Same Employee, Different Location

Posted on November 17th, 2008 in Preparing for the Mystery Shop, Secret Shopper How-To, Sticky Secret Shopper Situations by Cathy Stucker

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surprise.jpgHave you ever had this happen? You are mystery shopping more than one location of the same business, and one of the employees from a place you shopped earlier turns up at another location. Oops. What can you do?

Many businesses have “floating” employees who work at more than one branch or store. This happens in banking, retail, property management (apartments), and other businesses. Sometimes floaters have a regular schedule that moves them from place to place, and other times they may be filling in for an employee who is ill or on vacation or when a location is otherwise short-staffed.

I used to shop a lot of grocery stores, and often did two or three in one trip. One day, a manager was at both of the stores I shopped. Fortunately, I saw him before he saw me, and the store was big enough that I was able to avoid him for the rest of my visit. However, there are times that isn’t possible. …continue reading Same Employee, Different Location

Bad Language and Secret Shopper Reports

Posted on September 22nd, 2008 in Sticky Secret Shopper Situations, Writing Mystery Shopper Reports by Cathy Stucker

cursing.jpgWhile doing a mystery shop, you overhear a conversation between employees where they use obscenities. Or, worse, an employee curses while talking to you. Should you include it in the report? And if you do, should you actually put “those words” in your report?

What if the employees are not the ones swearing, but other customers? Should that go in your report?

It seems that the language gets coarser every day, and people say things in public that they would not have said even in private many years ago. I am convinced that some people are so accustomed to swearing that they do not even notice when they drop an f-bomb in a public place. Therefore, it should come as no surprise when you run in to employees or other customers cursing up a storm.

Here are some tips on when you should mention the use of offensive language in your secret shopping reports, and what you should say. …continue reading Bad Language and Secret Shopper Reports