The Mystery Shopper’s Manual

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or email updates. ----> Thanks for visiting!

Most mystery shoppers get dozens or even hundreds of emails every day from mystery shopping companies and schedulers. While lots of emails can mean lots of opportunities, the tsunami of messages can be overwhelming at times. Here are some ideas on how you can manage the flow of emails.

First of all, you may want to have an email account dedicated to secret shopping. That makes it easier to segregate your secret shopping email. When you are too busy to pick up any assignments, you can ignore that email account. Gmail does a great job of organizing email and identifying spam. You can sign up for a free Gmail account here.

In Gmail, you can automatically label emails as they come in. Then you can search for emails from the companies you are most interested in working for. Many email systems, such as Outlook and Eudora, allow you to filter messages into separate mailboxes, based on the subject or sender. If your email comes to your primary email address, you can better manage your mystery shopper emails by setting up filters to send emails from mystery shopping companies into a “Mystery Shopping” folder.

Many companies allow you to opt out of receiving email notifications. You can still apply for assignments by checking their job board; however, it is possible that you will miss some assignments that are only offered via email and not posted to the job board. If you are overwhelmed by email, though, this might be a good choice.

To see if you can opt out of email notifications, go to your profile or preference page in each company’s system. For example, in the SASSIE system, there is a box near the top of your profile that says, “I do not wish to receive mystery shopping offers by email.” If you check that box, the company will not send emails. To resume the emails, go back to your profile and remove the checkmark from the box. This is a good idea when you are going on vacation or will not be able to check email for a week or two. When you return you will not have to wade through thousands of emails.

It would be nice if you could opt out of just some of the emails, but I do not know any company that currently offers this. For example, you may only be interested in restaurant shops, or you may not want to see reimbursement-only shops. However, with most (if not all) companies, there is no way to only get emails for certain shops and not others.

One reason for this is that when schedulers have a hard time filling a shop they will send it to more and more shoppers. That is why you may see emails for mystery shops that are hundreds of miles away from you, or that require someone in a specific age range, a range that does not include you. Even if you can not do the shop, you may know someone who can.

Of course, if there is a company you no longer wish to shop for, you can deactivate yourself from their data base. Most companies offer an option on your profile or preferences page to do this. When you deactivate yourself, you can not view the job board or apply for shops. You should only do this if you do not wish to shop for the company at all. Although most companies will allow you to reactivate yourself if you change your mind, some may not.

Spend less time on email by setting up email systems that work for you.

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