Schedulers get frustrated when shoppers cancel at the last minute or just fail to do a shop. It happens more than you might think. In fact, it happens often enough that we have an industry term for it: It is called “flaking” on a shop.

Companies have told me that shoppers flake on an average of 25% of shops. That means that the scheduler has to hustle and find someone else to do the shop at the last minute. If you have ever wondered why you get those emails offering shops that have to be done today or tomorrow, that is often the reason.

Will you be forgiven if you cancel a shop? Maybe. It is not acceptable to cancel a shop or not do it just because you forgot, or you changed your mind, or something better came along. One shopper told me that she made the shop visit, but lost the receipt. She figured she wouldn’t be paid so she didn’t bother to do the report. She also didn’t notify the mystery shopping company. That is a big mistake, and one that is not likely to be forgiven.

So when is it OK to cancel?

Weather and natural disasters can be legitimate reasons not to complete your assignment. No one expects you to go out in the middle of a hurricane or risk dying in a snow storm just to do a shop. In extreme conditions the businesses are probably closed anyway—even if you could get there you couldn’t do the shop. The same is true for earthquakes, floods, blackouts and other disasters. Your scheduler might ask you to reschedule for another day, if that is possible. Or the shop might be canceled.

Health and family emergencies. A sudden illness, an accident, a death in the family and other emergencies can certainly make it difficult or impossible to do a shop. And mystery shopping is probably not number one on your priority list if you are dealing with a serious medical issue or a family tragedy. Most mystery shopping companies will be understanding—after all, these things happen to all of us. Keep in mind, though, that shoppers have lied about these things. One scheduler told me that a shopper canceled shops three months in a row, each time because she said her grandmother had died. Either grandma had more lives than a cat, or the shopper was lying.

When you can’t do a shop because of a true emergency, notify your scheduler as soon as you can. Most will be understanding, but they need to get the shop rescheduled as soon as possible, so the sooner you let them know, the better.

There may also be times when you can’t complete a shop on the agreed-upon day, but could at a later day. For example, your car breaks down on the way to the location. You may not be able to do the assignment on that day, but maybe you could do it the following day. Contact your scheduler immediately to let her know what is going on and see how the situation should be handled.

Do not get someone else to do the shop for you. That other person may not be an appropriate choice for the shop. They may not fit the client demographics or they may be some other reason they would not be acceptable. You may, however, offer a substitute to your scheduler. I filled in for another shopper that way once. She called and asked if I could do a restaurant shop that evening because she was ill and couldn’t do it. I said yes, so she called her scheduler to cancel and also told her that I was available if they wanted me to do the job. The scheduler contacted me with the shop information and it got done on time.

There are companies that will deactivate you for missing a shop for any reason. You could call them from the emergency room while you were having a heart attack and they would still deactivate you. I guess they do not want to be in the position of having to figure out who is lying and who is telling the truth, so they just treat everyone badly. Guilty even if proven innocent. You could appeal them for consideration, but do you really want to work with a company that treats shoppers that way? I would mark them off my list and move on.

There is another situation where you may be tempted to cancel a shop. That is when the shop scenario and report are different from what was presented before you accepted the assignment. What was described as an “easy and fun” shop actually involves an hour-long visit, a 17-page report with detailed narratives and 13 digital photos. All for the princely sum of $12.

Should you tell them to take their shop and stuff it, or should you go ahead and do it? That depends on the situation. You might chalk this up to being an aberration and do it. Or not.

You could let the scheduler know that you would not have accepted the assignment had it been described accurately, and that you are not willing to do it for the fee offered. That approach risks being deactivated, but they have violated your trust by misrepresenting the shop. You may not care if they do not offer you more of their lousy shops.

One way to reduce the possibilities of emergencies interfering with your shops is to complete the jobs as soon as you can. When you have two weeks to do a shop, plan to do it day one or two instead of day 13 or 14. That way if there is an emergency on day two, you still have 12 days to get the shop done.

Here is an explanation of how these ratings are typically determined, and how you can keep your ratings high.

Each company uses it own method, however, there are many similarities. If a company is using a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest score and 10 being the highest, a 10 usually means that the report was exactly right. The report was complete, it was submitted on time, the editor did not have to follow up with the shopper because of questions or issues with the report, and there were no grammatical errors that required the editor to revise the report. In short, a “perfect” report.

Some companies may be a little flexible on this, and give a 10 to a report that had a spelling error or some other minor issue. However, in general, a 10 is a report where the editor does nothing but review it and verify that it is correct and complete.

Editors may deduct one or more points for each problem with the report. Although the editor may have some discretion in scoring, companies have policies about setting ratings. They want ratings to be consistent, no matter which editor reviews the reports. In reality, some editors (just like that tough teacher you had in 5th grade!) are tougher than others when it comes to rating reports. However, the difference should not be significant–maybe a point or two.

Points may be deducted for:

• Submitting a late report
• Not including all required comments
• Spelling, grammar or punctuation errors
• Failing to submit required documentation, such as a receipt
• Inconsistent answers, unclear comments, or anything that requires the editor contact the shopper for clarification
• Ratings may also be reduced for failing to follow the shop guidelines. Of course, failing to follow the guidelines may cause the client to reject your report. Not only will you receive a low rating, when a client rejects your report you will not be paid for the shop and you may not be eligible to complete future shops for that client.

You can earn high report ratings by:

• Carefully reading and following all shop guidelines.
• Completing your report as soon as possible after the shop visit.
• Explaining anything in the report that the editor might possibly question.
• Providing good details in your report.
• Re-reading your report to make sure all answers and comments are consistent, and all comments clearly describe what occurred.
• Proofreading to catch any grammatical errors.
• Reviewing the report to be certain all required documentation has been submitted.

Do your best work and you will receive the shop ratings (and the great assignments) you deserve.

Don’t post your email address publicly in forums or on your website. Spammers use software to harvest email addresses from the web, and posting your email address on a public website guarantees that you will get more spam.

Be careful where you share your address. Before you give your email address at a website, make sure that you are on the site you think you are on. Some sites look deceptively similar to others. Then, look for signs that the site will not give or sell your address to anyone else. Each of my websites has a privacy policy that says I will use your email address to send what you have requested (e.g., an email course, newsletters and updates, or receipts and other information related to purchases). I don’t send other emails and I don’t share email addresses with any other person or company.

Know when to unsubscribe, and when not to. When you signed up to receive emails (such as daily offers or an email newsletter) and you decide you don’t want them anymore, that doesn’t mean they are spam. You asked to receive them by subscribing, so just unsubscribe and the emails will stop. Look for an unsubscribe link at the bottom of one of the email messages. True spam (stuff like the drug ads and scams) will often not have an unsubscribe link.

No matter how well you take care of yourself, sooner or later you are going to get sick. With many jobs, you may be able to call in sick for a couple of days and rest in bed until you feel better while your co-workers fill in for you. As a mystery shopper, though, there aren’t any co-workers to pick up the slack. So what can you do when you are too sick to do a shop?

First look at the shops you have scheduled and check the deadlines. Perhaps some of the shops you were planning to do in the next couple of days are not really due until next week–you were just trying to get them done well in advance of the deadline. You have some breathing room for those mystery shops.

How many shops are you committed to doing in the next day or two? What do these shops involve? If you only have a couple of shops that must be done, they are nearby and not very complicated, maybe you can go ahead and do them. Of course, you do not want to infect a bunch of other people, so consider whether what you are ill with is contagious before venturing out.

When you are just too ill to do anything, let your scheduler know immediately. You may be able to reschedule the shops and get them done when you are feeling better, or your scheduler may need to find another shopper to fill in.

What about getting someone else to do the shop for you? Most companies specify in their Independent Contractor Agreements (ICA) that you may not get someone else to do a shop for you. One reason for this is that you may have been selected for the assignment based on your demographics or experience. The person you get to fill in may not fit the profile desired by the client.

You certainly may ask the mystery shopping company about having someone take the assignment for you. For example, my first assignment with one company came when another shopper was ill. She called me, gave me some basic information about the shop and asked if I would do it if the company wanted me to. I said yes, so she called her scheduler and explained that she was ill and could not do the shop that was due that day, but she knew someone who could. The scheduler got in touch with me and gave me the shop. That worked out for everyone involved. The shopper got to stay home in bed, the scheduler got the assignment completed on time, and I started a relationship with a new company. Win-win-win.

The most important thing to remember is that when anything will interfere with getting your assignments completed on time you should notify your scheduler as soon as you possibly can. Communication is vital, so keep your scheduler informed whenever you have an emergency that could cause you to miss a deadline.

And, hey, get well soon!

Clearly, though, someone is doing those low-paying shops. Is it always a new shopper, desperate for whatever jobs they can get? Or do experienced shoppers sometimes do them, too? Should you?

There are some reasons to do low-paying shops. For example, if you are doing a route of shops and you run across a couple of assignments you can squeeze in between your other jobs, you might decide to go for them. A shop that is not worth doing when you have to make a special trip may be acceptable when you will be “in the neighborhood” and can just pop in and do the shop.

Are there a bunch of these shops available so you can group them? Some clients will allow you to do a group of shops in one batch. There is less prep time per shop and the reports can be easier when you are doing six identical shops. (Remember not to copy-and-paste your reports, though. That is a no-no.)

Does the shop offer a benefit you want? Perhaps there is no fee or just a small fee, but the reimbursement is worth it. Or the shop involves doing something you need to do anyway. If you need to find out about mobile phone plans, it might be worth taking some shops where you inquire about plans from various carriers, especially if the report is not complicated.

Can the shop save you time you would have to spend otherwise? I will sometimes do takeout shops because they are typically simple to do and I don’t have to cook dinner. I spend about the same amount of time picking up the food and doing the report as I would cooking, and I would rather mystery shop than cook!

Do you just like to do this particular shop? One shopper told me that there was a shop she absolutely refused to do because she didn’t think it was worth her time. Her husband, however, loved to shop that client. It was one of his favorite places, so he didn’t care that the pay wasn’t all that great.

Of course, if you see that the mystery shopping company is having trouble finding shoppers to do those low-paying shops, you can always request a bonus for doing them. Depending on how desperate they are, they may be willing to pay significantly more than the original offer to get the shops done. It can’t hurt to ask, and that can turn a low-paying shop into a high-paying shop in an instant.

Here are some ways to get your records organized.

Start simply. Get a supply of large envelopes or folders and always have at least one in your car. Put any paperwork from a shop in the envelope right away. Paperwork may include your notes, receipts, business cards and other documents related to the shop. Keep a notebook in the car for recording mileage and small expenses for which a receipt is not required, such as tolls and parking meters.

Have a system for recording income and expenses. You can use a program such as Quicken, an Excel spreadsheet or a ledger or notebook, whatever works for you. Keep track of the details of each shop: The mystery shopping company, client, date, location, mileage, expenses, reimbursement, fee and expected pay date. Note when payment is actually received so you always know how much money you are owed.

Don’t fall behind in your records. It is easy to let envelopes of receipts pile up without entering them into your accounting records. When tax time rolls around you will be glad you took the time to update your records at least weekly. Plus, by keeping on top of things you will always know exactly where you stand. How much have you earned? How much have you been paid? How much are you owed? Are you more profitable than you were last year at this time? How do your expenses compare?

Purge your files. Most mystery shopping companies recommend that you keep your shop records at least until you are paid. I would recommend keeping most records at least six months, and financial records (such as receipts) even longer. Anything related to taxes should generally be kept at least seven years, because that is the period for which you can be audited. You do not, however, need to keep shop notes, copies of reports and other documentation that long. At least once or twice a year get rid of anything more than six months old.

Digitize your records. Keeping years of receipts, mileage logs and other records can take up a lot of space. Consider scanning your these documents and keeping them on your computer. Keeping digital records makes it even more important that you have good computer backups. Using an external hard drive that you keep next to the computer is NOT a good system. If anything happens to the computer (e.g., fire, flood, theft) it will probably happen to the backup, too. Keep an online backup or make a copy of the files and store them offsite, such as a safe deposit box or other secure location.

Keeping good financial records will help you to make better decisions and make more money.

Communicate more. Mystery shopping companies want shoppers to keep them informed. Let them know if there is a problem scheduling an appointment or something goes wrong on the shop visit or a location no longer exists or… One shopper told me that she discovered a major problem with the scenario for a shop: Shoppers were supposed to tell the salesperson the amount of their budget, and there was nothing in the store for anything close to that price. Oops. Letting them know about the error immediately helped them fix the problem before other shoppers did their assignments.

Try something new. Try a different kind of assignment or investigate doing other, related work such as merchandising and demos. You may find jobs you really love, and have more opportunities to earn.

Do shops sooner. When you have two weeks to do a shop, do it as soon as you can. This frees you up to take additional assignments and you don’t have to worry about unexpected events interfering with your shop. And if something does come up, you have plenty of time to get the assignment done before the due date. Something else to keep in mind is that many schedulers look at when you completed past shops when making assignments. The shopper who does their assignments early is often given preference over the shopper who always gets assignments done at the last minute.

That goes for reports, too. Report deadlines are shorter than ever, but if you have 24 hours to do the report you should not wait until hour 23 to start. Get it done as soon as you can after the shop. The details are fresher in your mind, getting it done means you can move on to the next thing, and computer problems or family emergencies won’t cause you to miss the report deadline.

Clear out the deadwood. Are there companies you no longer enjoy working with? Are there others that never seem to have interesting assignments? Maybe it’s time to dump them and concentrate on the companies you love. Or look for some new companies you have not worked with before. There are hundreds of mystery shopping providers out there—deal with the ones you love and forget the rest.

Learn something new. Acquire a skill that will help you to make more money as a mystery shopper. That might be learning about video mystery shopping so you can take on new, profitable assignments. Or it might be learning how to use technology to earn more money in less time. For example, you might learn how to mange your email more effectively to spend less time hunting for assignments, or how to use your GPS or mapping software to plan a route and spend less time (and gas money) driving from one shop to the next.

Start a savings plan. The money you earn as a part-time or occasional mystery shopper may seem inconsequential—$20 here, $50 there, it doesn’t seem like much compared to a “real” paycheck. However, when you add up the money and the extras you earn as a mystery shopper, it is probably a nice addition to the family income. Don’t fritter it away by cashing your checks and blowing the money. Deposit all of your mystery shopping payments into your bank account. Put aside a portion for expenses and taxes, and put the rest in an account earmarked for a special purpose, such as holiday gifts, a vacation trip, college for the kids or your retirement.

Implement a few of these resolutions and you will make 2012 your best year ever as a mystery shopper.

This is a guest post by Leo Notenboom of Ask Leo!

If I told you that there was one fairly simple thing you could do, that once set up you’d rarely even have to think about it and that it could save you from almost any computer related disaster, would you be interested?

Such a thing does exist: it’s called backing up. If there were anything close to a magic silver bullet for recovering from almost any computer related problem, backing up religiously would be it.

Consider, for example:

• your computer becomes infected with a virus you can’t get rid of. Recover by simply restoring your machine to the most recent backup before the infection.
• you accidentally delete a file. Recover by restoring it from a backup.
• your computer’s hard drive fails and must be replaced. Recover by restoring your most recent backup to the replacement hard drive.
• you install some new software that, as far as you can tell, completely messes up your system and won’t uninstall properly. Recover by restoring your system from its most recent backup. Think of any computer-related disaster and there’s a good chance that a reliable backup makes recovery not only possible, but even easy.

Backing up does not have to be hard.

It’s been said that the “best” back up, like exercise, is whatever you’ll actually do — any backup is better than none at all.

But it’s not that difficult to create a backup process that regularly makes sure your precious documents, photos, files and even system changes have been squirreled away for safekeeping.

Yes, backing up can get complicated, but it doesn’t have to be, particularly for home and small business computer users. There are two basic and easy approaches that can provide the security you need.

The first is to purchase an external hard drive and dedicated backup software. Set up the backup software to take full backups of your system every week or every month, and then also take incremental backups perhaps as often as every day. Nothing older than a day can be lost since you can restore any file or even the entire system to its state as of any day on which the backup ran.

The second option that’s growing in popularity is to sign up for an on-line backup service. For a low monthly fee, these services install a small application on your computer that monitors for changed files and automatically uploads them to a secure location. You can then access those backed up files anywhere and restore them to any machine. While full-machine backups are typically impractical due to the massive amount data involved, if you have an always-on high-speed internet connection, online services may be a convenient and practical way to backup your most important data.

Remember, if your data is stored in only one place – be it on your hard disk or even in online service such as an web based email account – it’s not backed up and you risk losing it all. Resolve now to get a backup solution in place as soon as possible so that when, not if, disaster strikes you’ll be prepared to recover quickly.

Here is how it works: You sign up for a service such as Spam Arrest that uses a challenge/response system. Whenever someone sends you an email for the first time after you begin using the system, the email is not delivered to you. Instead, the sender receives an email saying that they have to click on a link, go to a website and enter a code. Only then will the email reach your inbox. If the email sender does not confirm by clicking on the link and entering the code, the email never gets to you.

Sounds great. The spammers won’t take the time to do this, so you don’t get any more spam. The problem is that

lots of people sending you email that you want will not bother to do it, either. Mystery shopping companies send out thousands of emails at a time. If they get a dozen, a hundred or a thousand challenge/response replies, they will ignore them. In fact, many of them probably have their email systems configured to send anything from challenge/response services directly to trash, so they will not even see them.

What this means is that you are going to miss out on mystery shopping opportunities. Worse, if an editor emails with a question and you do not respond, a report you completed for them might be rejected. Although they would probably call before rejecting a report, there is no guarantee that they would do so.

Of course, this goes beyond mystery shopping. Some of your friends may not understand why they are getting the challenge/response email and may ignore it. Some may be justifiably afraid to click on a link to a site they do not recognize in order to verify their identity.

There are ways to add trusted addresses so that they are not rejected or forced to go through the verification process, so you can avoid some of the problems of missing emails from family and friends. However, you are not going to easily add every possible mystery shopping company contact.

Yes, spam is a problem. But the solution is not to treat everyone—from mystery shopping companies to merchants with whom you have placed an order to your great-aunt Gerty—as a spammer. There are better ways, and I will address some of them in upcoming articles.

Make sure you don’t miss my tips on making sure you get mystery shopper job offers while avoiding spam. Put my RSS feed in your reader, or subscribe to get email alerts when I add new articles by entering your email address in the box in the right column under “Email Updates.”

Here are some suggestions for getting a good quality image of the receipt to submit with your report.

First of all, pay attention to the guidelines and submit the receipt as requested. The guidelines will always supercede any general information, such as these tips.

Some companies will want your name and/or shopper ID on the receipt. If so, write it neatly on the receipt.

In most cases, you may either scan the receipt or take a photo. I usually find that it is easier to take a digital photo. Use whichever method gets you a clear image in the easiest way.

When taking a photo, you may be able to use the camera in your cell phone. Most recent cell phones take good quality photos. Because you must upload the photo with your report, you need to be able to get the photo from your cell phone to your computer. This may mean simply connecting the phone and computer with a standard USB cable, or you may need a cable made especially for your phone. In some cases, special software may be required to transfer the photos from your phone.

Don’t use a flash when photographing a receipt. It can cause glare that makes the receipt difficult to read.

Once you have the receipt scanned or photographed, you can edit it using your favorite photo editing software. I like to use IrfanView, but you can use iPhoto (on the Mac), Picasa or other online photo editors. Make sure the receipt is easy to read. If the print is very light, you may be able to adjust the contrast and brightness to make it more readable.

Save the receipt file in portrait layout so it can be easily read on the screen.

Save the image as a standard graphic format, such as JPG or GIF. The file size may be large, so reduce the file size by changing the dimensions of the image. Be sure that you maintain the same proportions when resizing so the image is not distorted.

Use a file name that makes sense. The mystery shopping company may tell you how to name the file but if they don’t you might use a naming convention such as ClientName-Location-Date.JPG. So the file name might be ThePieHole-Houston007-102411.JPG. Do not put characters such as periods, commas, apostrophes and slashes in the file name.

Your receipts and other documents are an important part of your shop report. Make sure the images you submit are high-quality.