I am new to mystery shopping and I just love it!!!!!!!! and my favorite shops are grocery stores, restaurants and conv. stores.

I find that some of the companies do not want you to be truthful about what you find and want you to sugar coat it then other companies want every little detail which is ok but so picky at time. They will tell you one thing now and change it if the report is not what they want.When the company calls you and you tell them excatly what happen they want you to say what they want so why then do they want your input if they are going to do it like that?

You will find that it appears some companies do not trust their relationship with the client enough to give them the unvarnished truth. At the same time there are some shoppers that either gloss over problems or are waaay too picky. I am interested that some shop instructions indicate reporting trash only if it appears to be "long standing". I'm sure they had shoppers who saw one paper napking dropped by the guy who just walked out the door and did a mark down for trash.

Companies that only want the sugar coated version will lose the client soon anyway as the observations will be less than productive to the client. When I note that too many shops are questioned for a particular client (and I rarely have shops questioned at all) I figure the relationship is poor and will tend not to do the jobs again until after the client has moved to another company. Often, of course, it is the client themself who is raising the questions and they will be picky wherever they go.

My approach to this is to try to be as fair as I possibly can be. If a site is trashed it will be reported. If it looks recent, that will also be reported. I don't expect all places dealing with the public to have fingerprint free windows 24/7/365 and a crew inside and outside constantly cleaning. I do expect the site to have been thoroughly cleaned within the past 24 and touch-up cleaned 24/7. I expect a server in a restaurant to greet me and start my order within a reasonable period of time, but 'reasonable' may be 1 minute if they aren't busy or 10 minutes if the server is bringing meals to another table that are not properly done and have to be returned to the kitchen while being otherwise busy and attentive to other tables. That is why I love narrative. If the server is standing around chatting and I'm being ignored it will be mentioned even if they manage to sneak in under the 5 minute deadline for greeting that the particular client has a standard.

Interesting! I been shopping for almost three years now, and I have never had any of my employers question one of my reports or ask me to sugar coat it! And believe me, some of my surveys were quite constructive to say the least!

I have nerver had an editorask me to "sugar coat" a report, however, I have had call back checking on information I gave. When the editor got a repeat of the answer I could tell they were not happy it was the exact information reported. I had no way of knowing how my information was reported.

I have been told, by a editor, that the client would dispute my observations as stated but if they did I was not told. My commment was that I report what happened on the shop and have no reson to make it worse, or better, than what it was.

I have reported behavior that really bothered me but was told that was not what the company wanted checked. That was my clue that that behavior was not reported no matter how out of place it was. Climbing over a counter should not be ignored by any compnay that wants customer observed.

I have had locations contest shops. Memorable was a very slovenly manager who was making snide personal remarks belittling one of her crew members. She also was doing food prep without gloves on both hands because one hand was in a cast almost to her elbow with her fingers sticking out yet she was handling food and the cast was disgustingly grubby and tattered. A handwritten sign was posted on the cash register announcing that their phone line was down so they could not process credit cards. There was no place on the form to comment about her uncalled for loud sniping at her crew member, but the lack of glove for food handling and the handwritten sign were both reported and contested.

The questioning call came about two weeks after report submission and it was a pleasure to lay out the whole situation without being restricted to 250 character comments. Even the scheduler was grossed and the belittling comments were dictated from my notes to her note pad and I suppose transmitted to the client because I never saw that manager there--or at any other location--after that.

I do a lot of cable company shops and a year ago the personnel at one location were terrible. Well all of those employees are now gone. So it is evident that ms reports are helpful and needed. I like the shops because they pay $15.

what company does the cable company shops and how do you sign up for them K? Please PM me.. we have a really bad cable company here too, I'd like to see NOT be so sucessful. Once I went to pay the bill and the amount they creditted to my account ended up in someone else's account! Then they had that same clerk on TV commercial saying how helpful and GOOD they were! LOL