Hello everyone! Today we will find out who he is “Mystery Shopping”, What is a Mystery Shopper and the work of a Mystery Shopper.

Mystery shopper, What is a mystery shopper

The work of a secret shopper can be called "Quality Auditor of All Products" and not only goods, but also services, which, incidentally, are also goods.

The job of a mystery shopper is to making test purchases, checking the quality of service, consulting.
Mystery shopper b is required in any service sector: store, restaurant, cafe, hospital, gas station, hotel, calls to call centers.
Before you are approved for assignment assignments, you must pass an entrance test, then you select a project, successfully pass the test and submit an application. If you are approved, you will see a form on the website that is filled out after the visit.

A visit to the inspection site can take anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour depending on the assignment. To pass the assignment, so-called “artifacts” are required - this could be a photographed facade of a building, a purchase receipt, an audio recording, or advertising materials provided by the consultant.
The mystery shopper enters the results of the check into an online questionnaire. Filling out the questionnaire may take from 15 to 60 minutes (with experience it will be easier to fill out). It will speed up the process if, after visiting the task, you “throw out” a summary of the visit, write down the names of the employees (you can say this to yourself in a voice recorder).

Sometimes the questionnaires you come across are not simple, but in this case the amount of payment increases, it all depends on the agency with which you work.

Job requirements and prospects for a secret shopper do not require any specific (or even non-specific) education. To work as a mystery shopper, you only need average school skills, the ability to communicate, be observant and able to use a computer at the level of a regular user. There are also no restrictions on gender and age. For a mystery shopper, the most important personal qualities are: responsibility and observation.

Many people think that this job has no career growth, but this is not true. After gaining some experience, you can become a manager who finds and manages the work of mystery buyers, then a manager of managers, so you can coordinate the activities of an entire region.

For many, it is attractive that the work of a mystery shopper can easily be combined with their main job, study, and childcare as a part-time job. You can’t imagine how many young mothers (on maternity leave) work as secret shoppers, not to mention even working, but earning extra money while shopping.

Despite its simplicity, the sphere is expanding in service to automobile service centers and official premium dealers.
Today, this remains one of the objective ways to check the service all over the world.

For a snack, we have the most magnificent positive, inspiring video “Confirmation”

The newfangled profession of “secret shopper” (or “mystery shopper”) is gaining momentum and becoming increasingly in demand in the Russian consumer market. Almost every large company has its own “secret agents,” and agencies offering professional “mystery shopping” services have been operating successfully for a long time in Russia. What kind of profession is this? Why do people pay money to go shopping? How is it useful for us, ordinary non-secret consumers, to know the tricks of “mystery shoppers”?

First, let’s explain what a “mystery shopper” is. This is a completely ordinary buyer, but at the same time a secret agent hired by the establishment itself to check the quality of service and its own employees. The point is this: visiting a sales department, bank, restaurant, hotel, car dealership under the guise of an ordinary buyer, following a pre-agreed pattern.

The “mystery shopper” conducts a kind of “exam” on the salesperson, cashier or waiter and evaluates the entire outlet as a whole. Contrary to the first rosy impression, the “mystery shopper” is by no means always engaged in shopping and almost never buys anything. Firstly, this is not provided for in the verification scenario, and secondly, it is almost always simply required to evaluate the seller’s reaction to a refusal to make a purchase.

In a nutshell, a mystery shopper is an auditor of service quality. And if scientifically, then a mystery shopper is a type of marketing research to check the customer service process with the involvement of professionally trained people who carry out checks on behalf of potential or actual clients, reporting in detail on the results of the checks. Thus, the work of a mystery shopper is in demand wherever there is service.

There are also “mystery telephone shoppers”. The essence of the work is the same: check the politeness, competence of the staff, the waiting time on the line, the completeness of the information provided. But telephone work is rare and pays more modestly.

In outdoor conditions, visiting one requires spending from 15 to 30 minutes. Filling out the questionnaire takes from 5 minutes to an hour. The amount of payment to the “mystery shopper” most often depends on the complexity of the questionnaire. In addition to the questionnaire, “mystery shoppers” are most often required to provide evidence of verification: from a description of the appearance, name and position of the employee to a scan of a business card, booklet, photograph of a retail outlet and even an audio or video recording of a conversation.

After verification, the data is transferred to company managers, who make decisions regarding the level of service, rewards or punishments for their employees. As a result, an inconspicuous student, a caustic pensioner, or a respectable lady may turn out to be the “arbiter of fate” for the career growth or downfall of service personnel.

There are a variety of names for this type of service quality assessment: mystery shopping, mystery shopping, mystery shopping, mystery shopping, secret client, secret buyer, hidden buyer, control client, anonymous buyer, etc. The terms “secret shopper” and “mystery shopper” are popular in the Russian market.

A look from the inside

Sellers, especially if they have been warned about a possible inspection, must always be prepared for an inspection. Among lazy salespeople, there is an opinion that employers, while giving training material to an employee for independent mastery, do not find time to personally engage with their subordinates, and give the money to an “undercover agent,” that is, a random person on the street. They are partly right. Not every “agent” can be awarded such a proud title. Even in a written report, a randomly hired person can make up to 40 mistakes; he may not at all understand the characteristics and features of the product being tested. And in oral speech, the “agent from the street” will not completely connect three words and will not clearly express his requests to the seller. So the reports of the “mystery buyer” end up on the boss’s desk: “Your salesman gave me an icy look and snorted indifferently...”

Management, of course, takes such reports into account - after all, money was given for them. Although this also has its advantages: firstly, employees begin to diligently learn the characteristics and range of goods, and secondly, after visiting secret shoppers, they can reduce the salaries of careless sellers. And if the seller is still “careful”, then in the process of communicating with the buyer, one way or another, he will be able to identify the “secret agent” in him and work 100%, or he will simply serve absolutely any buyer at the highest level so that you will not find fault .

The point of view of the “secret shoppers” themselves and the experience of working “undercover” also leaves its mark. Due to duty, in principle, among “mystery shoppers” it is not customary to talk about your orientation, even if you go with a friend to check in a cafe, you should not bring him up to date so that he does not give you away with an awkward look or an obvious grin.

Typically, the profile of an “agent” is quite broad. Its services can be used by large retail chains, banks, gas stations, restaurants, hotels and even airlines.

The memo for the “mystery buyer” recommends using a voice recorder, carefully studying the memo with the legend, being no different from ordinary buyers, being moderately curious and moderately indifferent, being attentive to details, and under no circumstances giving away your “incognito” identity, even if a direct question was asked. The most critical mistake of such a buyer is a lie about the supposedly completed visit, which in the end will always be revealed by comparing the facts. Basically, being a professional "spy on a mission."

Today Mystery Shopping is a developed industry with a wide customer base that employs hundreds of thousands of people.

Memo for the ordinary consumer

It is useful for us, ordinary buyers and consumers, to know about the Mystery Shopping technology. For what? So that sellers who value their reputation treat us not as a “wallet”, but as a desirable consumer. Since sellers are afraid of checks, try to serve in such a way as to get the highest score, be attentive and friendly with the buyer, why not take advantage of this. So, anyone can try on the role of a “mystery shopper”, because it is through these mistakes that experienced sellers realize that they are facing a real “spy” inspector. But these tricks only work in stores and chains where real checks are carried out from time to time.

• When entering the department, be sure to loudly greet the salesperson first.
• Look carefully and as if furtively at the seller’s badge, as if trying to remember his name and position.
• Ask more questions than usual, even if you don't know anything about it.
• Try to be a leader in the conversation, giving the right to make suggestions to the seller.
• Periodically put your hand in your pocket, as if checking a working voice recorder.
• You can accidentally take out a camera.
• Be sure to look around the department, as if trying to remember the decor, cleanliness, and lighting.
• Look at your watch as if you were following the regulated time of a visit to the store (according to the scenario of some stores or cafes, the seller must contact the buyer strictly at the 5th minute, and present the product for at least, for example, 7 minutes).
• Avoid buying at the last minute. If you still need it, do it after a little time.
• Make notes in a notepad from time to time.
• To the question “Are you an inspector?” Nod your head affirmatively.

All these mistakes are strictly prohibited for real working “mystery shoppers”, since they give away their purpose for the visit and devalue the whole idea of ​​checking. But we, ordinary consumers who expect decent service, may well “play spies.” Moreover, improving the level of service in Russian stores is no less important for us!

How much does a mystery shopper earn?

• The average cost of checking a store is from 150 to 400 rubles per visit, depending on the store and its goals.
• The usual check for the need to make a small purchase is from 200 to 400 rubles plus 100 rubles for the purchase.
• Checking the restaurant is free, money spent on dinner is reimbursed, usually 600-1000 rubles.
• Bank check - 300-700 depending on the complexity of the task.
• Inspection of a car service center or car dealership - from 200 to 1000 rubles, thousands of rubles, plus payment of expenses for car diagnostics.
• Mystery shopper call - from 100 to 300 rubles.
• Checking a hotel (rarely ordered and only by experienced TPs) - from 1000 to 7000 rubles plus payment for accommodation.
• You can pay for checking out an elite cosmetics, perfume or clothing store with gift certificates from that store.

Svetlana 26.07.2017 21:40
You wouldn’t shy away from shopping, and you’d make less slander at people, because sometimes it’s the good sellers who suffer from this. You’d better go to children’s hospitals and see in what conditions children are treated. So that your hands will dry out. If you're crawling around, then they forgot to say hello to you, then a fly flew in front of you. People are already getting pennies, there's no one to work at all, you'll wait until Kazakhstan alone will serve you soon. And you'll have hello and order and everything in the world. The salesperson works for two or three departments. The Spar company doesn’t want to pay anyway, so you’re adding fuel to the fire. We have many other places in our country that need to be written about. So think about it.

Elena 14.04.2016 00:36
By the way. Mr. Shopper promises to pay for the completed inspection within 3 months. This is certainly a long time. But when decent money accumulates, they ask you to go back for verification, the forms are accepted, but there is no payment and no payment. And Ivanova’s payment manager cannot clearly answer what is happening and where the promised money is. Every month they promise that payments will come soon. and so on for 9 months. So don't mess with them. A complete scam.

Elena 14.04.2016 00:27
I am a secret shopper. Since August there have been no payments for completed visits. It's been about 9 months now. I'm tired of writing to the payment manager. Either he doesn’t answer at all or he feeds you breakfast. I don’t know where to complain about such a scam.

When looking through vacancies on job search sites, you can often see the mysterious phrase “mystery shopper needed.” For people who are not looking for a purposefully specific job, but simply some kind of income, such a vacancy immediately attracts attention. What kind of work is this and is it really possible to earn money by doing “mystery” shopping?

What is the job of a mystery shopper?

A secret shopper is a person who, under the guise of an ordinary buyer, comes to a point of sale (store, restaurant, pharmacy, bank or any other establishment) and performs certain actions there - places an order, buys a product, asks for advice, and so on. The secret shopper records all his communications with the establishment’s staff on a voice recorder. Of course, he must do this unnoticed by the staff.

After completing the inspection, the mystery shopper fills out a special form in which he enters all his conclusions on it. Then he sends it along with an audio recording to the inspection customer. Actually, the work of the secret shopper ends here. But this part-time job (since you can’t call it a full-time job) has many nuances, so let’s look into it in more detail.

Why and who needs secret shoppers?

The organizers of secret inspections are usually large companies - chains of stores, restaurants, cinemas. Executives and managers want to know how their staff serves customers, whether the services are provided well, and in general, how employees behave when they are not being observed by their superiors.

Who can become a secret shopper

In fact, absolutely anyone can work as a secret shopper. But depending on the specific conditions, the customer may impose certain requirements on the “spy”. For example, if the customer is a children's goods store, then most likely he will need women as secret shoppers. Sometimes mystery shoppers are required to meet age requirements or level of knowledge in a particular topic, such as having a good understanding of household appliances.

To be successful as a mystery shopper, you need certain psychological qualities. First of all, it is communication skills and the absence of any embarrassment or fear of completing the assigned task. It is not necessary to have acting talent, but the ability to believably play the role of either a cheeky customer at a bank or a picky customer in an electronics store will only increase the number of orders you receive. Having an excellent memory and the ability to get out of any situation is also very necessary.

You can find work as a mystery shopper through specialized agencies. There are very, very many of them now. Agencies act as intermediaries between customer companies and secret shoppers, that is, performers. Small organizations sometimes advertise directly for recruiting secret shoppers, but this happens extremely rarely.

How does a mystery shopper check an establishment?

Before the inspection, the secret shopper receives instructions about what and how should happen at the point. How detailed these instructions are depends on the customer. Some limit themselves to general instructions, such as “the seller must serve you efficiently and politely,” but most still prefer to give detailed instructions, right down to the order in which goods should be placed on the shelves, how clean the floor should be and in what phrase the seller should start a conversation with the client. The task of the secret shopper is to remember everything and discreetly write it down in order to later provide the collected material to the customer.

The instructions will also tell you how the secret shopper should behave. This could be a list of questions that he should ask an employee of the establishment or a general model of his behavior. Sometimes mystery shoppers are tasked with deliberately behaving impolitely or “harassing” staff in order to determine how employees treat such customers.

Sometimes mystery shoppers are given tasks that require some resourcefulness on their part. For example, you need to check whether the guard smells of alcohol. It’s obvious that you can’t simply sniff the guard, so the secret shopper has to ask him some question, and then get as close as possible, pretending that he didn’t hear the answer.

Before going for inspection, the mystery shopper must thoroughly study all the instructions, since he cannot constantly peek at the cheat sheet - this way they can figure him out.

In general, a mystery shopper needs to evaluate:

• appearance of the seller/waiter/administrator;
• condition of the outlet - cleanliness, order, location and availability of goods;
• quality of service by staff - this includes politeness of communication, completeness of consultations, speed of service, and the presence of mandatory phrases or actions on the part of the employee.

So that the customer can verify that the secret shopper really was in the establishment, in addition to the audio recording, they are sometimes asked to specifically walk under security cameras or take a photo of the sales area on a mobile phone.

How much can you earn as a mystery shopper?

Payment can be very different - it all depends on the specific customer. Usually there are always quite a lot of offers on this market - so potential secret shoppers have plenty to choose from. But still, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to live fully on the salary of a mystery shopper, even if they work as one constantly. The payment for one check starts from 3-4 dollars (at the current exchange rate) and higher. The average time a mystery shopper spends at one point is 20-30 minutes.

How to recognize a mystery shopper

Of course, there is no 100% formula. Everything will depend rather on the experience of the secret shopper. If a secret shopper has come out for an inspection for the first time and is nervous about this, then it is likely that he will behave unnaturally - drop the recorder, look around, ask too suspicious questions - in a word, give himself away. If the seller notices that a visitor is walking around the store for a long time, carefully examining everything and marking something in his notebook, there is a high probability that this is a secret shopper in front of him. But it’s still impossible to determine for sure: what if this is just such a scrupulous client who needs to study everything before buying? :)

An experienced mystery shopper will behave like an ordinary shopper and will be extremely difficult to recognize. Therefore, instead of looking closely at each client and wondering which of them is a secret shopper, it is better to serve each one with high quality. And then the assessment of the establishment’s service will always be at a high level.

Now such a profession as a secret shopper or, as it is also called, a mystery shopper, is becoming increasingly popular in Russia. Leaders of large companies, especially in the retail sector, are beginning to seriously think about achieving a new, higher level of customer service. In view of this, the demand for specialists called “mystery shoppers” has increased significantly. Let's look at the main differences between ordinary visitors and “mystery shoppers”.

First of all, a mystery shopper is an ordinary visitor who acts as a hidden agent. Anonymous clients are often hired by the owners of retail outlets themselves in order to assess the quality of service and check the staff.

Mystery shoppers are required wherever there is service. In addition, there is such a variety of this profession as telephone buyers. The principle of operation is almost the same, only the wages will differ. But more on that a little later.

Responsibilities of a mystery shopper

What does a mystery shopper do and do? The essence of the work is extremely simple, you just need to visit a certain service or sales point under the guise of an ordinary client according to a scenario previously agreed upon with the customer. During the visit, the spy may be required to perform one of the following tasks:

• Playing the role of a “harmful” client who is rude and asks a lot of unpleasant questions to the staff.
• Hidden recording of a conversation with a seller on a voice recorder and its subsequent presentation to the customer.
• Attempting to return a recently purchased item to a store.
• Based on the results of the inspection, filling out a special questionnaire, where you will need to answer a number of questions regarding the inspection, as well as rating the work of the staff.
• Completion of preliminary training that will prepare future secret shoppers for possible force majeure during the inspection.

Mystery shopper - what kind of work and salary?

After verification, the mystery shopper should provide the results of their work to the customer in the form of a completed questionnaire or recording of a conversation.

Salary most often directly depends on the complexity of the questionnaire. Thus, on average, a hidden buyer can earn from 200 to 600 rubles for checking a store in Moscow. After checking the bank, you can receive a cash reward of 400 rubles, depending on the nuances of the task.

Inspections of expensive restaurants and cafeterias are most often not paid, but the amount spent on dinner is necessarily reimbursed. For checking an expensive clothing store, cosmetics or perfume department, the customer can offer a store gift certificate as payment.

In this profession, experts are highly valued, that is, people who have specialized knowledge in a particular industry. Such secret shoppers are most often required in car repair shops, stores selling high-tech devices, and airlines. Accordingly, their salary level is also higher. For a telephone check they pay from 200 to 700 rubles. And you can earn the most for checking a hotel, from 1000 to 7000 rubles. Accommodation is also paid. But such checks are ordered extremely rarely and only to proven secret agents.

A person is always pleased with the opportunity to earn extra money, which serious companies that care about their prestige and good name are ready to provide him with. In order to improve the quality of service to the end consumer and increase profits, the management of such organizations hires special people, whose temporary position is called a mystery shopper.

What kind of mystical specialty is this? And what does a mystery shopper actually do to earn a salary?

Description of the profession and ideal candidates

Marketing and recruiting agencies require that potential mystery shoppers be at least 65 years old and under 18 years of age. Otherwise, there are no frameworks regarding gender, social or financial status, or experience in similar or other work. As practice shows, such work more often goes to young people aged 24 to 45 years old who have a narrow specialization in a specific field.

According to the requirements of employers and advertising agencies, a mystery shopper must have the following skills and qualities:

• At least a superficial knowledge and understanding of sales techniques, product display and basics
  merchandising. It’s great if you have experience as a seller or consultant;
• The ability to play the role of a harmful, rude and picky customer who asks a lot of difficult questions and makes unreasonable claims to the staff of the point being inspected;
• Ability to use a PC and the Internet at least at a basic level. This is necessary for preparing reports and sending them to the customer;
• Ability to quickly move around the city;
• To establish a real level of quality of service, the mystery shopper must be very attentive, observant, communicative and good at remembering the smallest details of events;
• A neat and pleasant appearance is required.

What do we have to do?

Having figured out who this secret shopper is, you can study his responsibilities. In general, they are extremely simple: you need to visit a retail or service point and go through the full cycle of purchasing/ordering a service there, starting from consultation and ending with delivery of the purchase to your home. The main goal of all these actions is to find out whether the hired personnel fully comply with the standards of service, sales techniques and rules of conduct prescribed by company policy.

In general, the responsibilities of a mystery shopper look like this:

• portray a dissatisfied consumer who pesters everyone with questions and unfounded claims;
• try to return the newly purchased product;
• conduct discreet audio or video recording of the entire dialogue with staff;
• provide reporting in the form provided by the customer.

Before becoming a secret shopper, a person usually undergoes one-time training at the agency that hired him. During the training process, they try to show a person how natural and at ease he should appear when communicating with the personnel being tested, how not to give himself away, how to take notes correctly and how to get out of force majeure circumstances.

Another option for similar earnings is to become a remote “telephone” employee or shopper with a minimum list of responsibilities. What kind of job is a secret shopper?

It involves making a purchase by phone, or simply visiting a retail outlet, which is inspected for compliance with the standards of workspace organization (cleanliness, the presence of advertising products, pleasant music, or highlighting promotional items).

Negative sides

Having figured out what exactly a profession means "Mystery shopper", it’s time to learn about the material side of the issue. As practice shows, payment for such work can be very different, which completely depends on the location of the research, the level of its complexity, the wealth of the customer, the professionalism of the performer, etc. Among the pleasant bonuses is that a person, like an ordinary buyer, can have a good and tasty meal at someone else’s expense, buy a product or receive a service for the customer’s money.

Despite its apparent simplicity, this option for making money is not entirely ideal, and here’s why:

• The work cannot be called stable, since requests for visits may appear with
  periodically every few months. This can be corrected by working for several companies and agencies at the same time;
• Making a visit will require primary financial costs and loss of personal time. This is most acutely felt if individual retail outlets of a single network are located at a considerable distance from each other, or you need to test a certain employee who works on a variable schedule;
• Complex tests require studying a detailed behavior script, participating in training and remembering everything that needs to be done/noted/written down.

To summarize the above, we can say: a secret shopper does approximately the same thing as the average consumer, only according to the customer’s rules.