Hello my friends mysteryshoppers I would like to know it is best for me to do some training online. Because I justed did one K-Mart because there is so much to remember since I am new any imput I would like thank you all and I wish you all the best Rebecca

"Training" per se is mostly done by reading forums. Many companies do some training or certifications for jobs. All provide specific job instructions--some better and some less than wonderful.

Over time you will come to do some things automatically:

Remember where you parked
Look at the stores to the right and left of the place you are shopping
Note the condition of the parking lot, landscaping, building, signage etc.
Note obvious trash or pedestrian/vehicular hazards in all the above
The time you entered
A restroom visit
Cleanliness and order of the establishment overall--stocking, quality of signage, cleanliness of floors etc.
The name and description of the person you interacted with
That you have the receipt or proof of visit in hand before exit
The time you left

Anything beyond this is shop specific. That is what you scan your job instructions for and you look over the questionnaire for. The more of the basics that hit your 'autopilot' the less specific information you need to remember job to job because the stuff has already become a habit.

Whenever I tackle a new-to-me job there is a cheat sheet in my pocket. Today's new-to-me had 'Pick 2-no bev','nutrition', 'line to deliver', 'take out menu' because these were the only unusual items. Although the questionnaire didn't ask, I can tell you from 'autopiolot' training that the parking lot was in excellent condition, the building well maintained, there was no trash and the building was free standing with __ street on the right and the parking lot of ___ on the left.

The other 3 shops I did today are ones I have been doing for years that require no cheat sheet. Autopilot takes over entirely on these and I just make some notes as I go so I make sure I visit all 7 required stations and have my coded notes ready to transcribe onto the report which at first took close to 20 minutes to complete but now is so automatic that it takes around 4-5 minutes.

In many stores you can use a 'shopping list' type paper to make notes or review what you need to do. I find a scrap that looks like a shopping list works best and do indeed check off stuff. I find it useful to look at a display then look at the paper as if I was writing notes about the item (price, etc.) If my note is more than a couple of words, I may handle a decoy product, looking at weight or ingredients before continuing my note taking. My favorite 'shopping list' scrap is a small spiral note pad.

That is really good what you told her. It is true that you do get better and it does become automatic after time. I am always nervous the first time I do a new shop, but that, too improves with experience. Do you use copy/paste for repeat shops and then just change the differences? I am curious about this. Have not done this, but thought it might be an idea as some ten dollar shops are taking two hours plus just for the writeup/report portion alone. That is what I referred to on my other thread I started about the high demands versus low pay expected at an increasing rate.

No, copy/paste on reports will come back to bite you in the end. A number of folks had shops accepted then rejected and some reaccepted with a lower fee a couple of years ago with I believe it was Citi as the client. I believe the company went belly up and the client went elsewhere. The big problem was that the client apparently protested that the shop results were "too similar" and indeed the questions were trite yet specific enough that copy/paste made sense because yes/no should have sufficed without comment for a was it there or not there type question.

I am a strong believer in formulaic writing where the outline for my narrative would be the same to cover the aspects that need to be covered with the specifics of the location being the text. So if I was running a series of banks that asked for a narrative about the exterior of the location, the outline might be:

Arrival
--signage - visibility and condition
--ease of access to the property
--condition of driveways
Facility
--drive throughs
----number and how many open
----condition
----amount of traffic
--parking lot
----condition - including trash & lines condition
----availability of spaces
--landscaping
----trimmed?
----weeds? attractive?
----trash
--building
----freshness
----maintenance issues
----entry doors
----ATM(s)
----sidewalks

This kind of exterior condition outline could be used for any of a number or banks or businesses with only minor changes. Narrative could be only a few sentences covering the highlights or you could write several pages by going into detail about any/all of the above. The purpose is to sketch out a structure that covers what is needed in a logical fashion so that your narrative will follow along logically and you will cover all of the good, the bad and the ugly. And of course I am not telling them that their hybiscus were overgrown and leggy but rather that shrubs in the planting bed were not well trimmed. This is what a normal visitor to the location would see, we just make a mental note of it to report. I'm not going to tell them that I saw 2 fresh cigarette butts on the sidewalk, but I am likely to report dozens of them, especially old ones, in the landscaping or along curbs.

I concur. Some shops I do are so repetitive. It's sometimes difficult to submit an original-sounding evaluation. I close my eyes, and visually get back to the location, then start typing. The facility and the employee deserve to be uniquely observed and reported.

I find the coffee shops.........can be hard to not sound repetitive especially if you do several in a couple days..........they require using certain words in your narrative.........based on the service by the associates......i.e. engaging, outstanding, ordinary,etc.

True. And that gets worse as you answer yes/no questions with 50 char min. I laugh because Firefox saves information used on forms so sometimes as soon as I start to type in my 'one liner' my previous ones that started with the same initial letter for the comment will pop up like a multiple choice selection. Obviously there are only so many adjectives you can use to describe the quality of the service. My concern is rather that cut and paste is not particularly useful to the client and I find doesn't make me feel like I really told them what I observed on this visit.