I am in the proces of looking for a job (ugh). In my daily search across the internet, I keep coming across references to ‘mystery shopping’. Supposedly, you go to stores and restaraunts and rate the service, food, cleanliness, etc - and get paid.
I’m of two minds about this - on one hand, it sort of makes sense that they have people checking this stuff out. On the other hand, most of the places that run these things sound shady at best - a lot of them want you to send in money to become a member, and that seems mighty suspicious.
Anyways, I’ll open this to the floor - anybody have any experience with these things? Or just an opinion?
I just got offer to be a mystery shopper from a job service that’s been pretty respectable in the past. A bank was looking for foreigners to go to various branches and ask for English information on opening an account, then submit an evaluation on how the staff handled it.
Personally, I think it’s a legit line of work, although I’d be very careful about any company that wants a “down payment” to work for them.
Jack in the Box hires mystery shoppers–it’s short term employment, they pay you and reimburse you the food and mileage. I think it’s a pretty sweet deal. You can check it out at www.jacksguest.com
A friend applied for a job as a mystery shopper for a supermarket chain that extends over most of Northern California. She thought it might be fun to spend most of the day driving to and from a store or stores, doing a little shopping and then returning to the home office to prepare a report.
It turned out to be a little more detailed than she imagined (“Good written skills” should have been a clue). The shopper purchases a list of items designated by the home office; the list changes frequently. There must be interaction with at least four or five employees, such as the butcher, deli attendant, produce handler, etc. Emplolyees stocking shelves are asked the location of hard-to-categorize items such as clam juice (juice shelves, tuna/canned fish shelves, gourmet foods?) Questions like “How do I know when a cantaloupe is ripe?,” How to I prepare this brisket?" are standard.
Occasionally the shopper drops an item that requires a mop-up or asks for an item that the store doesn’t carry. The shopper rates the employees’ reactions.
At the end of the day, the shopper prepares a written evaluation of each shopping experience. This takes two to three hours and is endlessly detailed. The purchased items are returned to the home office.
Another friend who is an ex-flight attendant was a shopper for a hotel chain. She said it was fun flying from city to city but that the constant airport experience and bitch behavior at the hotels made it a less than rewarding job.
These jobs don’t pay much, usually about $10-12 an hour. Being a pain-in-the neck ain’t always easy.
We have mystery shoppers at work (major grocery store, think of a big red S). The point system for us is out of 10. If you miss .05 of a point, it is considered a failed shop, which then goes on your record. Enough “fails” and they send you back for re-training. If you go back for retraining 3 times, supposedly they fire you. I’m sure the union would go apeshit if they tried to though.
We have to make direct eye contact, greet with a “sincere” smile (the sincere part is up to the shopper to decide), do the order correctly and quickly, thank by name, offer carry out (I feel like a bit of a goof when it’s a bodybuilding guy buying 4 loaves of bread), and give a parting comment.
I think it’s a little sad that thanking by name counts more for points than being sincerely helpful, quick and ringing the order through correctly. I have been nailed for “smiling, but not smiling sincerely enough”.
I think it is a useful tool to evaluate your employees’ performances, but that my company employs it in an illogical manner and has some of their prioities screwed up. Most of the workers (myself included) think it’s a joke.
my ex-wife used to be a “mystery shopper” for a large bank chain -
she would go into the bank and ask about opening an account, money markets, savings, and loans (alot of the questions were provided)
Then she would have to fill out a questionare (sp) and use the employees names and tell how helpful they were and what their answers were - she was paid $35 for each bank she visited, plus gas milage - she did it for about six months
I did mystery shopping forthis company for about 3 years, and worked in thier main office as a computer geek.
It works as follows:
You get sent to a restaurant, hotel, or bar. You dine, stay overnight, or drink. You get paid and reimbursed, and write a report about it. I mostly did bars and restaurants since I was in college at the time and it was nice to be able to take a girl to a fancy ass place on the company dime.
A couple of things I can tell you about it:
If you’re not observant, DON’T DO IT. You’re called upon to note everything from the food preparation to the cleanliness of the restrooms in detail. If your report sucks, it’s likely you won’t get a reimbursement.
It ain’t a career. The typical pay for a hotel was about $50, a restaurant $25, and a bar $20. The particular agency I worked for did not allow you to do more than 6 per week, so unless you can live on that kind of money don’t think that it’s the perfect job.
On the plus side, you can dine at some very expensive places and get paid to do it. I regularly dined at Notte Luna, Waterfront, and a serirs of places downtown that you can’t get out of for less that $100 per person. That was kind of nice.
As the other posts in this thread show, mystery shopping does indeed exist. I’ve even done it myself. However, a real mystery shopping job does not require you to pay any sort of fee up front. I have seen ads before from people or groups offering seminars on how to become a mystery shopper (“Want to learn how to get paid to shop?”), the ads you have come across are probably the same sort of thing. In other words, these are not the people who would actually be employing you, the best they can do is help you to find a mystery shopping job. I would avoid them, first because you can get a mystery shopping job on your own, and second because mystery shopping is not that great of a job anyway.
I work for the same chain at a relatively new store (open since October). I have been to other stores in the same division - one that has been open awhile, and another which is newer than ours. I do have to say, the store that was open awhile had certainly let their customer service skills go - if I was a shopper, I would have given them a 0.0 based on what I saw, and heard.
I do understand them checking up on “superior service” but some managers go overboard with those shops. I was recently part of a 9.5 shop here. We would have had a 10 but a courtesy clerk didn’t look at the shopper. I think that was rather dumb because the girl was doing her job. She just didn’t look the customer in the eye… she was busy bagging her order.
I have worked as a Mystery Shopper - I rated a KMart once. I enjoyed it, I sent off my report, and then waited for my check… and waited… and waited… I had to threaten them with legal action just to get my stupid $10 check. That was bad. After that, I decided I didn’t want to do that kind of work anymore.
Both companies I work for use mystery shoppers to rate their stores…one more so than the other. At Little Job, we are shopped every month and you’d darn well better get a good shop…three bad in a row is grounds for termination for manager…good way for cranky employees to get a manager in trouble. Big Job has just started and we don’t know how much weight they will carry. The shoppers have to remember a LOT of details…we have 6 service points we are supposed to hit with each customer, and it’s hard for US to remember them all. We can narrow down who might be and who isn’t a shopper because they have to ask specific things…but we’ve never been able to spot one. If you have a bad shop you’re told right away, but a good shop they don’t tell till the end of the month so you don’t slack off.
Had a bad experience with a mystery shopper once. I was working at a department store through the holidays, got dumped in a department I had never worked in before with no supervisor in sight then shopped.
Shopper asked me where an item was. I explained that I didn’t normally work in this department, didn’t know where it was, but would be happy to help him look. The report came back that I had said “I don’t work here, look for yourself.”
I explained this to my manager, and he said, “Well, you’re probably normally like that, these shoppers always catch you the one time you don’t do what you’re supposed to”.
I think a lot of store shoppers have a mentality that they are there to “catch” employees doing something wrong, and they do it to the max.
Personally, I think customer comments and complaints are a much more reliable gague of service than mystery shoppers.