Hello Mick
Welcome to this forum, surly you will find like-minded people who share your passion for mystery shopping. I for one truly enjoy MSing because I know I am helping make a better Customer experience, and I am a customer most of the time.
Wow! I wish the United Nations had a MS ambassadorship, because I will nominate you for that position ;-)
Keep up the great work, and let me know if you ever land on my shores, in San Francisco, CA, USA.
Hey Pamela,
In addition to Ivan’s excellent recommendations, I would like to add that most MSPs suggest that you do not fill the questionnaire on site or any where near by.
You need to preserve your anonymity as a MSer so that you do not sway the behavior of your subject. Imagine what will happen if you announce “Hello All, I am Pamela a mystery shopper, who wants to help me?” Now surly this is an example but some have been shopped so many times, they know and can spot us easily, specially in the real estate industry where we have to wear a button camera, and your body movements are a tell tale sign.
So, read the guidelines 7 times, understanding what the questions are asking for, then make sure you commit these requirements to memory, what to do, and what not to do.
Then go to the establishment and conduct your assignment without any hints as to the real purpose of your visit. Be as natural as possible so you do not tip the workers off.
After you are done, go away, and then some more, I would go home and start my report where I am 100% sure no one will see me.
During the MSPA conferences I have attended, the story of someone filling the form outside the establishment in their parking lot, only to have the worker come rushing to the car, yelling you forgot your (umbrella, hat, credit card... what have you) and find the report in your hands.
If you live in a one-party state (that is a party that allows recording) then you can start the voice recorder on your smartphone to keep track of the conversation. If you live in a 2-party state, you may have to rely on your memory. So do take notes as soon as you finish walking/driving away, but don’t sit in the parking lot.
Hope this helps.
Hey Pamela
I would also suggest that you record your own either via a separate recorder, or via your smartphone set on speaker phone. The reason for that is that when you are writing your report, you may at times not have full access to the recording, plus on your own you can forward and back space to get to the relevant parts of the recording.
Hey Melissa
Welcome, and I am sure that you will find good material all around this forum. When you have a specific question, please don’t hesitate to ask, and we will give you an honest, tried and tested advice.
Welcome!
Hey Tamara
Yes! That is why we are independent contractors and not employees. To be able to choose what to do with our time. I hope the US Internal Revenue Service will not touch the IC classification and will simply make companies not abuse this status to save money.
We are all hard workers and we provide a needed service.
Where do you Secret Shop?
Hey Pamela
How was it? Did you submit your report and see it’s entry under the Payments section?
Tell is, Tell is! We’re all eager to hear about your success and most importantly if you enjoyed doing it and if you have any further questions!?
Dont keep us waiting...
Ivan
Thank you for these pointers. Excellent and well presented.
I would like to add that for starters, Independent contractors just starting, is to take it slow.
Accept one assignment per day, and make sure you leave time for the report writing. After getting and mastering the process of accepting an assignment, going to the establishment and gathering the information and observations, and then the report writing and getting familiar with the time it takes for the whole process to complete, then you can go to two assignments per day, then 3 and 4 and you see the trend.
Taking on more that you can handle at first, is a receipt for disaster. The fun part is the going out on assignment, the boring part is the report writing. You can’t just do the fun part.
April
Oh what Can I say!? In any case I am not sure if the scheduler will know 100% who will be manning the tables at a specific event. Plus you should allow for any last minute substitution due to whatever.
When I go to conferences, I try my best to sit with some of these great people, who may also be independent contractors themselves, calling themselves schedulers and ask all the questions I have for them. They do have tales to tell and they are all eye opening stuff.
Plus, if you have an experienced scheduler then you get the best treatment ever. The new schedulers still need some work, and you may be on the receiving end of confusing information.
Don’t get me started on Editors. I have seen the best and the worst, from someone who has been an editor for a while and possibly MSing for a longer while, and I have seen some editors who stated “your answers are wrong.” Like I had my eyes and ears, and my presence at the location, and you were not, and you still used the word “wrong”!!!
Now I would have settled for “your answers were confusing, or difficult to understand, or anything but the word wrong” What Can I do with such an editor? What can any of us do with such an editor?
You need to understand something every important: You are paid for a “job” to do. It is a set fee agreed upon before you even leave. You calculate your income based on some criteria, time to travel round trip, time for the report, out of pocket expenses reimbursed or not, and then you add something for your pocket. If an editor makes you do the work twice, then that fee you agreed upon does not seem much, even sometimes it might be not worth going to the assignment location.
Until the MSPs take us seriously, and think of us as part of the team, we will suffer and they will suffer. You are doing this why? To help out and to make money at it.
So, if you have it in writing, I suggest that you call and email the scheduler/MSP, and tell them you did not do the assignment because you had bad information but you will still need to be paid. You should be paid. You had no source of information other than the scheduler/MSP, they made you go on an assignment that you could not complete due to that bad information. You should ask for payment and describe what the circumstances were.
Let us know what you decide to do.
Hi Bill, RRD, and Edith
Hum!!! I think you should start a ticket for this issue. Yes the badge system is new, and it is mostly controlled by the MSP staff, so it might be an issue of the staff not knowing what to do, or it might be a system thing. I know I got a badge before they had the artwork ready for it, so for a while I had a white square with nothing in it.
I suggest that you start a ticket, if all is well we will hear about it, and if there is a problem then they will fix it.
Please do start a ticket, at your earliest convenience.