What is Mystery Shopping?
What is mystery shopping?
Mystery shopping is when a consumer goes into a store and poses as a customer. The consumer is attempting to get information about what the average customer might experience on an average day. There are many places that hire mystery shoppers including: hotels, amusement parks, restaurants, warehouse clubs, phone companies, hardware stores, and many other retail locations. The company may specify a specific type of person to perform a mystery shop. Perhaps management has been getting complaints from larger customers who claim that associates are behaving badly towards them because they are overweight. In this case the company might request that a larger build person perform a mystery shop. When a person signs up for mystery shopping, the company who is hiring asks questions about build, height, glasses or no glasses, eye color and hair color. This information is not intended to be snoopy. Rather it provides the mystery shopping company with detailed information to better serve their client. After a mystery shopper is selected, the mystery shop company who has hired them will pose a scenario. Often this scenario is read through and the mystery shopper is requested to take a short quiz. Upon completion of this quiz (usually 100% accuracy is required), the mystery shopper will perform the shop according to specifications. Before performing the shop, the mystery shopper is informed on how they will be compensated for doing the shop. Usually the reimbursement for performing the shop is between $5-$25 (with the average $ amount as $15). This pays for gas and about 1-2 hours of the mystery shoppers time. In addition to the compensation, sometimes free groceries, a free item from a store (perhaps a pet toy from a pet store), or a meal at a restaurant will also be reimbursed. This is why I state again that mystery shopping is not incredibly profitable, but it can be fun.
Companies depend on mystery shoppers to provide them accurate information about how consumers view their products and service. Mystery shoppers are invaluable to the companies as they help companies improve their customer satisfaction. In the future, I will write about how you can become a mystery shopper. It isn't a mystery at all!
Published by Sarah Holmes
Sarah is a weekly columnist for the News-Gazette. She enjoys writing about various topics including SEO, internet marketing, social networking and saving money on groceries. View profile
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4 Comments
Post a CommentFun article. I was a mystery shopper many years ago. I liked it but it just wasn't worth the time it took to complete all the tests and paperwork I had to fill out. Still it was interesting in a secret agent, spy kinda way.
Here is an additional note to my article: Some Mystery Shopping gigs are scams! (Just like some work-at-home gigs are scams too.) If there is a phone number in your newspaper and it asks you to pay $90 (or X amount of money) for mystery shopping info, that is probably a scam. You can get information about mystery shopping for free on the internet. I will explain this in my next article. :)
Thanks for telling us about this. I, like Silva, thought most of these were scams. I know SOMEONE has to mystery shop, but I would like to know how to go about starting this. I will "stay tuned!"
Informative article! I always thought those mystery shopper gigs were scams. Thanks!