The Mystery Shopper’s Manual

Question from a mystery shopper:

If an assignment were to come up during that time and I didn’t respond would the mystery shopping company stop sending me notices of new shops? Should I let them know I will be unavailable?

Most assignment notices are not directed to a particular shopper. Shop notices are often sent via mass email to hundreds or thousands of shoppers at once. Mystery shopping companies only expect you to respond if you are interested in an assignment, so not responding to job postings while you are on vacation will have no effect.

Once you have experience and have developed relationships with schedulers, there may be times when they contact you specifically to offer a shop to you. When you see that happening, you might want to let the schedulers with whom you work know when you will be unavailable. Chances are that at that point you will already be in regular contact with several schedulers, so you can just let them know you will be unavailable for assignments during the time you will be away.

Even for new shoppers, though, there are times when it is important for mystery shopping companies to know that you will be unavailable. If you do any mystery shops immediately before you go out of town, let them know that you will be gone and, if possible, give them a way to contact you. That is because questions may come up about your report and they need to resolve those quickly.

When you do not respond promptly to questions about your reports, that will hurt your standing with the company. They may be unable to use your report if it is unclear or incomplete. That means you may not be paid for that shop, and you may not be offered future mystery shopper jobs.

So have a wonderful vacation, and do not worry about mystery shopping. You will have the opportunity to do plenty of assignments when you return.