Hi, I’m Amy and I’m new to this. If you have any advice, I’d love to hear it. Thanks

I’m an editor. We have to send reports back for clarification ALL the time. Top offenses: no receipt, bad pictures, not following instructions (i.e. failed to make a reservation when one was required), not providing names/descriptions of team members, not fully clarifying issues, using generic terms to describe food (i.e. tasty, good, hot, great) when asked to use unique words for each item … the list is endless. That’s not counting refusing to use spell check, using text-speech and not proofing and poor grammar/punctuation with a lot of fragments instead of complete sentences.

Do the shop on time and the report on time. Monitor your emails in case an editor has a question. I’ve worked on reports for over 35 minutes with back and forth with shoppers only to have them excluded due to lateness. Then, no on gets paid - the scheduler, the editor or the shopper. The shopper will get assigned fewer or no shops if they are habitually late or have problems with their shops.

I agree with that. It seems having a receipt is a no-brainer.One thing that happened to me was the store didn’t have the correct time set for their receipts. I did not notice this until the editor pointed it out to me. Nothing I could do in this case, and I still got paid.

Great Reply Leslie. Thanks.

hello I am new here, I don't even know how to search a job, apply and get it done. Can someone help me out please...

Amy_16487722865320 @ Apr 4, 2022, 9:36:02 AM

Hi, I’m Amy and I’m new to this. If you have any advice, I’d love to hear it. Thanks

Hi Amy,

I'm new as well how is it going for you so far?

I just did my first shop in 8 years today. So not technically new, but it felt like I was.

Tips from my previous experience:

• Take multiple pictures of requested items so in case the first one has a problem you have others at the ready.
• Read the questions before going on the shop - familiarize yourself with what they're asking of you. If you have to use a specific scenario practice what you might say in different situations. This will help you be more natural in your interactions.
• Spell check your reports!
• Don't overschedule yourself. A shop that only take 5 or 10 minutes to complete still has paperwork that needs to be done. So if you're thorough in your paperwork it could take another 10 or 15 minutes. That's up to 25 minutes total for a quick assignment. Plus don't forget drive time if its an in person shop. If you've only got an extra hour or two a week to do shops that's only 4 shops a week that you can reasonably complete.

Good Luck and I hope you enjoy your experiences.

Jennifer_16588807125271 @ Jul 27, 2022, 9:50:26 PM

I just did my first shop in 8 years today. So not technically new, but it felt like I was.

Tips from my previous experience:

• Take multiple pictures of requested items so in case the first one has a problem you have others at the ready.
• Read the questions before going on the shop - familiarize yourself with what they're asking of you. If you have to use a specific scenario practice what you might say in different situations. This will help you be more natural in your interactions.
• Spell check your reports!
• Don't overschedule yourself. A shop that only take 5 or 10 minutes to complete still has paperwork that needs to be done. So if you're thorough in your paperwork it could take another 10 or 15 minutes. That's up to 25 minutes total for a quick assignment. Plus don't forget drive time if its an in person shop. If you've only got an extra hour or two a week to do shops that's only 4 shops a week that you can reasonably complete.

Good Luck and I hope you enjoy your experiences.

Thank you, Jennifer,

Will definitely take your opinions under consideration and practice, I've been really nervous.

Amy_16487722865320 @ Apr 4, 2022, 9:36:02 AM

Hi, I’m Amy and I’m new to this. If you have any advice, I’d love to hear it. Thanks

Hello and good evening.

Here is my advice if you're still interested.

Your cell phone is your friend of course when it comes to taking the required photographs. But something I think some folks don't utilize are the "built in" apps on their iPhone. The Voice Recorder is one of the big ones. Often I get into my car and simply voice record what I want to recall. If the evaluation you're doing is a tad involved or very long--like sometimes you have to spend 30 minutes in a restaurant or store per the guidelines--you can use the Notes app to record your information or send text messages to yourself. One thing you can also do is, after you have a lot of them, is send the voice message you make to yourself and prevent having to pour through a lot of voice memos on your I-phone.

Contract for a lot of different companies. You're in business for yourself. Makes sure they have the MSPA certification.

But always remember that even if XYZ Mystery Shopping company has MSPA certification, a gold rating with the BBB, and employs 100% certified angels...the places you go to shop may not have such wonderful employees. So I recommend to you create a separate bank account just for your mystery shopping (and all of your side gigs really). Not only will it give you a clear picture of your profit/loss...it insulates your primary/joint checking account from any devious people you may come across. Just to clarify...the MSPA certification will keep you from getting scammed if you stick to contracting with these mystery shopping companies. I'm stating that the places where you do the evaluations--aka the mystery shops--may not be on the up and up. I did a shop for an online retailer today...one that I never heard of, for example. I feel really good that I gave them a credit card number that is not my "primary" card and certainly not my bank debit card.

Look hard for the NOOPEES-- No Out Of Pocket Expense EvaluationS. A NOOPEE (pronounced NEW-PEES) makes your profit and loss excruciatingly easy....since there is no loss outside of time and wear and tear on your car, your data plan, etc...

Don't turn your nose up at a low-paying phone/web shop. Again, if you're not spending money, the shop fee is very close to 100% profit.

You won't get rich doing this. You will make money slowly--a lot of shops take between 30 and 60 days to pay.. But if you stick with the MSPA companies, I can almost guarantee that you won't get stiffed on a shop. This is a volume business. Do shops every month. I think a good goal starting out is to do shops 10 days a month. Do at least one. If you're comfortable at it, do 2 a day. Try to schedule them where you can do that sort of schedule. This lets you get your feet wet, builds in some "down time" to where you can answer scheduler/scorer questions when they reject a shop for clarification, and see what is out there. If you feel comfortable, expand the next month to do shops 15-20 days out of that month.

The schedulers/scorers are NOT your enemy. They are your best friends. Ask questions. I've yet to meet one who has been harsh at any question I've asked--and I've asked some dumb ones that were clearly spelled out in the guidelines.

If you schedule a shop and don't do that, the industry term is "flake" for that. Don't Flake. We've all flaked for some reason or another. Oversleeping. Forgetting about the shop. Or, as I had when I first started (and still have for time to time)...nervousness. Try to avoid flaking at all costs.

Finally, if you take nothing else away from this post...take this. Companies love to hear good stories about their employees...but that usually isn't what they are interested in. They want to know what they can do better. Your job is to report what happened...the good, the bad, and the ugly. Accurately report what happened. Seldom do you have a perfect shopping/dining/interacting experience. If your meal and service were acceptable...that is your report. Describe why it was acceptable. If it was excellent...describe why it was excellent. If it was terrible, describe why it was terrible. I think too many shoppers are just "happy to be out of the house" and give excellent reviews for acceptable experiences. Avoid that. You're not there to make friends or protect anyone. If the service was terrible, report that and back it up with objective data; how long did it take to get your food from when you ordered it? how often did the service staff come by to refill your beverage? how long did it take for them to bus the table? If the host was supposed to come by, did she/he come by? Again...report what happened.

Awesome and useful feedback thank you.