On being mystery shopped

I had an interesting experience the other day: Somebody came to mystery shop me. It was pretty interesting being on the other side of the fence for the first time ever, and I think I took away a few things from it that might actually help me in my mystery shopping and field inspecting endeavors.

First of all, keep in mind that the person you’re mystery shopping or auditing is somebody very similar to you in many respects. They’re at work, doing there job, making a living. When I go mystery shopping, I try to be as pleasant and upbeat as possible, since some people might freak out a little bit about getting graded at work. The individual that mystery shopped me was by no means rude, but definitely carried an overly authoritative attitude and was not a pleasant person to speak to. I wasn’t busy with any customers during the entire time they were here, nor was I in any way stressed by their presence, but my partner on duty was with a customer and appeared slightly uncomfortable having somebody watching over her shoulder. In short, try to make your mystery shopping experiences positive both for yourself and the customer service person you’re auditing. Obviously, the person that mystery shopped me was an announced shop, so it was no secret. A lot of mystery shops are unannounced, meaning the person being evaluated doesn’t know and likely never will.

Second, it appeared to be a husband-wife team that did our shop. One person was taking the photographs (which are usually required to ensure that we, as a franchise, are maintaining the required corporate signage and image to the public), and the other person was actually doing the audit. If your mystery shopping company allows you to do tag team like this, it’s a great idea, particularly if you have a large volume of shops to conduct.

Third, be sure to take your time and be thorough. This can be difficult to do if you have 10 shops to get through in a day, but keep in mind the fact that you’re being paid to be the eyes and ears of the company that hired you, and by accepting the shop you agreed to meet there standards. One of the best ways to get on a scheduler’s good side (schedulers are the people that ASSIGN mystery shops to you) is to do good work, be timely, complete, and accurate in your reporting, and to do the little things that are slightly above and beyond what’s expected. This might include waiting for somebody to vacate the restroom to inspect it for cleanliness, rather than just marking “restroom unavailable” on your report form, or perhaps meandering through the store for a few minutes and coming back to observe a cashier’s interaction with a customer at checkout, rather than just marking “unable to observe/no customers at checkout” on your report form.

These are just some thoughts off the top of my head. Incidentally, since I wasn’t with a customer, I had hopped online and completed my registration with the company that sent that auditor to us before they had even finished up and left. I’ll be adding that company to the roster on the mystery shopping jobs board.

Stay positive, be enterprising!

-_