Monday, September 7, 2009

What’s in Store for Mystery Shoppers?

With mystery shopping having become one of the most sought after brand analysis methods, more and more companies are employing it for gathering reliable and accurate output so as to assess the extent of customer satisfaction. That is why they are increasingly hiring individuals every year for their custom-made mystery shopping assignments. The basic concept of mystery shopping is to methodically evaluate various products and services of a particular brand. All consumers do not take the initiative of voicing their opinions openly on whether they are happy with the products or customer service offered. Hence mystery shopping assignments help find out the customers’ ‘hidden’ standpoints or what exactly they expect from the brand. Once the mystery shopping reports are submitted post the assignment, they are reviewed and the flaws and other shortcomings are immediately fixed. In this way, mystery shoppers contribute not only to the increased sales of the brand but also help the business fare better.
Mystery shopping is a unique profession – one that is incomparable to other part-time or online jobs. This is because mystery shoppers need to hide their actual identities and disguise as regular customers. They need to act in such a way that they are able to get all the necessary information as instructed by the company without letting out a hint of the ongoing assignment. In disguise, they are required to assess the store and product conditions, store maintenance, standard of customer service offered to every customer, aptness of the front line staff in dealing with every customer, etc. These need to be recorded secretly or written down in reports after the completion of the assignment. Companies cannot afford to miss out on a single event and hence mystery shoppers should possess good surveillance skills so that they can recollect every event in the store while writing down the reports. Besides, the reports should be neat, unbiased, point-specific, grammatically correct, and above all, easily understandable. Mystery shoppers should stick to the parameters while creating the reports since companies make their major business decisions based on these reports. Any mistake, if overlooked, can severely hamper the decisions and this can ultimately lead to a decline in the brand status.
Apart from a challenging profile, mystery shopping also has a lot of benefits in store for the shoppers. Unlike other part-time professionals, mystery shoppers not only get paid in cash for their assignments but also have the scope to enjoy movies, dine out in restaurants, get car servicing done, go on small tours with family, and so on. And like any other job, performance too, is a decisive factor when it comes to making it big in the mystery shopping career. Though it is a fun-filled profession, it involves lot of patience, hard work and diligence to carry out every assignment flawlessly. Once an individual gets into the habit of completing a mystery shopping assignment quickly and impeccably, he can take up more assignments in a day and thereby boost his additional income along with the other benefits.

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