Get Paid to Shop and Keep Everything You Buy - Without Having to
Pay!
Get Paid To Shop And Keep Everything You Buy - Without Having To
Pay!
Can You Tell Good Service From Bad; Recognise Value For Money;
Compare Prices, Staff Efficiency, Product Range, Customer
Service Between Rival Firms?
If so you might easily find work as a ‘Mystery Shopper'
and be paid to comment on service in shops, banks and building
societies, hotels, cinemas, veterinary surgeries, restaurants,
even on long distance flights and holidays.
Poor service is the number one reason customers turn their back
on a business and start shopping elsewhere. Worse still, one
dissatisfied customer tells on average sixteen more people about
their experience, meaning even greater loss of customers and
profits for business owners.
Even taking too long to answer the telephone or replenish the
shelves, inadequate parking facilities, crowded toilets and poor
staff-customer relations can alienate customers quickly.
No company can afford to be complacent or fail to check its own
operating standards for long.
Companies need to know how they are perceived by customers and
if rival firms are setting higher standards and attracting
custom from them. Hence the need for regular checks to be made
on all aspects of the business from product range and quality of
choice, to staff attitudes, customer care, after sales service,
and so on.
But there's no easy way for firms to investigate themselves.
Staff who know they are being watched work harder, giving a
false impression or, worse still, they consider their employers
are spying on them, intent on catching them out and threatening
dismissal.
So, mystery shoppers go undetected into a business, seeing
things as they really are, through the eyes of people who really
matter - customers! What they see and the service they receive
will not be affected by who they are and what influence they
have over staff!
As one leading mystery shopping agency puts it:
"Mystery shoppers serve as the eyes and ears of clients in
retail and service outlets."
As competition grows, especially in a recession, and pressure
increases on companies to maintain or better still improve their
own market share, more and more openings will appear for mystery
shoppers in all areas of commerce, including banks and building
societies, shops and supermarkets, hotels and garages, and more.
So a cinema wanting to improve attendance figures might hire
regular cinema-goers to view the same film at all local outlets
to investigate prices, noise levels, staff efficiency, car
parking, toilets and amenities, and so on.
People of all ages can apply to become mystery shoppers, even
children with their parents' consent. Special opportunities
exist for representatives of particular groups, such as the
elderly, disabled, housebound, or of specific ethnic or
religious persuasion. You can even be a mystery shopper working
entirely by telephone or on the Internet, without ever leaving
home and still claim a handsome fee and valuable freebie
incentives.
Not All 'Shopping' Involves Buying Something
For example, you might be asked to telephone a company service
hotline, posing as a customer with a problem to see how well
your case is handled and how long it takes.
The manager of a high street supermarket might commission you to
stand outside another firm's store to count the number of
customers entering the premises and determine which are the
busiest times, what complimentary transport is offered, how many
packages are carried out, whether staff help customers to their
vehicles, and so on.
Most tasks are simple and quick and involve little more than
shopping, making a mental note of the event, and later
submitting a written or telephone report to the employing
company.
Marguerite Hegley who was instrumental in writing Get Paid to
Shop has several years experience as a mystery shopper.
She says:
"I first mystery shopped a supermarket. It was a lot of fun
being asked to spend a specific sum of money on goods which I
kept, and I also received expenses and a tidy fee for my work.
The pubs were fun too and I was asked to order a meal and a
drink in some and just a drink in others. The eight pubs I had
to visit over a ten day period were in a twelve mile radius of
my home.
I particularly liked working with a chemist chain, checking
their photo service and make-up counters. The girl on the
make-up counter gave me some good advice about my skin type and
a useful range of freebies testers which I am still using three
months later. And I got paid of course!"
No Better Time to Become a Mystery Shopper ..... No Better Time
to Start Your Own Mystery Shopping Business
The business is pretty new in most countries but catching on
fast, and as talk of recession grows opportunities will grow for
people to work as mystery shoppers for established hiring
companies or even start their own business in this fascinating
field.
Avril Harper is the author of Get Paid to Shop and The Ultimate
Guide to Starting Your Own Mystery Shopping Business
www.castleedenbooks.com
Approx 850 words