Enter Into a New Life as Secret Shopper
The world of a secret shopper is an ideal world for most who
truly enjoys shopping. Secret shoppers not only get to do things
that they love most, they also get paid. Secret shoppers are
people that are hired to do just that, "shop". They also have
another function that most shoppers can only dream of. They are
the complaints section, the suggestion boxes and the potpourri
department rolled into one, that really gets the action done
fast, well in a manner of speaking.
Business competition and the consequent desire of people running
customer oriented businesses to get their enterprises into very
competitive shapes, and the need of the companies to get an
independent viewpoint other than the regular employees report,
spurred the creation of the secret/mystery shopper.
Secret shoppers are normally assigned three basic tasks:
1.To observe- the mystery shopper enters an assigned
store/establishment and follows a list that are usually
predetermined, for example; Merchandising Price listings
Courtesy and integrity of employees Order and cleanliness
Telephone and phone-ins handling Service Performance of duties
and competencies. Other points for observance that employers
categorize as priorities to improve the over-all standing of
their individual firms. 2.To evaluate - The mystery shopper then
fills out a form on which evaluations from observations are
noted. 3.To file a report - Reports coming from the secret
shoppers are then collated for management evaluation aimed to
further improve the firm or stores competitiveness in the market.
Other than the report being an evaluation of the business from a
customers point of view, it also serves as the managements tool
at validating and cross-referencing report coming from its
direct employees.
For this service the secret shopper is usually paid anywhere
from $7 to $15. The pay may not be very attractive for starters
but as in any job, secret shoppers gets better paid as they
become good at it. The normal pay today is about $1000 for 75
businesses that are checked in a month.
The competition is also stiff for secret shoppers. Presently,
there are more than 200,000 mystery shoppers employed by about
750 companies. Because of this, people interested in being paid
for shopping will take good advice at having their application
sheets well filled up to the detail. Watch out for grammatical
and spelling errors and do not leaving blank spots in the
application form as this can diminish the chances of landing
assignments. Employers also value short and detailed information
without the reporter being critical. When assignments are given,
short, concise, detailed and on-time submission of the reports
can greatly increase chances at having more assignments. The
secret shopper may even get to pick their assignments of choice.
Even as many prospective applicants can find this job
interesting, about 70% fail to land more assignments often due
to lack of informative details, incomplete reports and failure
to file the reports on time.
One condition though is that a mystery shopper signs a
confidentiality clause. That is the shopper cannot reveal the
job or disclose particulars of the assignments other than those
specified by the employer.
However you look at it, being a secret shopper is not a bad idea
for people who will go on shopping anyway, as shoppers go on
shopping whether paid or not.