Since 2003, Market Viewpoint has sent out a monthly newsletter (at one point it was weekly!) or blog post to our registered shoppers.
Our goal is to educate and support the people who are the backbone of our business. Without mystery shoppers, we can’t provide this service to our clients.
At the beginning of each year, our staff gets together to review how we are doing business, where we can improve, and what needs to be changed.
As a new year begins, we thought we would give you some guidelines to help you with your mystery shopping business. Time to review, improve, and re-energize.
Scheduling Tips
Schedulers are busy. You are busy. The goal of each of you, however, is to get the report to the client as soon as possible.
Here are some scheduling tips for you and ways you can help the schedulers:
- Follow the instructions in the solicit email or web ad. Your response to the assignment reflects your ability to follow directions. If you do not give what is asked for in a solicitation, can we trust you to complete the shop as instructed? This includes confirming that you’ve received an assignment. If the scheduler asks for it, PLEASE confirm!
- Complete your shops as early as possible. Your “Due Date” is the last day a report can be submitted, but in most cases, the companies will gladly accept it much earlier.
- Early completion of your shops allows more time for you to accept those last-minute shops that schedulers are so desperate to fill when other shoppers bail out on them. Being available to help in those situations makes you a star shopper!
The mystery shopping process starts with the scheduler. Using skills that are helpful to both you and the scheduler will make your mystery shopping business successful.
Reporting & Writing Tips
It is human nature to fall into a routine, especially if you do the same types of shops multiple times. Make your reports more interesting and, in turn, your job more creative with some of the following tips.
- Mystery shopping is an evaluation of the service you receive at the time of your visit to ANY establishment. You are the “fly on the wall” for management, and they are looking to “see” what is happening during your visit.
- Use objectivity, not your emotions, when reporting on what you experienced. Your comments should reflect what happened during your interaction, not how you reacted to the situation.
- Be factual, but creative in your writing. Many times, we see the same exact comments over and over again from the same shoppers. We know that every experience is NOT the same, and we ask that you use resources available for language development to make your reports interesting to read.
- Observe, observe, observe. That is your job. The more detail and facts you can report, the better management is able to train and coach their staff on developing better customer service skills.
As resolutions and goals are made for 2019, look for ways to improve your reporting. This could result in more work and mystery shops for you in the new year!
Shopper Habits
In order to work most effectively and efficiently, there are certain habits and routines that should be established when you are accepting and preparing for shops.
- When you receive an assignment, immediately check that you can open all forms, or access the website. Read through the information and confirm that you will be able to do the shop.
- Make sure you understand what it is you are being paid to do, and make sure you are comfortable with this. If you have any questions or concerns, contact your scheduler at that time. Do not wait until the due date, or later, to tell a scheduler you don’t want to or can’t do a job.
- ALWAYS confirm your shop. If you don’t confirm, we might reassign it.
- Do a mental run through of the shop. Think of all the questions that might be asked of you. Be prepared with responses for the associate. Have ready your questions that will get for you the information you need to fill out your report. Be creative. This is your chance to win that Golden Globe or Academy Award!
When practiced routinely, specific actions will become habits that will gain you the assignments and the rewards of being a great mystery shopper!
We hope you find these guidelines helpful. Our blog page is filled with great tips on other ways to prepare for your shops and ways to maximize the profit in running your small business. Check it out and share with other mystery shoppers too!
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Do you know someone who would be a good mystery shopper? Please forward this post to them! Thanks!