Jim and Judy Johnson, owners of Mystery Shopper Pros, answered some questions for us about mystery shopping for them. Here is what Jim and Judy had to say:
What types of shops does your company do?
We do restaurants, automotive services, movie theaters, hotels, bar integrity, bowling alley and consider anything else that is asked of us.
What is the best way for a new shopper to get in the door and get a first assignment? Continue Reading
Lots of people are cutting expenses, but still want to have a summer adventure. They may be choosing a “staycation” and having fun without leaving town, over a vacation involving trips far away from home. Mystery shopping can help you have a fun and rewarding staycation.
A mystery shopping staycation means working during your adventure—there are observations to make and reports to write—and you have to take your mystery shopping assignments seriously, even if you are thinking vacation. But you can have fun you might not be easily able to afford without mystery shopping. Here are a few ideas.Continue Reading
Although most of the questions on secret shopping reports are objective, yes-or-no style questions, many reports include one or more questions that ask for your opinion. Examples include questions such as:
These questions call for your opinion, but a good answer requires that you back up your opinion with reasons and facts. Here are some examples of how to handle these types of questions.
A shopper asks:
I am getting ready to retire and my spouse and I want to hit the road and travel across the country. Is it possible to mystery shop while we are on the road? Anything we need to watch out for?
Sure, you can mystery shop on the road, whether you are on a one-week vacation, you regularly travel for your job, or you have become a permanent road warrior.
There are a few things you may have to do differently to make mystery shopping while traveling work for you. Here are some things to consider.
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One of the things I love about mystery shopping is that you can control how much you earn. As you gain experience, improve your skills and build relationships with schedulers, you will have many opportunities to do more and better shops. Here are some ideas about how to dramatically increase your income (perhaps even double it) no matter what stage of your mystery shopper career you are in.Continue Reading
Is mystery shopping just a hobby to you, or is it a business? If you shop now and then as a lark, then having and meeting goals may not be important to you. However, if you consider mystery shopping a business (even if it is part-time), then you should have goals for what you expect to accomplish.
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Having great relationships with schedulers means you will be on their minds when they have jobs to fill. Here are some ways to be one of their favorite mystery shoppers:
Make your application complete. Answer every question. Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation on your application. If you haven’t worked with them before, all they know about you is what they see on the application.
Be dependable. If you accept an assignment, do it. About 25% of the time, secret shoppers who accept jobs don’t complete them. Imagine having to do your job twice 25% of the time. You wouldn’t like it, and schedulers don’t appreciate it either.
If an emergency comes up and you have to cancel, Continue Reading
Mystery shoppers evaluate customer service, cleanliness and quality at all kinds of businesses. The mystery shopper reports are used by businesses to recognize star performers, determine training needs, monitor whether procedures are being followed, identify missed sales opportunities and even, in some cases, as one factor in determining raises and bonuses.Continue Reading
Whether you are a brand new mystery shopper or you have been doing this for years, there are a few things you may not know about secret shopping in restaurants. There are some innocent mistakes that can affect the integrity of your shop, and maybe even get it rejected. Here are four things you need to avoid when you are mystery shopping a restaurant.Continue Reading
The brand new 7th edition of The Mystery Shopper’s Manual is here!
More than an update, this is a completely new book. I reviewed every page of the 6th edition and made drastic changes. Although a few of the basics were retained with minimal revisions, several chapters were eliminated, others were revised, and a lot of new content was added. In fact, the word count of this edition is 40% greater than the last one!
The biggest addition? I greatly expanded the section on writing reports. In fact, there are now two full chapters on writing reports with lots of example comments and narratives.
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