I have never seen creating a scenario for a mystery shop as a lie. I can't go into a men's store and expect to buy a dress, I can't go into an upscale restaurant and wear my pajama pants and so on. Actors, lawyers, teacher to name a few careers that have to entertain an audience. A sales person retail, dining or any service industry has to also entertain the customer in front of them. That being said, prior to entering the 'mystery shop' world my career was retail management. I spent 25 years training, developing my staff for several national and global retailers. Most used mystery shopping as a tool and management used it coach and develop staff. I personally loved the feed back. The main reason I liked mystery shop reports is to see what my teams strengths were and where I could focus my time to improve. Retail is not an 9-5 work environment so it makes it hard to keep an eye on what is going on in your store all the time. In the end the management running the stores are thankful to get the feed back and if there not well. they should look for a new company to work for. Keep shopping it really helps everyone!

Ohio, ideally that is the way mystery shopping should be used. I can, however, think of one retail establishment that I had personal experience with, where the District Managers used the reports as tools of intimidation.

As a mystery shopper I am an actor playing a role. I am also a neutral force, objectively reporting facts and data as the eyes and ears of corporate. For me it's combining acting skills and improv skills with journalism. Reporting accurately and in a timely manner. It's not for everyone.

Acting it is...love it. That's my take on it and I take acting classes too.

I just picked up a last minute bank assignment that was bonused and the pretence is that I am a disgruntled customer that is walking in with a problem that could not be resolved without the branch visit.

Seeing how this bank almost won the "Golden Poo" award from [consumerist.com] two years in a row, I should blend right in with my false complaint. I think it's good that this bank is shopping itself. Nowhere to go but up.

I see no problem being an upset customer. I already have been with this bank before.

Is it B of A?

Hi Mysterymojo,

Can I ask, have you ever been a business owner, a salesperson or a manager? You seem to have definitive opinions about what would make a business successful as well as implying that companies can just go out and hire more qualified people than they currently employ and everyone will be successful. It doesn't work that way. I was recognized as one of the best marketing and sales people in my industry and regularly negotiated favorable multimillion dollar contracts for my company. If I started selling widgets tommorrow,I would want and appreciate all of the feedback I could get to make me the very best widget salesperson I could be in the shortest time possible. Practicing sales techniques on dummy sales prospects would be much better than blowing it with a real prospect.

And Corporations are in business to make money for the business owners, the stockholders and the employees. They are not there to create opportunities for meaningful interactions with the customer. They are there to provide a good or service at an acceptable level to convince the buying public to part with some of their hard earned money. Most successful companies have developed a formula to achieve that goal, and When they find and train employees that embrace their formula, the employee and the business is successful. We all experience shopper fatigue when we are listening to the same pitch for the second, the tenth or the hundredth time. We get to the point where we can say their lines for them. So we start to see them as drone like. The normal buying public hears it once, and doesn't perceive the experience in the same manner we do, as mystery shoppers.

rovergirl529
Thanks for your thorough reply. You have spoken well for the ways our work benefits corporations and companies. I am more interested in the individuals whose lives are affected by our reports. I am also concerned about the ways I see companies trying to make their employees sucker customers into signing up for credit cards they probably don't need, upselling items they don't need and other less than admirable ways of exploiting consumers.

I agree that it's important to make sure customers are receiving good service. That does not seem to be the primary focus of many of the shops I do. The focus seems to be more based on finding out if the employee has been properly programmed to follow a script to take advantage of customers and make it sound natural and believable. Enter the actor/shopper to make sure that the employee has been properly programmed.

"Oh yes, Mr. Reynolds. We offer 3 different types of checking accounts and even though our standard interest rates are 0.25%, if you spend $250 per month on your Blank Bank Credit Card, your interest rate will be a very competitive 0.30%." And that associate would get a favorable review while making forced eye contact and faking a smile to an actor who is just making sure he's being a good con-artist who greets customers within 30 second of walking into the business.

sometimes, I agree, yes.

of late, the crematories aren't SO far fetched.. brought my uncle (who is like 4 yrs older than me) out to live and he's tried to commit suicide four times..........so, it really doesn't feel like a lie, b/c one of these days......................

I can understand the perspective of mystery shopping being lying instead of acting because the employee doesn't know you are a shopper. However, I disagree with that perspective because if they work for a company that gets shopped, they know mystery shoppers are coming through at some point. They are not left totally ignorant of the situation.
Some of these shops are not just to make sure employees are up selling or using buzzwords. Many are to ensure the employees are not being dishonest. And if they are, you can bet they never give their employers a heads up that they may decide to steal or lie or do something else inappropriate from time to time.
You fight fire with fire. Whether you consider it lying, acting, tattling, or quality control, it is necessary and effective. Personally, I enjoy what I do and sleep with a clear conscience.

Mojo,

I understand completely your disdain of the debt mentality in our society. The idea that people should only purchase what they can afford to pay for has disappeared. Personally, I have credit cards for emergencies and my MS expenses, and I pay them off monthly to avoid interest. I don't like the constant push for debt, but I also understand that I simply can say no.

Just like I say no to every commercial I see on tv for a product I don't want or need, or to the Girl Scout selling cookies because I avoid sugar. Is McDonalds's wrong for advertising their lousy hamburgers to a nutritionally uneducated population? Are the Girl Scouts being devious sending countless charming little girls armed with their boxes of sugar laden cookies out to an unsuspecting and growing diabetic population?

So I get that you are struggling with the idea that our jobs help evil corporations make their drone like employees better at victimizing the unsuspecting population into purchasing things they don't want or applying for credit they shouldn't get. You think that, through our efforts, employees learn the drill and get better at the pitch, and then everyone just buys the upsell or opens the credit card. Sort of like the pied piper and lemmings to the sea.

I believe in personal responsibility. Everyone has the right to say yes or no to the sales efforts we are bombarded with 24 hours a day.

rovergirl529

Yes - you understand how I see it. Great example with McDonald's and I don't do fast food shops because I don't want to help their mission.

I enjoy mystery shopping when it feels like I am helping a good employee get recognition for offering quality customer service. Lately, it feels like more of the clients I shop for have nitpicking qualifications indicating that their opinion of a good employee is more about company service than customer service.

We are both glow-worms Thank you for your thoughtful replies.

Company credit cards are HUGE money makers for the companies, often making close to as much as selling their products. When I worked retail I HATED schleping the credit cards. I would ask if they were going to put their purchase on the company card, but that was about as far as I would go. I have one card that I use because you do get great discounts with that card (Kohl's), but the rest, forget it.

As for lying or acting, I guess technically it is both, however, I look at it as you were hired by their boss to do a job and that job involved pretending to be a customer.


MysteryMojo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> rovergirl529
> Thanks for your thorough reply. You have spoken
> well for the ways our work benefits corporations
> and companies. I am more interested in the
> individuals whose lives are affected by our
> reports. I am also concerned about the ways I see
> companies trying to make their employees sucker
> customers into signing up for credit cards they
> probably don't need, upselling items they don't
> need and other less than admirable ways of
> exploiting consumers.
>
> I agree that it's important to make sure customers
> are receiving good service. That does not seem to
> be the primary focus of many of the shops I do.
> The focus seems to be more based on finding out if
> the employee has been properly programmed to
> follow a script to take advantage of customers and
> make it sound natural and believable. Enter the
> actor/shopper to make sure that the employee has
> been properly programmed.
>
> "Oh yes, Mr. Reynolds. We offer 3 different types
> of checking accounts and even though our standard
> interest rates are 0.25%, if you spend $250 per
> month on your Blank Bank Credit Card, your
> interest rate will be a very competitive 0.30%."
> And that associate would get a favorable review
> while making forced eye contact and faking a smile
> to an actor who is just making sure he's being a
> good con-artist who greets customers within 30
> second of walking into the business.

I can't agree with suckering and exploiting customers in general for most mystery shops. Certain businesses and industries may fall into the category such as title loan companies. Otherwise we are all big boys and girls. Since your mind has already been made up about our industry and you have admitted to bias against businesses there are only a couple of alternatives. You could consider announced audits, although in the end they are not all that different since you are still reporting on corporate standards, or try merchandising.

I don't feel that I am lying when I shop. Most of the shops I do, I act like I normally would in each situation. I am not out to get anyone. If the shop requires me to do something I don't want or like to do, I just won't shop it. Mystery shopping can be fun and informative. If it is an apartment shop you tell a story about someone who would or would not like to live there. I don't consider this lying. I never give my opinion, which we should not. Let the client make the decisions, just give your honest answer to whatever question.

I have shopped many shops at the airports. Upselling is what it is. I used to have a hard time with the question, "Do you want anything else?" This is not upselling. "Do you want a drink?" is upselling. I think that our shopping is for training purposes in most cases. I shopped many of the same type of stores and did notice an improvement over the past 5 years that I did the same shops over and over again.

In the past 8 years I would say that I reported really bad employees a few times. I don't believe that someone would get fired over one report. I think they would be retrained, unless several of the reports were bad.

I do not see it as lying at all. I see it as playing a role. As someone else said, I think it is the company's right to see how their employees are really doing, and this is basically the only way to know. It is also their right to make employees go through the sales pitch, or say whatever they are supposed to say. If the employee doesn't like it, they do not have to work there. I totally understand that as an employee, it can get old to say the same thing over and over, or if your boss wants you to say something uncomfortable. However, that is their right as the manager. I do not like pushy sales people, but it is their company and they can have it ran the way they want it run. Sometimes, I do feel bad though. If I do a car shop and make it seem as if I may buy something, I know I am getting their hopes up. I don't think it is wrong, I just feel bad. I used to work in sales, and would get excited if I thought I had a potential customer.

Thanks, erica.worthey.

Yes, it is the company's right to spy on their employees. Your example about the car shop speaks to the feelings one may have after faking interest in a car one has no intention of buying, which is really just lying. Right or wrong is up to the individual and I do not judge anyone who is a shopper just as I don't judge myself for past shops. At this time, I feel more and more like I am lying and being fake with people, some of whom show sincere interest in me as a customer. Perhaps they will be rewarded after my report (I hope so) but I'm starting to feel like there are better ways for me to help people find their rewards in life.

While it is true that it's the company's right to spy on the people they pay, it may be good for us to also empathize with those whose time we are wasting by pretending to be interested in their products when we are really only interested in seeing if they made eye contact when they shook our hands and if they volunteered a business card before we asked for it.

Thanks, LisaSTL.

I appreciate what you wrote. My opinion of mystery shopping is fluid but I have taken issue with several of the recent surveys I have completed. You said it well-- I'm biased against big businesses and I'm also concerned about the ways employees are treated and appreciated.

Some have commented that the workers know they could be shopped. We also know that driving 67 in a 55 is speeding and yet many/most of us can't stand, complain and contest tickets when we get caught by a state trooper. Mystery shopping starts to feel like I'm that state trooper lurking behind the bushes waiting to catch someone speeding. I don't like getting tickets and I'm sure employees don't like getting dinged for not saying the exit statement the right way.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the idea we wasted their time. Giving someone an training opportunity in a real life setting is no more a waste of their time than the mandatory training sessions which take them away from the sales floor for hours and sometimes days. It is also why it cannot be emphasized enough that when dealing with commissioned salespeople we should make every effort to visit during non-peak times and to refrain from dragging out interactions beyond what we need to do for the evaluation. Just because you like new cars or think it is fun to tour model homes or apartments, it should not be done on the associates time. If you like red cars and all they have is blue, guess what your new favorite color is now. If you want a two bedroom apartment and only one bedrooms will be available in your time frame, you can find a way to make that one bedroom work. We need to learn how to cut to the chase, give the associate every opportunity to make their presentation and try to close the sale. Beyond that it is superfluous. What I find to be a waste of time is the shoppers who receive multiple follow ups and rather than tell the associate they are no longer in the market for the product, they just ignore phone calls and emails.

Bottom line, if you can't look someone in the eye and tell a fib so both you and the employee can do your jobs, you need not to be mystery shopping. Or only take shops for things you plan to do anyway, like eat fast food, go to the hardware store, or open a new bank account.

Companies need us to play certain roles and use certain scenarios so they can do statistical analysis on the results. The first round of shops may be to measure the speed of service as it exists to get averages and ranges. The next round may be to see if certain changes they mandated resulted in improving on those numbers. The next round may be to reward units who do the best while still maintaining quality. Another round may examine if they are going too fast, resulting in loss of accuracy and quality. Those who aren't measuring speed may be evaluating the effect on sales of different customer service standards.

I would think some of them might figure out through mystery shopping that customers don't like to be constantly pestered by salespeople. If they mandate that all customers must be checked every 90 seconds, and mystery shopping confirms this is happening, and sales go down because people are walking out after being stalked... maybe they will change their standard to the salesperson returning to the area where there is a customer every 2 minutes, so the customer won't have to look far to find them, and then they might verify through mystery shopping that they are complying, and maybe sales go up under that scenario.

We don't ever really know exactly what the client is measuring or what they will do with the results. But I think in most cases we can be pretty well assured that the goal is to improve customer service, not to fry the employees who fall short.

If it bothers your conscience, I suggest finding another line of work because this is what mystery shopping IS.

mysterymojo, you need to change your attitude about this.

We're not trying to catch them speeding. We're trying to catch them stopping for the pedestrian in the crosswalk, yielding the right of way to the bicycle, pulling over to help the old lady change a tire.

We're trying (and desperately hoping) to catch them doing their jobs right!

If companies are using this as a valid training tool, if there are 25 questions and they got 23 right, that's 92%!!! That's an A!!!

So don't feel bad that they missed two and you had to report it. Be glad that you got to report 23 Yesses. They're not likely to get fired over missing two points. But by letting them know that they got 23 right, they know they have two areas where they can improve, and 23 areas where they nailed it.

The only employees who should worry about mystery shoppers are the ones who aren't motivated to do a good job in the first place. People who have a good work ethic and care about doing well will see this as a learning experience and will try harder so the next time they might get that elusive 100% and get that pat on the back.

dspeakes

I love your optimism and positivity. I agree that 92% is an A in school and I bet many companies see that the same way, but not all companies. For the ones that don't (and I suspect there are many who don't), I feel for the workers caught in that situation.

There are many posts on this forum about editors who ding us to a 9 out of 10 because of a small, relatively insignificant, and many times inaccurately edited infraction. That is also a 90% A- but it leaves us with the unsavory feeling of being nitpicked with little recourse or rebuttal opportunity.

To the point you made in your previous post, I may not be in this line of work for much longer. I have enjoyed many of my experiences as a shopper. I have been intrigued reading all the replies to this question and I have learned a lot in the last few days.

I respect that it does not feel like lying to many other shoppers. Fibbing, role playing, acting - all good descriptions as well. For me, it feels like I'm lying. I would be embarrassed to run into some of the people who have been kind and have had sincere conversations with me while I was judging them for their boss.

I know I am lying when I do the shops. I also know employee training is critical for the survival of any big business. If they are not selling what is supposed to be sold then that hurts the company. A wounded dog can only limp along for so long before it tires out. I have taken several business related psychology courses for marketing and for Human resource management. People in sales positions are often replaced due to their inability to try and sell something to someone that they did not specifically ask for. The only time I feel bad is when I do car shops and the salesman did an outstanding job and then calls me back a couple days later. That tells me he needed the sale and I pulled the job off perfectly. I do not do to many of those. The main goal of a company is to hire the right person for the job however, not every company can afford to have the MBTI taken by each of its employees so they instead rely on the next best thing which is training, retraining, employee feedback on a regular basis. Managers have to manage a store and therefore cannot watch every employee all the time. Mystery shopping helps them identify weak associates or areas of opportunity for their store and theoretically should create a better, happier, more reliable employee.

I am very limited in the shops I am willing to do since I won't play a scenario that is not real for me. I will only do shops for places that I might really be interested in. I usually make a purchase even when one is not necessary.

MysteryMojo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All great points. Perhaps I am at a point of
> fatigue in prioritizing what corporations want at
> the expense of seeing why certain individuals may
> not have been behaving like the drone they were
> trained to be during the random moment of my
> visit.



I think of what I am doing to be a service, If I am doing a medicare shop, I am looking out the make sure that an elderly person doesn't get taken advantage of. If I am doing a grocery shop, I am noticing how friendly and capable the staff is. If I am doing a car shop, I am looking at cars, who knows the economy might get better and I may actually be able to buy one someday. I don't have a problem with what I do as a mystery shopper. If I did I couldn't do it. The one thing that I don't like doing are purchase and return shops, can't do them nope hate them. Oh, and Coach bag shops where I have to make a purchase won't do them. Other than that I love what I do, and I'm glad that I'm kind of good at it.

The majority of us have probably reflected on this at some point in time. I avoid shops when I know the employees work on commission. Hourly employees get paid no matter what. When I have a negative report, I stick to the facts, no matter how bad it was. I sincerely hope that no one lost their job based on one of my reports. I think everyone deserves a warning and second chance. For those of us that do this because we need the income, it will be an internal conflict at times.

I don't do many sales commission shops anymore, as I don't shop for primary income, but back in my college days, shopping was my primary income, and sales commission shops were awesome because they paid decently and there was no money OOP. They were my bread and butter, literally!

Anyway, I often felt bad about wasting a precious hour of their time, especially when I saw a sale go through by another salesperson, and realized that my salesperson missed out on that customer because they greeted me/attached themselves to me first. It wasn't until I made a friend who was a jewelry salesperson on commission that I really realized what a valuable resource mystery shopping is for them. My friend studied the reports when she was shopped, and improved her sales performance.

I have also had shops where the salesperson blatantly lied/mis-represented facts or features about the car/phone they were trying to sell. Mystery shopping helps companies retrain those people, or weed them out. Would you want to be car-shopping at a dealership where the salesperson is trying to sell you a car based on features it doesn't even have? Mystery shopping helps keep them (more) honest.

bgriffin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you have anproblem with the scenarios that
> require you to lie, why not focus on those that
> don't? Between revealed audits, meals, and some
> retail you could stay pretty busy in many places.


Very true. That's the main reason I am very selective of the shops I do. I still accept some shops where I have
to pretend I could afford the exorbitant prices but I think of it as research. But there is no lying in many audits, etc. where you are actually purchasing, eating, consuming, gathering information, etc. and the report is an evaluation of the service, the product and the venue.

Aside from the fact that I consider it two shops, a main reason I do not like purchase and return is I've seen the salesperson's expression when the return of the item obviously dashed his hopes of a commission.

Mystery Mojo I want to give you kudos for obviously carefully reading each post that has been posted in response to your original question. It is not often that we see someone come to the forum and stick with the long thread that results from it especially when most of it is to explain why the following posters see things differently from the original poster. You seem to be torn but have stuck with your original theme even though you seem to see other's point of view. You are very refreshing.

Well, I had an interesting experience on the other side of the fence today.

I started a new part time job in retail. Having mystery shopped for awhile, I was probably more alert than most to the standards given to us in training, which I attended with 18 other newbies on Saturday in Phoenix. (Greet all customers within 30 seconds, answer phone within 3 rings, always ask for their loyalty card before ringing them up, always thank them, etc.)

My store does not have a manager at the moment. I was "started" by one of the Parts managers who is acting manager until the new manager comes up next week.

I listened to the phone ring off the hook all day. For one call, when I was the only person actually in the store at the moment, I went ahead and answered it, then handed it off to one of the others when they came back inside. But a couple of calls actually rang off without being answered, and none were answered in three rings, nor did any of the four people I was working with seem all that concerned about it.

When showing me how to use the register the only time they asked for the customer's phone number (which tied to the loyalty card) was when selling a warrantied item.

Nobody was calling, "Welcome to ....." as customers came in. Most were largely ignored (if I didn't waylay them to see if I could help them) until they actually approached the counter.

And I heard more than once, "We're supposed to do this ... (safety thing)... but we don't bother with that."

If we were being mystery shopped... the store would have flunked completely.

So now I have a dilemma. Do I do things "right," and thus make everyone else look bad (and me look like a goody two-shoes) and therefore hate me, or do I do things like the rest of them?

I'm an overachiever. I expect I will be hated before long.

Frankly... if we were mystery shopped (and we are not) it would make it a whole lot easier to do the right thing.

Interesting being on the other side of where a fence should be, but isn't.

I think I may have a conversation with the DM who hired me, and suggest maybe a mystery shop program would be enlightening. (I told him when he interviewed me that I have been mystery shopping.)