Are you a 'Secret Shopper'?

Upfront. my wife does 90% of our shopping. but, when i do venture out, i have discovered that there are two excellent time periods to shop, that are better than others. and, this includes Christmas shopping. after 10 am(after everyone else is already at work) and after 2 pm(lunch time is over). i generally head out around 10 am. i have found that i have the roads to myself and the stores are most-vacant during those time periods.

The fellow who owns the chain of coffee shops I frequent calls me his secret shopper, but all I do is tell him about my visits to his stores. He gave me a piece of baklava once, but besides that I get nothing out of it.

I did it for BestMark for a while (when I needed a little extra scratch) and one of their clients was Lowes.

I also did it because I believe in the concept of checking on your workers – making sure they’re doing the right thing…

This vs the “planned inspection” where everyone has weeks to prepare for the checkup. You fail one of those and you really deserve to get canned!

Someone at my table did it for the Cheesecake Bistro once. When the check came, printed on her check was the option to pay it or be a secret shopper and get the meal for free. I suspect the free meal may have swayed her.

@EmpressPixie- Good to see you again EP! been a long time! Dont tell me she sold out so cheap!

ps – say hello to the red haired girl for me

I was a Secret Shopper once. I did it for the extra money and since I’m in a rural area it’s easy to do. I know everyone at all the stores so I’m always treated well and they get good marks. I’ve thought about doing it again but all the paperwork is kinda crazy.

As for when I shopped, the store or survey taker, requested what times to shop, but for the most part it was during slow or average times. I don’t know what happens after I submitted my paperwork so I don’t know how the pass fail thing works. And when I was doing it we were told what location to go to and what items to purchase.

@SarasWhimsy How did you get involved? I would love to be a secret shopper…

No but I once scored zero on secret shopper survey for customer service (in my defence the shop was covered in foam from the fire brigade putting out an actual fire and providing a rewarding customer experience wasn’t high on my priorities at the time).

I am a secret shopper, though I only did it once.. however, I am still registered as an agent with the company. Most of the shops available to me were at Kroger. The payout for the Kroger shop is small (like $9) and the actual shop is very long and involved and frankly kind of a pain in the ass. I did it once and I really didn’t want to do it again. It involved memorizing a long list of tasks I had to complete, visiting the various departments, observing employees, checking the bathrooms, and the worst was that I had to go through checkout with something on the bottom rack of the cart and not say anything unless the cashier totaled me up without noticing. My cashier noticed and gave me a very pointed stare because they basically thought I was trying to steal the item. I really disliked that, as I’m usually very honest.

I do it because of the financial incentive, because it’s actually something I’m really good at, the excitement (pretending I’m a secret agent), and the uniqueness of it. I know lots of people would love to be a mystery shopper and I am one! :)

@Likeradar I saw an ad on careerbuilder they’re everywhere it seems. Just be careful that it’s true mystery shopping. You typically have to buy a small list of items – which you’ll be reimbursed for – and ask for certain things.

type secret shopper scam in your search box before you ever get involved with this. I am not, and never have been, but the reports are enough for me to say beware.

I hire secret shoppers from a legitimate company. They sometimes have troule finding smart people to do the reports. They need them all over the US.
The reports are used as teaching tools, not disciplinary tools. They can be quite revealing.

I have signed up with a couple of agencies, I’ve done 4 or 5 assignments, but 99% of them aren’t worth the effort. The only one’s that really seem to be worth it are shopping for new glasses and oil changes. I’ve done it for a little extra money or to get something for free. I’m honest and I’ve never said anything “mean” about anyone, the experiences I’ve had have been good and I’ve gotten very high ratings (9/10) on my reports. It just takes a lot of effort, a lot of time, and you have to remember some really minute details that are sometimes really hard to access when you’re doing the report.

So how it seems to work on my end is a SS comes in with a list of things to look for; Greeting, eye contact, sales suggestion (upsell), parting comment, escorting to a product, etc… its sent in and we get told later that we have been shopped, and passed or failed on this or that aspect. Meetings/‘training’ are then required for me and /or my manager at a distant store (on our own time) to view endless slideshows on customer service in a perfect world. The demands are ever increasing; ( now I have to ‘engage you in a selling conversation’ to get you to buy a frigging brownie with your coffee, while the line is ten deep of folks trying to get to work) Needless to say, the more shops that are failed in a store, the uglier the whole thing gets.

Now this is not the SS’ fault or problem; Somebody somewhere feels that you need extra special help and encouragement shopping for groceries. (how do you feel about that?) I was curious to know how the SS feel about their role. (I can see it as a teaching tool if applied properly. One will learn only if one is willing; remember we are talking about minimum-wage, part-time, short-term employees)

I guess fundamentally I see it the way I see anyone who is willing to pay me money to perform a service. I may not agree with what they do with their organization, or the information I give them for that matter, but that’s not my role. If they believe that secret shopping helps them to isolate problems and are willing to pay someone to do it, even if they’re complete boneheads and basically misuse that information so that it ultimately does more harm than good, I don’t know this, nor do I need to know this. It doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize or even empathize with an employee of some merchant who has to work for bureaucratic pinheads who just don’t get it, I’ve had to do that myself more often than I like to remember. Bottom line is, if you own a business, you can run it however you want, even if that’s into the ground. People who work for that business can complain about it, they can shut up and take it, or they can quit and find something else. I am no fan of the entire system we use in America where it’s all about finding warm bodies for the cheapest price possible, not giving people enough money to live on even though they work very hard for what little they get. I point out the inequities of our capitalist society wherever I can and support political candidates with my money, time and votes if I think they might make things better for the average worker. But I’m not about to turn down easy money if some company is willing to pay me to shop somewhere and I can really use the money. And yeah, I’ll be honest in my assessment…but I’ll also be fair. I’m not looking to cause anyone any grief, but hey, if I get lousy service from a surly, unhelpful employee, then maybe that employee needs to go through all this training. Usually though, I’m happy if I get a decent level of customer service, and understanding if things go a little wrong.