mystery shopping

This page explains some details behind mystery shopping. For information on how to actually become a mystery shopper please visit www.mysteryshopperguide.org.

Job seekers are attracted to the promises of this unusual job description. Earn money while shopping, it says. Get paid for dining out, says another one. These statements can sometimes be found in classified ads or on internet sites. The job in question is mostly part time and usually freelance. There are no usual requirements for applicants such as age, sex, educational attainment, even location.

Once you apply and get accepted, you have the unusual title of Mystery Shopper or Secret Shopper. Other names that a shopper has been called around the world are spotters, anonymous audits, mystery customers, virtual customers, employee evaluators, and performance auditors. Interested job seekers would do well to approach, aside from the mystery shopping specialists themselves, some marketing research firms, private investigators, merchandising companies, training companies, and advertising and promotion agencies that provide these services.

First utilized as a tool for preventing employee theft in the 1940s, this industry has been gaining ground since customer satisfaction became a focus of the retail business, the restaurant and hotel business, the financial and banking industry, also such diverse businesses as call centers, hospitals, promotions agencies, recreation parks, movie theaters, transportation systems, fitness centers, freight services, and even government agencies and associations.

These are the clients of a mystery shopping company. A company offers to clients such services as customer feedback, data collection and preparation, surveys and reports, audits, performance assessment, reviews and evaluations, and client consultations. Such services are customized according to a client's needs and preferences. The secret shopping company then gets a mystery shopper to visit a client establishment to evaluate it in terms of customer service such as staff response, speed of service, attentiveness and courtesy, and their knowledge of a product. It will mostly be about this but will also include a staff and store's cleanliness and orderliness, an assessment of the product's quality, and a whole lot of the client's concerns.

For the shopper, a report is required to be submitted promptly after the store visit. This is where good writing skills come in. A report must be clear, detailed, and concise. Most jobs require the shopper to fill up a mixed form that consists of a yes or no questionnaire together with multiple choice questions and a general comments or opinions page for significant details that have not been covered in the questionnaire form.

The hiring, training, reporting, and data collecting that is associated with this type of job has been made easier and faster with the advent of new technologies such as the internet, the fax machine, and the mobile phone. Consequently, the industry has been growing by leaps and bounds, with a bright and rosy outlook for the future. A large and growing association of mystery shopping providers exists. This association has a worldwide network that spans continents. They have activities and programs for member companies that will assure more growth and improvements for the industry.

Working from home, part-time, freelance, independent contractors or employees, approved applicants become automatic members of a proud but unusual industry, servicing clients worldwide with customer satisfaction as a goal.