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.