Mystery shopping is about more than just making a paycheck. If you started your career as a mystery shopper with the dreams of making big bucks, you will likely be sorely disappointed. Mystery shopping is a great way to put some extra cash in your pocket, but very few people make even enough money as a mystery shopper to make this a full-time job.
Instead, most mystery shoppers are happy to earn some decent cash and get reimbursements on purchases and services in exchange. In addition to these tangible benefits are the contributions mystery shoppers make to their local communities as well as to the various companies and industries they service. From retail and entertainment to hospitality, banking, and so many other areas, mystery shopping has far-reaching effects.
Customer Service. With each report you complete as a mystery shopping, whether the result is positive or negative for the store and its staff, your feedback has broad and long-lasting effects for the company. With both positive and negative comments, your feedback is used to make changes to what’s not working in the company you visit as well as to enhance what is working. With each and every mystery shopping report, little by little you are giving the stores, restaurants, and other establishments, the information they need to improve customer service future visits by those throughout your local community.
Improving Sales. If you have ever gone into a store and been on the fence about making a purchase, you understand that with the proper sales techniques and guidance from store staff, you may have wobbled in your indecision and decided to make the purchase. With the feedback you provide in your report, you give stores the information they need to see where their sales training is lacking and improve sales techniques throughout their company. This may seem like it has little effect on you as a person. However, if the recent global economic crisis has taught us anything, it is that the economy is woven together very tightly, and with improved sales in one company, store locations and jobs can be saved and even created in new locations.
Improving Quality. One bad experience at a restaurant can turn a customer off from that location, and he may never return again. Further, if that customer tells his friends about those soggy fries and flat soda he had, his friends may decide not to go to that location as well. The product a restaurant’s kitchen turns out on a regular basis may go unnoticed, good or bad, from the store’s owners for quite some time. With your mystery shopping report, however, you have a direct line to the store’s owner to let them know about the freshness of your veggies or the toughness of your steak. With the feedback you provide, you can save future patrons from a poor experience at the restaurant while at the same time helping the restaurant to make the changes it needs to in order to improve future profits.
The next time you are completing your mystery shopping report, keep these hidden values of mystery shopping in mind. Rest easy at night knowing that you are helping your community as well as your economy with your services as a mystery shopper!