Market Research Pros

Customer Service

Internal vs. External Customers

One of the nicest concepts passed on through sales training is that of 'Internal vs. External Customers.' We're taught to focus on the customer and may have even been told that, "The customer is always right." No matter which industry you work in, this still holds true. Our primary objective is to care for our customers, our clients. These are our 'External' customers. Then, "Who are our 'Internal' customers?" Internal customers are your support staff, everyone from your General Manager to the newest part-time employee, the people that your rely on to meet the needs of your 'External' customers. When our 'Internal' customers are fully supported, they can give their best to our 'External' customers. By putting this into practice and ensuring that your team members receive your full support (within company policy, of course), you will see an increase in productivity and efficiency. Quality and morale will improve while complaints and errors are minimized, and both your 'Internal' and 'External' customers will be happier.

How do you support your 'Internal' customers, so that they can support your 'External' customers?

-Kelly Truelove

Group Member Quote: Locating Legitimate Mystery Shopping Opportunities in Your Area

Group Member Quote: "I once signed on as a mystery shopper. I found it to be very disappointing. I only got a few assignments, none less than 100 miles from my home, and the money never covered my expenses. I feel I did a good job for the company, as I am interested in market research, but have since stopped accepting assignments."

I'm so glad that you brought this up. When deciding to become a mystery shopper, there are many factors to consider. For the purpose of this discussion, I would like to focus on finding legitimate opportunities and locating assignments in your area.

So, then we have the question of, "How do I know which ones are legitimate?" You can check with the MSPA (Mystery Shopping Providers Association) to see if a company is MSPA Certified. You can also check with the Better Business Bureau and other agencies online that post complaints toward a person or business. Shoppers can also be MSPA Gold or Silver Certified, but this is not the same thing; this is a certification offered by a third party organization. Keep in mind you DO NOT have to be certified to mystery shop.

"If a company does not have an MSPA Certification, does that mean that they are a scam?" No. There are many fast growing companies that have chosen not to gain the certification, as it is not required by law, or just simply have not gained it yet.

Then, "How else can I tell if a company or assignment is legitimate?" First of all, NEVER pay to mystery shop. If a company asks you for money in order to receive assignments, that is a red flag that further investigation is needed. There is one site that I can think of, Shadow Shopper, that charges a monthly fee; however, they are not charging for registration, assignments, or a list of companies as seen elsewhere. They are charging for the service of delivering all relevant assignments in your area directly via e-mail, not to mystery shop. There are a number of determining factors to consider when making a personal decision such as which resources to utilize, such as the number and type of shops available in any particular area at any given time. However, I can attest to my own personal experiences in this regard. I can in good conscience say that I use this service as both a shopper and provider and have never been disappointed.

Also, there are many free posting sites and groups where schedulers and recruiters, including myself, post shops. In addition to the shop postings, you may also see a forum for comments regarding shoppers' personal experiences with companies. This may also give you insight into a particular company.

There are many free resources for those looking for mystery shopping assignments. There are numerous posting boards and groups dedicated to mystery shopping opportunities and focusing on bringing mystery shoppers and schedulers together. Doing a search for groups related to mystery shopping is a good way to start. Your email provider, Google, AOL, Yahoo, etc., should also have a section for groups. Another popular free service, similar to ShadowShopper, is Premier Shoppers. Volition is also a free resource with discussion forums and a job board. Mystery Shopping Solutions is yet another free resource that specializes in placing shoppers and companies together. If anyone would like assistance with finding assignments in their particular area, or has a resource to share with the group, please feel free to add your questions and comments.

-Kelly Truelove

Should MSPA Certification be Mandatory for all Mystery Shoppers?

A previous discussion topic has prompted me to pose this question to the group for discussion.

First of all, "What is an MSPA Certification?" This a certification offered by a third party in an attempt to standardize or qualify mystery shoppers.

When you become an EMT or get certified in CPR, there is an examination which includes relevant information that a professional with that skill is expected to possess. This is very similar, as it develops a standard, if you will, including information, terminology, tools, and methods that a third party has decided a mystery shopper should be familiar with.

"When schedulers assign jobs, do they look to see if you have an MSPA Certification?" Sometimes. This information is not always available or visible to a scheduler. When receiving either a Gold or Silver MSPA certification, you receive a certification number. When registering with companies, there is sometimes a place where this number can be entered. When you offer that number, you are attesting to your skills and knowledge as a mystery shopper. When this information is available, schedulers and recruiters do sometimes take it into consideration.

"Why?" It tells the recruiter/scheduler that you possess a certain amount of knowledge and are familiar with mystery shopping. It also tells him or her that you are serious about mystery shopping.

"Are there any other types of certification?" Yes. While an MSPA Certification is not free, some sites do offer free certifications in mystery shopping, merchandising, etc. However, these certifications are usually not recognized by any other agencies. Although, the certification offered by Shadow Shopper, as offered by Liz Wudi upon review of this article, "Was recognized by the NCPMS and is recognized by some employers."

"Should all Mystery Shoppers be required to have MSPA Certifications?" What do you think?

-Kelly Truelove

Mystery Shoppers: Employee or Independent Contractor?

I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to discuss our individual views and opinions regarding the use of Independent Contractors for mystery shopping assignments. It's become a topic for debate with the possible reintroduction of The Independent Contractor Proper Classification Act. The possibility of this bill being presented again and/or passed has created a great deal of turmoil, sparked by more questions than answers, among mystery shopping providers and Independent Contractors working in the industry.

There is great benefit to the use of Independent Contractors, for both mystery shopping providers and Independent Contractors. It allows the provider to assign mystery shopping opportunities to non-employees, and it allows Independent Contractors to supplement their income, especially during these difficult economical times. It has always been my understanding that there are benefits for both parties on either side of an ICA (Independent Contractor Agreement). For starters, the provider is not required to maintain any type of benefits, insurance or liability coverage for Independent Contractors. Additionally, the Independent Contractor is responsible for payment of his or her own taxes, with the provider having the responsibility of issuing a Form 1099 if the Independent Contractor's compensation equals $600 or more in one calendar year. On the other hand, the Independent Contractor has a certain amount of autonomy in the methods used to complete the assignment, and as an Independent Contractor, he or she is not restricted from performing the same services for other providers. I have a lot of questions, myself, about this. For example, the original text of The Independent Contractor Proper Classification Act of 2007 states that an Independent Contractor, under this law, would have the right to challenge his or her status as an employee and that the IRS would then be able to enforce penalties for the "misclassification" of an employee as an Independent Contractor. I am wondering where the guidelines that define an Independent Contractor would come from and what, if anything, would change. I'm also wondering what the effects on the industry as a whole would be if providers were no longer able to hire Independent Contractors, due to the inability to afford to do so, and how that would effect those Independent Contractors struggling with the current job market if they no longer had the relief of that additional income source. I'm very interested in your thoughts, opinions and even additional questions regarding this topic.

Perspectives & Daily Challenges: Recruiting Resources

Whether your task is corporate recruiting or scheduling mystery shopping, demonstration, and merchandising events, one of the challenges professionals in the field often face is where to go when it's time to recruit. Whether you are posting to fill a current/urgent assignment or trying to expand your company's database of recruits, there are many different resources available to schedulers and recruiters. I would like to discuss those you've had success with, those consistently delivering the best results, and any that you might not have had such a positive experience with. Between all of the groups, online communities, posting boards, classifieds and job boards, there are a lot to choose from. How do you avoid your post ending up amongst opportunities that might not be legitimate, and what are the most reputable resources? Additionally, how do you find the candidates who are going to be the most successful? Once everyone's had a chance to ask questions, make suggestions and respond based on their own experiences and opinions, I will make a list of all of the resources we can come up with as a group and leave it as a resource for all group members to refer to and update as needed. Thank you very much for your participation in a project that I think can benefit us all. Let's see what we can come up with!

-Kelly Truelove

Group Member Quote:

Hello! Throughout the years of scheduling, I am yet still trying to "figure out" how to find that great shopper. Just when you think you have found them, they let you down. I am still hopeful, though, and always thinking about how to find the "right" one. One method I use to determine the better mystery shoppers, is constant contact. For me, it is not just a simple reply to an email and saying, "Thanks for taking this shop. You are assigned XYZ date." Instead, I make a few contacts. Why? I am looking for the way they type up the emails, the time it takes them to respond, how flexible they are, etc. Just from keeping contact, a phone call and then a few emails, you should be able to tell who is and isn't really "into" mystery shopping. Finding shoppers is hard with this economy. With the gas prices rising, I tend to think it is not really where you post but how you market the shop. Should you put out a posting in plain text with the pay noted, "Urgent," you might not get the response you desire. I have found so much success with just making an email personal. I will be completely honest in saying I don't call shoppers much. I mainly send emails. My emails mention key words or phrases, such as: urgent; help needed; this is my last shop to schedule; be my hero; or please do this for me. I try not to make the emails seem too corporate or like a template, as those are the emails that only take two seconds for someone to delete. If you can, start the subject line with the shoppers name. For example, "Jennifer, could you help me out with this mystery shop?" I do this for my last few shops for the month and get great results. I also add images to my emails. For example, adding a photo at the top of my email that says, "Help." Sometimes it is the one tiny little difference that catches their attention. Posting locations are tough. It is hard to tell where shoppers come from at times.

I have posted in the following with no real success:
-www.craigstlist.com (Of many cities, I got one city to reply-others, nothing.)
-Many YAHOO Groups are not helpful.

Posting locations that help me out a LOT:
-www.premiershoppers.com
-www.shadowshopper.com
-www.volition.com
-http://www.mysteryshop.org/members/ - this is the MSPA
-http://www.nwscape.com/ec/

I do hope this helps. I am excited to know of other places to post.

-Jennifer Barrick

I just wanted to update this topic a bit. For the past several months, I've been compiling a list of recruiting resources, many are places where most of us post regularly, others are more obscure. I've been using these resources myself in order to have data regarding my experiences to offer you. Check back with us around the first of the year for those results.

-Kelly Truelove

Perspectives & Daily Challenges: Recruiting Resources-Social Communities

Group Member Quote:

Hello. I'm getting my best results right now from ShadowShopper. When I get assignments in, I'm actually posting them to ShadowShopper, PremierShoppers, and Volition first before I even go into our database of checkers. I'm working on getting up a Facebook page for recruiting purposes. Does anyone have any experience with that?

Thanks,

-Geri Thueme

Hello, Geri!

Actually I have recently started using social networking communities as a recruitment tool, myself. I find it advantageous to be involved with the social networking community and have had many new and potential shoppers approach me with questions. I invite shoppers to register but also make sure that I am available to those new to the industry that have questions or need training. There are a lot of resources available to us that we may not consider at first glance. However, after trying this myself, I do recommend it.

My initial project, creating Market Research Pros, was to develop a place where providers, shoppers, schedulers and editors could go for resources, discussion and networking. I have found it to be very useful and learned a great deal while further researching the social networking communities. I'm very happy to share with you all what I have accomplished thus far.

I've developed professional profiles on LinkedIn, XING, ZoomInfo, Direct Matches, Fast Pitch, Stumbleupon, Squidoo, Twitter and Facebook. I developed my first professional profile page in December of 2008, started using Twitter about a month ago, and Facebook about 2 weeks ago. There are now 3 branches of Market Research Pros, allowing members to visit whichever location is most convenient for them. The most active is the XING group, because it is the oldest, having been started in late April of 2009. I don't have the time to develop original content for 3 different groups, so the core content is the same, with the difference being individual group members' participation, comments and questions. If someone asks a particularly great question or has an interesting comment, I tend to publish it to the other two as a, "Group Member Quote," so that everyone can join in the discussion or benefit from the response. I, like you, don't have a lot of time for twittering and keeping up with Facebook, so I did a little research and have found a couple of ways to simplify things and make my efforts a little more efficient.

I use Yoono, which opens in a sidebar while I work. It contains all of my instant messaging accounts: Yoono, GMail/GTalk, Yahoo, AOL/AIM, MSN, and Twitter. I can update them all with one post or tweet. You can also connect your Facebook and Fast Pitch accounts. Then, I found HootSuite, which allows you to tweet from any account you have and shrink URLs. Very recently, though, I found TweetGrid, which allows you to simultaneously post from all twitter accounts and perform multiple grid-like searches in real time. This, I love. It helps me to find exactly what I'm looking for quickly. I've also read a bit about Twhirl but have not used it. There is also CoTweet, a very neat tool in my opinion. It is used by many corporations like Coke and Pepsi but is easily utilized by smaller companies and individual enterprises, as well. With CoTweet, you can save tweets for a later scheduled delivery and "delegate" the tweeting responsibilities among a group of employees. With CoTweet, you can also ad tags to the individual users in order to locate a group of tweets, similar to "hashtags" with TweetGrid or HootSuite; however, you are searching for tweets in a particular topic with "hashtags" and not by a particular person, as in this case. Also, CoTweet will merge up to 6 accounts, similar to Hootsuite. There are also tools like TwitPic for picture sharing via Twitter. Honestly, from the small amount of research I've done, it's clear that there are numerous Twitter applications and tools available. The challenge appears to be in finding what is most suited to your particular needs and preferences. It's worth mentioning that Career Builder's Brightfuse used to host a branch of MR Pros and was found to be an excellent recruiting resource, but sadly the Brightfuse talent community was terminated in late 2010 by Career Builder. I will include some of my links in the section below, so that you can see what I have done and perhaps share some of the things you've discovered with the group. I hope that this information is helpful to you all. I've found these resources to be very useful for recruiting, increasing public awareness and educating. I'm always available to answer questions and help where I can. Please don't hesitate to drop me a line or share what you've learned about this topic with the group.

-Kelly Truelove

Perspectives & Daily Challenges: Reporting Systems

I would like to discuss the different types of reporting systems and software options for online reporting. I recently had a demo with an associate from Checker and have personally used Prophet, ClientSmart, Sassie, and my own customized system. I am interested in the opinions and experiences of group members with the different reporting options, including those not as widely known. My concerns are security, ease of use and functionality pertaining to client features, admin features, reporting, scheduling, editing, and shopper features related to the updating of information, self-assigning/requesting of assignments, and report submission. Any advice on this topic or relation of personal opinion/experience is appreciated. Thank you!

Available Mystery Shopping, Merchandising, Event, and Demonstration Assignments

Posting Invitation to Schedulers and Providers

We would like to remind schedulers and providers that you are welcome to post your available assignments at all Market Research Pros online locations. In order to keep this lens easy to navigate, please, reply to this topic and include the heading of "Available Assignments: Company Name" in the body of your reply. Please, feel free to continue to respond to your company's topic as needed in order to update the available or urgent projects and assignments that you have. By placing your assignments here for all Market Research Pros members and readers to see, you are increasing online visibility for your company and assignment.

The goal of Market Research Pros is to increase awareness, educate, share information, and present more opportunities to shoppers, demonstrators, merchandisers, and other professionals in the industry, as well as the retailers seeking to efficiently utilize these services. This resource is available for your use on Facebook, XING, Brightfuse, and here on Squidoo with a page to be included in the Integrity Consultants Blog, as well. Please, let me know how I can make your experience more enjoyable.