A mystery shopper gets paid to shop. Besides, during his job, a mystery shopper gets to interact with numerous people with a wide variety of tastes, choices and viewpoints on various products or services of a particular brand. That is why mystery shopping is considered an exciting and unique job.
Mystery shopping typically involves product and service evaluation. As such, it is also referred to as brand evaluation. Mystery shopping or secret shopping (yes, mystery shopping is also known as secret shopping!) assignments are planned and implemented by mystery shopping companies who are hired for effective market research by other companies. Each mystery shopping assignment is designed keeping in mind the client company’s business requirements. The same policies are instructed to the mystery shoppers before they set out on an assignment. It is mandatory to follow each instruction strictly. However, in certain cases, a mystery shopper may have to use his own judgment.
Many businesses that do not get the actual information on their business practices through surveys can employ mystery shopping methods. Through this method, they can find out their overall performance including many flaws which were never attended to before. As mentioned before, the main objective of mystery shopping lies in exploring the customers’ specific product-related requirements and preferences and then customizing the deliverables accordingly. The more a company knows a customer’s choices, the more it can attain a leading spot in the current market.
On completing each assignment successfully, mystery shoppers are paid in cash or other rewards as per the company’s payment terms. The payout and the gifts are good enough to keep the mystery shoppers motivated. Hence, it can hardly be heard that mystery shopping jobs are boring or monotonous.
Companies hire mystery shoppers to pose as real customers, and role-play different situations that may occur while shopping. Therefore, though it might appear funny, one might often need to play angry, capricious, indecisive, picky, or obsessive characters, which adds more thrill and excitement to the shopping tasks.
Even though mystery shopping can be tremendously amusing, it must be noted that it requires great sense of responsibility and professionalism as the hiring company relies on the shopper’s objective feedback. Mystery shopping requires no previous experience, but it leans on the qualities of honesty, objectivity, and common sense to evaluate the products and services of the company. Gradually on becoming a seasoned mystery shopper with successfully completed shops, it would help one build reputation with the marketing companies in the local areas. This would help in landing into more professional, highly-paid, and more responsible assignments that will not only reward more cash, but will also single him out as an expert and reliable mystery shopper.
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