Most mystery shoppers will be able to sail through dozens of assignments without so much as a hiccup. You sign up for assignments on the job boards, head into assignment site visit locations discreetly and are gone before any of the location employees catch on to why you are really there. You head home and submit your report, and then wait for your pay to come in. Of course, while this may be your experience for most assignments, the fact is that every mystery shopper has a bad day from time to time and needs to let off some steam. Here are a few days you can let off workday steam as a mystery shopper:
Visit The Forums. When you have a bad day as a mystery shopper, one of the best things you can do is hop online and pay a visit to a mystery shopper forum. These forums are a great place to commiserate with others in your line of work. You may find that other people have experienced similar bad days, or you may even find some comfort in hearing about another mystery shopper complain about an even worse day than you just had. Either way, you are sure to leave the forum feeling better, if for no other reason than knowing that your bad day isn’t unique and you do have some support out there.
Take a Breather. There are times in every mystery shopper’s work life when the job just gets to be a little too stressful. It may be because you have a million other things going on in your personal life outside of mystery shopping, or it may be because you have just overloaded yourself with mystery shopping assignments and are feeling frazzled. Either way, if you reflect back on the day’s events and feel like the events of the day upset you more than they should have, it may be time to take a much needed break from mystery shopping for a few days or even a few weeks.
Shift Gears. There are times when the problem isn’t you at all, but rather it’s your providers who are causing your bad day. If you find that one specific provider is giving you more headaches and hassles than you want to deal with, it may be time to shift gears and find someone new to work with. The fact is that some mystery shopping providers are indeed better to work with than others, and because there are so many different providers out there, you do not have to feel like you need to stick with one provider for the sake of earning a paycheck. Make an effort to sign up with a new provider today, and you may find that this simple action can take a world of stress off of your shoulders!
Moving forward from a bad day, you really have to take a look at the day and see if there is something you could have done differently to yield a better outcome or if this was simply one of those crazy things that happens in the world of mystery shopping.