Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Mystery Shopping Methods, Part time Mystery Shopping Jobs for Additional Income

Scams have become so infamous these days that people can hardly believe any part-time job offer. Like paid surveys, the mystery shopping field is also a common target for scam artists. This is due to the growing popularity of this paid part-time job. And since mystery shopping jobs allow the secret shoppers to shop and enjoy exciting perks during their assignments, many people confuse them with scams. All mystery shopping companies are not scams. Mystery shopping is a unique profession and a great source of additional income. However, it is vital to know the pros and cons before stepping into this field.
Mystery shopping or secret shopping requires secret shoppers to disguise as regular customers and keep an eye on the happenings in a store, right from the store maintenance to the customer service offered by the employees. The entire assignment is carried out secretly without letting people know of it. A secret shopper is given a maximum of seven days time to complete a mystery shopping assignment. After noticing the important chain of events in a store, a mystery shopper is asked to fill in a questionnaire comprising questions mainly on the standards of customer service offered. The length of the questionnaires varies from assignment to assignment and so companies allow the secret shoppers to have a look at it before they start the assignment. These questionnaires can also be completed and submitted online.
Signing up with legitimate mystery shopping companies does not require individuals to invest money. The sites that ask for money are not genuine. However, during some assignments secret shoppers might have to purchase products for their better evaluation or as an instructed guideline of the assignment. This amount is reimbursed by the companies once the assignments are submitted.
Mystery shopping jobs do not guarantee a fortune. People can pursue this profession for a part-time additional income or a full-time steady income. But there are major challenges in this job. To be a successful mystery shopper, one has to put in a lot of hard work and patience as the job requires one to travel from store to store. Again if an individual is registered with multiple mystery shopping companies to earn more, then his day would be more hectic. Apart from this, companies expect mystery shoppers to have good surveillance skills, and create a detailed and error free report with the correct use of grammar. The report plays the most crucial role as companies get to know their brand competence in the market, the standards of their customer service and also how customers perceive their overall brand. If the companies approve of the report, only then would the secret shoppers get their payment.
Companies generally pay the secret shoppers on a monthly basis. However there are many companies that pay on a weekly basis. These payment policies vary across the mystery shopping companies.

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