Mystery Shopping

...in undercover. This is where mystery shopping or mystery visiting comes in. Mystery visitors are paid to provide an assessment of service, quality and standards exactly as they experienced them on a given day and time.

Nature of the Work

Mystery shopping covers an enormous breadth of different types of work. Physical mystery shopping involves actually visiting a store, enacting a scenario and then reporting on your findings. ...
...via a hidden camera. Telephone mystery shopping is exactly what it sounds - you simply contact a business via the telephone and record the details of your contact as per the requirements. Price checking is often carried out undercover as well, and many mystery shoppers will undertake this kind of work to establish the promotions that are on offer in a particular store and its different competitors.

Nearly all this kind of work is ... more

In an increasingly competitive market place, most businesses are finding it more and more important to offer outstanding service, value and quality. That doesn't just apply to retailers. Any thriving business that wants to maintain a strong position in the market will want to know how it is performing from a customer perspective. This is not something that can be established through normal day-to-day business. To get a true perspective on the customer experience for your brand, you have to ask real customers. If you want to test certain parts of your business, or get more specific details then you need to send somebody in undercover. This is where mystery shopping or mystery visiting comes in. Mystery visitors are paid to provide an assessment of service, quality and standards exactly as they experienced them on a given day and time.

Nature of the Work

Mystery shopping covers an enormous breadth of different types of work. Physical mystery shopping involves actually visiting a store, enacting a scenario and then reporting on your findings. Video mystery shopping goes one step further and involves recording the experience via a hidden camera. Telephone mystery shopping is exactly what it sounds - you simply contact a business via the telephone and record the details of your contact as per the requirements. Price checking is often carried out undercover as well, and many mystery shoppers will undertake this kind of work to establish the promotions that are on offer in a particular store and its different competitors.

Nearly all this kind of work is conducted on a freelance basis - I have encountered only one company that employs full-time mystery visitors (and pays fairly competitively for it, at £35,000 per annum.) Most mystery shoppers are registered with a variety of agencies, which will allocate work in a number of different ways. The greatest drawback to this is that work cannot be guaranteed. In one period, you may be asked to undertake 20 visits, and then in another you may not be offered one. As an income, this therefore makes mystery shopping slightly unreliable and most mystery shoppers will advise you that the income is supplementary to a full-time job, or just executed as a money-spinning hobby.

Mystery visitors are normally supposed to remain undercover and the agencies will advise you that if anyone approaches you to ask if you're a mystery shopper, you should always deny it. This is unlikely to happen, although some of the scenarios that I've seen are so laughably contrived that they must stick out like a sore thumb.

Suitability

Mystery shopping is particularly popular with ladies. This is not necessarily a reflection on the propensity of the female to go shopping but more to do with the fact that the ladies out there are more likely to take advantage of freelance or part-time work to balance around child care and family commitments. I've spoken to a couple of ladies who find mystery shopping far more flexible to work around kids and husbands than a part-time job in a supermarket, for example. Mystery shopping is also quite a big hit with students, who are more easily able to flex assignments around lectures and other commitments. Full-time workers would struggle to take on vast volumes of mystery visits, but ultimately, according to the nature of the visits, I think that most people could take on a certain level of work, and not find it too much of a pressure.

It's good news for the fellas though! Most agencies seem to have a shortage of male mystery visitors and a couple of them have commented that the guys are generally more thorough than the girls. <smirk>

Personal Qualities

There are probably three key qualities that most agencies seem to be looking for:

 Reliability - visits tend to be booked within restricted time periods (sometimes hours, sometimes days) and once committed to a visit, you can cause an agency real problems if you let them down. All agencies will be looking for mystery visitors who do what they say they will, when they say they will do it.

 Conscientiousness - most visits have a fairly prescriptive scenario that you will be asked to complete. You will therefore need to record certain details or say certain things and it is clearly important to the agencies that the scenario is followed precisely.

 Honesty - in some cases, you might be able to get away with lying about a visit and there is an element of trust. The agencies simply couldn't check that every detail provided is correct and they therefore need you to be honest.

I would go further to suggest that you need to like doing this sort of thing. It sounds obvious, but if you don't like shops and shopping you probably won't want to do it. To do a mystery visit on a restaurant, you need to like eating out - makes sense really. Mystery visits will be allocated according to your profile, so they'll take age, family circumstances and gender into account. Some agencies only deal with people under 30, some only deal with people over 30, some want people with kids and so on and so forth.

Mystery shopping work is not generally good fun or particularly stimulating. Most mystery shoppers will be in it for the flexibility, variety and/or the opportunity for freebies. Some of the assignments that I have been offered could easily be described as undesirable. In some cases, you might be asked to pretend that you are unemployed or that you are suffering from a certain medical condition. Similarly, you might be asked to undertake a laborious financial transaction, such as applying for a mortgage or business loan. You are not, of course, obliged to undertake anything before you understand what it entails, but this type of work is certainly not for everyone.

Who/Where/When

When I started looking into this, I had no idea how many different companies would be doing this sort of thing. A condition of mystery visiting is observing client confidentiality, so I couldn't list the companies here but if I said "everyone in the high street" that would probably just about cover it. I've been offered assignments in banks, burger bars, clothes shops, cinemas, theatres, DIY stores, tyre centres, department stores, government offices, restaurants, hotels, universities, conference centres, garages, car dealerships and even funeral parlours. The range of breadth of the work is quite staggering, although in general there are some common favourites. Fast-food outlets are very popular, as are DIY stores, hotels, petrol stations, mobile phone shops and clothes shops.

Most agencies will offer you assignments within your postcode and surrounding area. They will want to limit any travel costs that they incur, so will seek to employ as wide a range of people as possible. However, for established shoppers, who are willing to travel, you can undertake assignments as far away from home as time, money and expenses permit.

Mystery visits are undertaken right throughout the day and week. Midweek slots are popular but many agencies will simply offer a time period of a few days and then allow you to work around this. If you were going to undertake lots of assignments you would have to schedule them carefully so that you slotted assignments together in a similar area, to minimise travelling.

Getting the Work

There are three main ways that assignments will be made available to you:

 Local agents - employed by the agencies, they will contact you by email or phone to offer assignments that fit your profile and are in the area.

 National agents - call centre advisors will contact you by phone to offer assignments on a similar basis.

 Internet sites - waves of assignments will be offered, normally on a first come, first served basis.

Once you've accepted an assignment, you will normally be posted a paper questionnaire, or emailed one to print off yourself. Reporting results is done either on paper and then posted, or directly onto an Internet site.

From a personal perspective, the best agencies for me seem to be those that have personal interaction with the shoppers. This enables you to get last-minute surveys or find assignments in specific locations if you know you are going to be in that place. The Internet allocation method is easily the least desirable. Assignments seem to be allocated at some ungodly hour and anyone who doesn't spend twenty-four hours a day online will probably miss out.

Rates of Pay

The opportunity to earn cash through mystery shopping is limited by the nature of the work itself, in that you cannot guarantee a certain level of work each month. However, I would estimate that over the last six months, I have been offered assignments with a total value of between £600 and £800 per calendar month. It's worth bearing in mind that most agencies will expect you to pay for any goods up front and will then reimburse you upon receipt of an expenses claim - although some will supply a cash float if they expect you to spend a lot.

Pay is normally awarded in two ways - a set fee for the assignment and/or expenses to cover travel costs and purchases. I have been offered assignments without fees, where you are simply offered a free meal or a night in a hotel but most agencies do offer a fee, even if it is quite small. The lowest fee that I've ever seen is £4 for a visit - the highest is £80. The fees are generally calculated based on the complexity of the assignment, how long you are likely to spend doing it and the length of time taken to prepare a report. Some assignments are offered on a regular basis - I currently undertake an assignment on the first of each month, which pays just under £50 for around an hour's work, with a freebie thrown in for good measure. Time and inclination prevent me accepting anywhere near all the assignments that I'm offered, so I tend to pick and choose. I do tend to accept assignments for some agencies more than others because they have a better variety of jobs with perks. I'll also mystery shop hotels for no fee if I am going to be in the location at the required time anyway because you get a free meal as well.

Not all agencies pay mileage, which is worth remembering when deciding to undertake an assignment or not. Some will pay the mileage as a portion of the fee, because the mileage is then tax-free. When it comes to tax, some agencies arrange the tax and NI for you and some will expect you to arrange it yourself. Pay is either made directly into your bank, or you'll be sent a cheque - more often the former.

What Works Well

 With over forty companies offering mystery shopping assignments, the variety and volume of work is quite surprising. With relatively low numbers of registered agents, I think that most people could be offered work every month. This will depend on where you live though. If you live in a big city, then you are FAR more likely to get offered assignments - or if you make it known that you are available in a certain city.

 The flexibility of the work is certainly a big plus point. A friend of mine started with this work because she was starting her own beauty business and as one has taken off she has been able to balance it with her other commitments. Had I known about this when I was a student I doubt I'd have worked in a supermarket either - I could easily have matched that income with far fewer working hours. It's also perfect for anyone who doesn't want the hassle of job applications, interviews and references.

 I love eating out and more and more often now there are opportunities for a free meal. Similarly, you can get free grocery shopping, luxury chocolates, discounted jewellery and more besides. It's worth doing a few crap assignments to get your hands on one of the better ones.

 I've had the opportunity to recognise really good service. I've also had the opportunity to ensure action is taken against really awful service. It's very satisfying.

Areas of Opportunity

 The number of different agencies, pay rates and methods at play means that on a big scale you'd have to be terribly well organised. I'd like to see a few bigger agencies with more contracts to try and limit the number of different employers around.

 Some of the agencies are condescending. I've had notes saying things like, "Please read the assignment properly unlike last month when everyone got it wrong". Whether some shoppers are dim or not, I hate to be tarred with the same brush and expect to be spoken to like a mature adult. This isn't the case with all of them - I have spoken to some really lovely people, but others leave a lot to be desired.

 Ethically, mystery shopping has been described as "minimum wage people snooping on other minimum wage people". I do think that some companies place excessive expectations on their employees and when you read the assignments you just know that they won't meet the criteria. What I would say, however, is that most companies make their employees aware that mystery shoppers might be around, so as long as they're aware then it seems fair game to me.

 It is becoming increasingly competitive. As new shoppers sign up, the availability of assignments in key areas can be limited and it can be very frustrating if you really like the look of something only to find that someone else has got there first. As time goes on, I suspect that people might feel less inclined to share the information. I, for example, wouldn't publish here where I found the £80 assignments - there are only 6 offered nationally each period.

I don't think anyone would see mystery shopping as a good career opportunity. As a means of earning extra cash or getting some freebies it can be very lucrative, but you do have to put the effort into it - it is a job, after all. Sometimes, it can be a bit of a pain in the arse and I think that some of the fees offered are just short of insulting. I also think there is a shroud of mystery perpetuated around mystery shopping (if you'll pardon the pun) by mystery shoppers. There are no great revelations here. The agencies are easy to find, the nature of the work is quite predictable and the rewards are fairly straightforward. It isn't sophisticated, it isn't exciting and it isn't particularly challenging. But the bottom line is that there is cash to be made.

So there really is no mystery to it at all.

(My overall rating considers mystery shopping as a career opportunity, as per the category. As a freebie scheme, the rating would be considerably higher.)

Afterthought

Names of some fairly well-known agencies. Get the latest contact details off Google or Yell.

Retail Maxim - tend to offer assignments regularly, at fair pay rates, nice support team and simple reporting process. Limited number of assignments and you're dependant on them asking you to do them.

Retail Eyes - online site - limited assignments, with low pay rates but looking to expand. Fairly regular invitations for assignments but usually the same old stuff.

Business Blueprints - managed by regional co-ordinators, good pay rates, limited client base. Still paper-based reporting - they should move to online!

Lodge Services - friendly support team - managed regionally, varying pay rates, but some good opportunities for free/discounted shopping. Availability of assignments varies wildly according to location.

Service Scan - good for eating out. Assignments are few and far between but the dining allowance is good.

Storecheckers - managed nationally, fixed fee structure, low pay rates and exhaustive reporting required. Regularly offer assignments though.

NOP (www.NOP.co.uk) - lots of work, sophisticated online management, range of fees. Lots of variety in clients and assignment types.

Grass Roots (www.grgresearch.com) - fairly good fees, limited assignments, strange allocation process has now moved to email. Assignments now reported online which makes life much easier.

UK IMS (www.ukims.co.uk) - nightmare online allocation (01:00 in the morning) now at 0700 and 1900 daily, lots of merchandising rather than mystery shopping, simple reporting process.

Cinecheck (www.cinecheck.com) - regionally managed, dull assignments, average pay rates

Front Line Focus (www.frontlinefocus.com) - repetitive assignments, allocated online, very responsive support team, low fees. Some new clients now on board.

ESA Market Research - regionally managed, good range of work, above average pay rates.

Performance In People - very few assignments offered, pay rates negotiable.

Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) - lots of assignments, many without fees (expenses only), allocated centrally and regionally - well-established agency.

Research International - above average fees, limited number of assignments, managed regionally and online, lengthy call backs required to report results. ** Recently announced migration to web allocation.**

BAI Services International - international agency, "first come first served" allocation process - good pay rates, made into bank accounts, fairly few assignments.

The Tern Consultancy - registered, then never heard a dickie bird. Others recommend highly.

Gapbuster (www.gapbuster.com) - prolific assignments at low pay rates, simple to complete but quick to get snapped up. Pain the ass receipt process (they have to be scanned and emailed.)

 

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