery shopper?
Everyone will tell you that becoming a mystery shopper is extremely easy, and definitely not to ignore. What do you need to know before you become a mystery shopper? Mystery shopping is about making truthful value judgments of the qualities of the service, the friendliness of the shopping environment, the helpfulness of the frontline stuff, the waiting times, the competency of the shopping assistants, etc. You should be able not only to observe all these and make logical conclusions about your overall customer satisfaction, but also to remember details and watch out for particular signs. In the end, you will be asked to write down your impressions, either on paper or online.
To be a successful mystery shopper, you need to feed the company that hired you with accurate and reliable information about your shopping experience. To do that, you need basic writing skills – the ability to write logically and coherently. You should write in a simple and understandable way, but still reveal both your overall impressions and the details you are asked about. You will not be required to have a high literature style or write complicated sentences – your mystery shopper responses need to be easy to understand and process.
Most of the mystery shopping companies have moved online, saving on times and costs to recruit mystery shoppers. Oftentimes you’ll need to submit paperwork, but also to fill in online response forms. Supplying your mystery shopping feedback online is easy and saves you time. However, it’s always recommendable to have a hard copy of your reports and plan submitting your report in advance. Internet connections today are quite reliable, but you never know when you can have a power cut, a server down, push your reboot button accidentally, or experience any other technical hindrance. With multi-screen response forms, it’s nice to have a copy of your report in a text editor, so that you don’t stand the chance of losing the information you typed in.
What do mystery shopping companies expect from me?
Don’t worry if you are a mystery shopping newbie – the company that contracts you should provide you with instructions how to complete your shopping task. If you have concerns about what you are expected to do as mystery shopper, but the company does not provide you with prior training, you should doubt that it might be a mystery shopping scam. Since the hiring companies rely on your responses, they need accurate feedback. The mystery shopping companies cannot afford to pay you for a response that is irrelevant. Therefore, you should always get instructions about the mystery shopping scenario that you have to follow; about the things you should watch out for; about the way to fill in and submit your feedback; etc. Becoming an experienced mystery shopper pays well, as you are likely to get more invitations, earn greater income, and be contracted by more mystery shopping companies.
Mystery shopping is a method used by companies to analyse the levels of customer service delivered by their staff. The company will employ people to act like regular customers and these mystery shoppers then compile a report based on the service that they have received. These mystery shoppers are usually carefully instructed to perform specific tasks that have been decided by the people that want to analyse performance.
They might ask for a specific type of drink in a bar or purchase a particular item of clothing in a shop. The shopper then delivers a report that answers questions that are specific to their experience. This means that the company conducting the report can get information that is useful to them. It is also a great way of getting reliable and impartial information about the levels of customer service that a company offers.
A mystery shopper will usually operate on behalf of and be employed by an agency. These agencies are approached by businesses to provide reports on the levels of customer service that they offer. It is often the case that the business or company that want a mystery shopper request people with a strong preference for their age, sex and socio economic grouping.
This means that the company can pick people that are likely to represent their target audience. So if a company was looking to analyse the performance of their high end hotel then they would appreciate the feedback of middle aged wealthy people as opposed to a young individual. This also means that the mystery shopper is less noticeable. There are a few different types of mystery shopper that perform different roles. Some of these are as follows:
Covert Video Shoppers
The covert video shopper is trained to film the interaction that they have with the staff members in the place which they are performing a report on. They are equipped with a video camera which is hidden on their person and which films everything that happens in the shop. These types of mystery shoppers are used for a number of different scenarios and they are excellent for providing an accurate indication of the level of service that the company offers.
This type of technology has been widely used by TV programmes that want to reveal poor levels of customer service. These are very popular for car showrooms, banks, high street shops, offices and for reviewing public services. The mystery shopper supplies the company with footage of their trip to the chosen workplace and they also fill out a questionnaire so that the people that need the analysis get a full report on the state of their customer service levels.
Email Mystery Shoppers
There is an increasing demand for email mystery shopper. These types of mystery shopper deliver reports about the level of customer service that they receive through email correspondence with a company. This is an increasingly important issue that is faced by businesses these days.
As a result there are more and more people that are being employed to replicate real customers in order to analyse the level of customer service. It is important that companies take time to train their staff to ensure that they get a high level of service regularly. The mystery shopper will perform a task and write a report which notes their findings.
Both Mike Smith & Shaun Parker are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Mike Smith has sinced written about articles on various topics from Financial Planning, Debts Loans and Credit Loans. I’ve currently dedicated myself to copywriting and website content optimization. I hold a BA in Economics, and I’m currently working as a part-time copywriter for a web design company. I’ve done extensive research on. Mike Smith's top article generates over 49500 views. to your Favourites.
Shaun Parker has sinced written about articles on various topics from Online Marketing, Auto Insurance and Wedding Bells. Shaun Parker has worked in the customer service training industry and is an expert on . Shaun Parker's top article generates over 246000 views. to your Favourites.