Mystery shoppers spend a lot of time and effort focusing on their mystery shopper ratings that providers issue. While not every provider has a rating system, many of them do. These ratings are a source of stress and anxiety for mystery shoppers, and any minor adjustment downward is enough to unsettle many people who work in this field and put their best effort out on each and every assignment.
So What Exactly Is a Shopper Rating?
A shopper rating is generally a system that ranks your performance as a mystery shopper, and in most cases the rating ranges from one to ten, with ten being the best rating that you can get. New mystery shoppers generally will start out as a five, and if they want to receive a higher rating, they do have to do some pretty exceptional work on a very regular basis with the provider in question.
What Does A Lower Rating Mean?
Many times, a mystery shopper will have a little bit of leniency with regards to minor errors on your reports, and you may be able to make a revision or two as requested without seeing a bump downward in your rating. Generally if this happens, though, you will not have the opportunity to get a bump upward in your rating. A lower rating typically will come about when there are more significant issues with an assignment such as if you turned the report in late or otherwise failed to follow the instructions fully, as an example.
Are Some Providers Stricter Than Others?
The mystery shopping rating system is somewhat arbitrary, and different providers do use it in their own unique way. You may do the same quality of work for one mystery shopping provider than you do for another, and with one you may have a rating of six while another may have you at an eight or nine. The fact is that your rating does affect which assignments you are eligible for, and so it is in your best interest to keep it as high as possible. If you feel that your rating is being unfairly dinged and that your paycheck is being affected, you may want to consider working for another provider who is more lenient in their use of the system.
Why Does Your Rating Matter?
Many mystery shopping providers that employ a rating system do provide mystery shoppers who have a higher rating with more work opportunities. In many cases, this means that the shopper will be given more assignments to work on, and it can also mean that those assignments are the better assignments in terms of ease to complete and higher compensation, too. As you can see, your mystery shopper rating does indeed matter quite a bit.
If you do not know what your rating is with the providers who you work for, you will want to hop online and take a look at what your score is. You should also pay attention to adjustments with your rating on a regular basis as this does have the ability to affect your paycheck as a mystery shopper.