If you are just getting started in your job as a mystery shopper, the idea of job is likely absolutely thrilling. The thought of earning a paycheck walking through stores, sitting in restaurants, and more while secretly spying on the employees, checking on the cleanliness of the location, and more can really sound exciting compared to your past jobs. The fact is that this really is a great way to earn some cash when you compare it to some of the other alternatives out there.
Yet while the idea of performing mystery shopping assignments is thrilling, you may be looking toward completing your first few assignments with trepidation and anxiety. After all, you are walking into a situation to perform secret tasks, and if you have never had to enter an unfamiliar situation and lay low on the radar while fulfilling certain requirements, your anxieties are not unfounded. Here are some tips to help you get through your first few assignments without all of the stress so you can enjoy your new job right from the start:
Know Your Requirements. Each assignment you do will have different requirements, and so you will want to start each assignment by reading through the requirements in detail. Ideally, you should commit them to memory. You will be lost as to what to do during your site visit without understanding these requirements. If you have any questions about what to do, you should contact your scheduler well before your site visit is scheduled.
Perform a Mental Walk-Through. As you are reading through your assignment requirements, it can help to perform a mental walk-through of the site visit. This gives you an almost step-by-step instruction for how to walk through the site location. If you haven’t been in the location before and know the layout of the store, your walk-through may be a work-in-progress, so to speak. However, visualizing yourself picking out your merchandise, interacting with staff, making your purchase, stopping by the bathroom on the way out of the store, or whatever other requirements you have can really help you to ensure that you fulfill all requirements before you leave. After all, once you leave the store, you cannot return because you forgot to do something!
Read the Forums. If you haven’t yet visited the mystery shopping forums online, you will want to spend some time reading through the various conversation threads on the forums. These forums are filled with some great information for new mystery shoppers. They can give you an idea of what to expect on various assignments, how to get out of sticky situations, red flags to watch out for, and other information. This information will be more general in nature and won’t necessarily relate to a specific assignment you are working on. However, often what you learn from the forums can be used to make your assignments, now and in the future, much easier and more successful.
By following these tips, you can really improve your experience on those first few assignments that you work on. In fact, you may find that these are steps you want to take on an on-going basis for each and every assignment you do going forward, too!