Hello to all of the great mystery shoppers who frequent this board. My name is Daniel Price. I’m currently a Scheduler and Special Projects Manager with Customer Impact. We strive on being one of the best MSC’s for shoppers to work with, and we work to achieve that through many avenues, including the utilization of what our shoppers want in a MSC and trying to implement it to the best of our abilities when we can. While we specialize in restaurant and retail, we also have done work among many different avenues, including smartphone based-audits, and Customer Impact is always looking for ways to get better and improve internally. I truly believe it is our availability every day of the week via phone and email that sets us apart from many MSC’s. We want the entire mystery shopping process to be a good experience for everyone involved, therefore we think it is important to always keep open lines of communication between shoppers and our staff.
I’m posting this today to learn from what I believe is the best possible resource to gain insight from when it comes to mystery shoppers. The many folks who participate in this forum represent the most dedicated and best mystery shoppers in the country. This is evident because you have sought out an internet forum to be able to discuss the industry and gain valuable feedback about other companies as well as share your own opinions and advice. What I want to do more than anything with this post is just get to know a little more about what types of things you all look for, value, don’t like, etc. in mystery shopping in general.
I’ll start by just listing some questions. You don’t have to answer them all, but any and all feedback is appreciated. I’ll monitor the thread as long as it stays active as well. If you have any questions of us, we encourage that too. Obviously keeping in mind you ICA’s, I’ll answer as much as I can on the board. I also encourage you to PM me on here, or email me at dprice@customerimpactinfo.com any time you have questions, in regards to specific shops of ours, or questions about the industry in general.
1) What type of contact do you prefer about jobs in your area? Phone, email, text, etc? Are there any types of contact you absolutely don’t like at all?
2) How much is too much in regards to emails, calls, etc? At CI, we try to keep a limit on how many emails we send out so as to not bombard the shopper, but we realize sometimes it still feels that way.
3) Do you like company facebook pages or twitter accounts, and do you follow them? If so, why? If not, why not?
4) Do you make it known to friends/family that you are a mystery shopper? Why/Why not?
5) Do you refer people to become mystery shoppers? Do you take advantage of referral programs that offer bonus pay for referring shoppers who complete shops? Why/Why not?
6) What do you look for in shops? Are you looking for purely a monetary value, or are you looking for the value of a nice meal, reimbursement at a retail outlet, you like, etc?
7) When you think of your favorite Mystery shopping company, what comes to mind? The type of shops they have available to you? The company/employees themselves? The pay?
8) What things about mystery shopping companies annoy/frustrate you the most? Whether it be scheduling, required dates, editing procedures, guidelines, etc. (I hope I can help answer many questions here).
9) What things about schedulers or the scheduling process do you like or dislike the most?
10) What things about editors and the editing process do you like or dislike the most?
Here are some CI Specific questions and/or SASSIE specific questions that I’d like to ask as well.
11) Are there any ways we can improve the guidelines for our shops? Would you like to see the format changed at all? If so, how?
12) What do you think about the email you receive from the scheduler once you are assigned as hop? Would you like to see more information, less information, is it too busy/cluttered? Do you actually read it all, etc.?
13) What do you think about the reminder to save your report that pops up every 30 minutes? Is there a way other MSC’s do this that is more efficient?
14) Is there something we can do to remind shoppers to keep an eye on their email/voicemail when their shop is completed but not yet finalized? Sometimes, a shopper will not respond to our questions regarding pending shops until it is too late for the client.
15) When something urgent comes up and you need to contact someone, is there any method of communication we do not offer that you’d like to see available?
16) What do you think of our report scoring system? Are there any changes you would like to see made to that system?
17) What do you think of the email feedback that you receive from the editors once they have looked over your report/ Do you think they are too detailed? Not detailed enough?
18) Is there anything you wish you had known when you were first starting out as a mystery shopper that a company did not tell you? If so, what?
19) If you are registered with CI, would you be interested in a shopper newsletter that is sent via email once a month from our company higlighting any new additions, new shops/clients, changes to our system/improvements, and general news including links to our weekly blogs?
I’ll have more to add as well. At this point, I also want to encourage you to ask any questions in your responses that you think I may be able to help answer, explain, clarify, etc. Since we use SASSIE, I’m happy to attempt to answer any questions you may have about SASSIE issues and give an answer to help explain any questions you had with that. Shoppers and MSC’s have to work well together to ensure the results the client demands, and I hope that we can all gain some productive things from this thread and continue to grow.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to your answers to the above questions, and answering any questions you have! And again, email me or PM me at any time with specific inquiries.
Daniel Price
Customer Impact, LLC.
dprice@customerimpactinfo.com
"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself."
-Henry Ford
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 06:58PM by dprice.
I’m posting this today to learn from what I believe is the best possible resource to gain insight from when it comes to mystery shoppers. The many folks who participate in this forum represent the most dedicated and best mystery shoppers in the country. This is evident because you have sought out an internet forum to be able to discuss the industry and gain valuable feedback about other companies as well as share your own opinions and advice. What I want to do more than anything with this post is just get to know a little more about what types of things you all look for, value, don’t like, etc. in mystery shopping in general.
I’ll start by just listing some questions. You don’t have to answer them all, but any and all feedback is appreciated. I’ll monitor the thread as long as it stays active as well. If you have any questions of us, we encourage that too. Obviously keeping in mind you ICA’s, I’ll answer as much as I can on the board. I also encourage you to PM me on here, or email me at dprice@customerimpactinfo.com any time you have questions, in regards to specific shops of ours, or questions about the industry in general.
1) What type of contact do you prefer about jobs in your area? Phone, email, text, etc? Are there any types of contact you absolutely don’t like at all?
2) How much is too much in regards to emails, calls, etc? At CI, we try to keep a limit on how many emails we send out so as to not bombard the shopper, but we realize sometimes it still feels that way.
3) Do you like company facebook pages or twitter accounts, and do you follow them? If so, why? If not, why not?
4) Do you make it known to friends/family that you are a mystery shopper? Why/Why not?
5) Do you refer people to become mystery shoppers? Do you take advantage of referral programs that offer bonus pay for referring shoppers who complete shops? Why/Why not?
6) What do you look for in shops? Are you looking for purely a monetary value, or are you looking for the value of a nice meal, reimbursement at a retail outlet, you like, etc?
7) When you think of your favorite Mystery shopping company, what comes to mind? The type of shops they have available to you? The company/employees themselves? The pay?
8) What things about mystery shopping companies annoy/frustrate you the most? Whether it be scheduling, required dates, editing procedures, guidelines, etc. (I hope I can help answer many questions here).
9) What things about schedulers or the scheduling process do you like or dislike the most?
10) What things about editors and the editing process do you like or dislike the most?
Here are some CI Specific questions and/or SASSIE specific questions that I’d like to ask as well.
11) Are there any ways we can improve the guidelines for our shops? Would you like to see the format changed at all? If so, how?
12) What do you think about the email you receive from the scheduler once you are assigned as hop? Would you like to see more information, less information, is it too busy/cluttered? Do you actually read it all, etc.?
13) What do you think about the reminder to save your report that pops up every 30 minutes? Is there a way other MSC’s do this that is more efficient?
14) Is there something we can do to remind shoppers to keep an eye on their email/voicemail when their shop is completed but not yet finalized? Sometimes, a shopper will not respond to our questions regarding pending shops until it is too late for the client.
15) When something urgent comes up and you need to contact someone, is there any method of communication we do not offer that you’d like to see available?
16) What do you think of our report scoring system? Are there any changes you would like to see made to that system?
17) What do you think of the email feedback that you receive from the editors once they have looked over your report/ Do you think they are too detailed? Not detailed enough?
18) Is there anything you wish you had known when you were first starting out as a mystery shopper that a company did not tell you? If so, what?
19) If you are registered with CI, would you be interested in a shopper newsletter that is sent via email once a month from our company higlighting any new additions, new shops/clients, changes to our system/improvements, and general news including links to our weekly blogs?
I’ll have more to add as well. At this point, I also want to encourage you to ask any questions in your responses that you think I may be able to help answer, explain, clarify, etc. Since we use SASSIE, I’m happy to attempt to answer any questions you may have about SASSIE issues and give an answer to help explain any questions you had with that. Shoppers and MSC’s have to work well together to ensure the results the client demands, and I hope that we can all gain some productive things from this thread and continue to grow.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to your answers to the above questions, and answering any questions you have! And again, email me or PM me at any time with specific inquiries.
Daniel Price
Customer Impact, LLC.
dprice@customerimpactinfo.com
"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself."
-Henry Ford
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 06:58PM by dprice.