What if mystery shoppers evaluated everyday people doing everyday things? Sensors Quality Management (SQM), a Canadian mystery shopping company, has created a series of videos called “Thankfully Only For Business” that show what might happen if mystery shoppers were turned loose to evaluate people in the shower, on a date, in the gym—even while they sleep!

The videos provide a tongue in cheek look at what we do as secret shoppers. SQM is releasing new videos every week for five weeks. Currently, there are two videos in their YouTube channel. Once all of the videos are available, viewers will be asked to vote to choose the top three. For more information, to watch the videos and to vote, go to http://www.sqm.ca/videoContest.jsp.

My mother was a mystery shopper in the mid-1960s. The job helped her escape four noisy kids and earn a little extra money for herself. Mystery shopping was the only work she was allowed outside the home.

It’s hard to understand her world now. The Sixties are seen as a wild time, but they weren’t for traditional blue collar wives. My father was a supervisor for Union Electric in St. Louis. My mom cleaned house and took care of three unruly boys and me. No mom in our neighborhood worked outside the home.

When my youngest brother started school full-time, Mom didn’t want to clean house and do church charity work. But Dad was old-school. Wives didn’t work – not in Florissant, Missouri. Mom’s job would insult his manhood and earning power.

Mystery shopping was their compromise. In Dad’s view, Mom didn’t have a “real” job. She was paid to shop, a female activity.

Mom probably worked harder than he did. She trudged through miles of stores and acres of asphalt parking lots. She had to be home by 3 p.m., when we kids got home from school. She also had to have dinner on the table when Dad came home at 5:30.

Fast forward to 2004. Mom and Dad were both gone, and so was their traditional world. I was now a writer for NAL, a division of Penguin books in New York. I wrote the national bestselling Dead-End Job mystery series. NAL asked if I’d try a series about a mystery shopper.

I knew I could write that series. I’d lived it. I’d eaten the greasy chicken Mom brought back from mystery-shopping a fast-food chain. I’d heard her talk about the supermarket checker who didn’t look under the cart and Mom had walked out with a fifty-pound sack of dog food. I’d listened to her complain how her feet hurt.

I got the contract. NAL thought the series would last maybe two or three books. My fifth Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper Mystery, “The Fashion Hound Murders,” will be published this November.

My protagonist, Josie Marcus, is a mix of fiction and fact. Josie is a single mom who lives in a two-family flat in Maplewood, an old St. Louis suburb. Josie’s ten-year-old daughter, Amelia, is a scholarship student at a ritzy school. Josie’s divorced mother lives upstairs, and gives her daughter free baby-sitting and unwanted advice.

Josie lives on her mystery shopper income, which is probably impossible. But Josie isn’t a true-to-life mystery shopper any more than James Bond is a real spy. The novels focus on the more dramatic parts of the job, just as spy movies avoid the dull stakeouts, document reading, and dead-end interviews for the dramatic chase scenes.

But some parts of my series are real. The questionnaires my mother used some fifty years ago are similar to ones used today. Mom had to note whether the clerk greeted her, check product displays and the cleanliness of the restrooms, among other things.

Josie often mystery shops with her best friend, Alyce, just as Mom shopped with her friend, Connie. Mom felt two middle-aged women were invisible. Josie at thirty-one, is some ten years younger than my mother was. Josie sometimes wears disguises for her work. That’s my invention, and here’s why:

When I worked at a chain bookstore in 2000, headquarters used mystery shoppers in south Florida. The shoppers started at the stores north of us in Palm Beach County, and worked down the coast to our store. We always knew the mystery shopper was on her way.

The tip-off?

Back then, the chain sold a $25 discount club card. Clerks were required to pitch it to every customer. Customers hated listening to our routine and interrupted us with angry remarks: “I said NO last time!” “I already have a card.” When checkout lines were long and staff was short, we’d skip the pitch.

Only a mystery shopper listened to the entire spiel. That was the give-away. Our store would get a call from a clerk, “Mystery shopper on the way. Look for a woman about 45, with dark hair and a blue blouse.”

Every brunette in a blue blouse who entered our store was practically carried to the book she asked about. A wig and a blouse change would have made her unrecognizable.

Mom saw herself as a suburban spy, righting retail wrongs. So does Josie. Both believe that mystery shopping is a noble calling. Mom felt she fought for the invisible female shopper. Josie Marcus calls this woman Mrs. Minivan and sees her as ignored and neglected by some of the retail community.

Elaine Viets is the author of thirteen mysteries. She writes the Dead-End Job mysteries, set in South Florida, and the Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper mysteries. She has won the Anthony and the Agatha Awards for her writing. Check out the first chapters of her novels at www.elaineviets.com. Order your autographed copies of “The Fashion Hound Murders” direct from one of the largest mystery bookstores in the nation, Mystery Lovers Bookshop. For orders over $10, shipping is free at http://www.mysterylovers.com/index.php?target=products&product_id=53398. “The Fashion Hound Murders” is also available on Kindle. I hope the adventures of Josie Marcus will help consumers realize the important work mystery shoppers do.

When we do get together with other people, we have to watch what we say so we don’t violate our confidentiality agreements. But it doesn’t really matter, because even if we could talk about what we do, they wouldn’t really understand. Getting paid to shop? That sounds like a pretty cushy gig to most people.

Wouldn’t it be great to get together with a bunch of other shoppers once in a while? Sharing a meal, talking about mystery shopping, exchanging tips and leads about your favorite companies, or just talking about the stuff cube dwellers discuss around the water cooler sounds like fun, right? Expanding your network and learning from other mystery shoppers can also make you a better, more successful shopper.

One easy way to meet and network with other shoppers is through a meetup group. There are several groups already in existence around the country, but if there isn’t one in your area, you can start one. Here are some ideas.

A simple way to hook up with other shoppers interested in meeting is at http://mysteryshoppers.meetup.com/. You can see the existing groups, and also find others who are looking for a group. If there isn’t one in your area, why not start one? Using the web site to manage your group requires payment of a small monthly fee, but they provide tools to help you manage and communicate with the group.

You can also find other shoppers and spread the word on forums and message boards such as http://forum.volition.com/ or in the shopper area at http://www.mysteryshop.org/shoppers. Simply post that you want to get together with other shoppers and you will probably find several who are interested.

Your meetings can be informal get-togethers where everyone just chats and enjoys the company of other shoppers, or you can have programs where shoppers and others share information and tips to help everyone become better shoppers. For example, a shopper might demonstrate how she uses a piece of equipment on mystery shops, or you might have an accountant talk about tax issues, or someone present some grammar and writing tips to improve everyone’s reports.

IMPORTANT: Even though you are all mystery shoppers, you still need to keep confidential information confidential. That means no talking about specific clients or shops.

Having a network of shoppers in your area can be helpful when you have an emergency. You should avoid canceling a shop unless you absolutely have no choice; however, if you must cancel, being able to suggest another shopper who could fill in for you can help to save the day (and your reputation with the scheduler).

Because we do not have co-workers, building our own groups of co-workers through meetup groups can make mystery shopping more satisfying and keep us from feeling isolated. Why not make some new mystery shopping friends today?

As shoppers, we are sometimes concerned that be required to ask what we believe are “stupid” questions will give us away. My answer to that is that real customers do dumber things than anything we do. Want proof? Check out this site: http://notalwaysright.com/.

At The Customer is Not Always Right, people who work in sales, tech support, food service and other customer service positions share horror stories of stupid and difficult customers. Anyone who has ever held a job dealing with the public will experience flashes of recognition. As secret shoppers, we have probably observed some of these types of interactions. However, if you see yourself as the customer in any of these stories . . . uh, there may be a problem.

What Was Lost, Catherine O’Flynn’s novel, won a £5000 prize and is in contention for the £25,000 Costa Book of the Year Award, to be presented January 22, 2008.

O’Flynn says she was inspired to write the mystery novel while working at a shopping center. The story is about a security guard who spots a child on CCTV 20 years after the child went missing.

The Josie Marcus mysteries are written by popular mystery novelist Elaine Viets, who is also the author of the Dead End Jobs mysteries. Viets researches the jobs she features in her books, so how did she do with describing what mystery shopping is really like?

Some aspects she gets nearly spot-on. She shows that Josie’s life as a mystery shopper is not the glamorous whirlwind of designer gowns, flashy sports cars and cruise vacations some would have you believe. Josie spends one entire day going from one fast-food place to another, acquiring buckets of chicken (and a car that smells like a deep fryer) along the way. And Josie is not getting rich by mystery shopping, either.

Most of the shop scenarios seem reasonable. Josie checks the appearance of the building exterior, looks for fingerprints on display cases, interacts with employees, and other things that real-life mystery shoppers do every day.

So (aside from getting involved in murder investigations) what doesn’t ring true? First of all, Josie is a full-time mystery shopper, working for one company. That is not at all typical, except perhaps in Nevada. Her communications with the local office of the mystery shopping company are by fax and phone, not the Internet.

Josie’s disguises are a bit over the top. For example, when shopping those chicken restaurants, she wears “a pink tube top with WHITE TRASH written in rhinestones, purple short shorts that looked like they had been applied with a paintbrush, and red high-heeled sandals.” The outfit is topped off with a “Dolly Parton wig . . . down to her rear.” It is important to blend in with other customers when mystery shopping, and you won’t be blending in anywhere, even a fast food restaurant, in an outfit like that.

Most of the unrealistic aspects of mystery shopping are driven by the story. After all, would you want to read a novel about what mystery shoppers really do all day? Yeah, well, neither would anyone else, so Viets can be excused for jazzing up the job a bit.

What is the bottom line? If you like cozy mysteries (mysteries that are relatively free of blood and gore, despite the body count) you will probably enjoy the Josie Marcus mysteries. The stories are set in St. Louis, so if you have any connection with that area you will find much that is familiar. These novels are entertaining and fun to read, so if you are looking for an escape from the real life of a mystery shopper, pick up one of the Josie Marcus books and spend some time in her world.

Copyright Cathy Stucker. All rights reserved. Cathy Stucker is the author of The Mystery Shopper’s Manual. Get your copy here.