If everyone would calculate the
FULL time and expense of a shop before accepting it, you may not wish to take a job that pays $4 if all you have to do is click a button. Not speak Spanish to a funeral home. Simply clicking a button on a website and you could be loosing money. If you take a job for $5 and all you are doing is taking a single photo of the front of the store as you drive past it and it's a trip that is more than 4 miles round trip, you are loosing money.
Here is why:
THE TRUE COST OF A MYSTERY SHOP IN TIME
1. The time spent looking for the job. (Reading E-mail, checking the MSC site for new jobs, wasting time with the same MSC reading about jobs that are out of the area or not even capable to be performed due to age/other restrictions.)
2. Finally found a job that is close to you. (Time spent reading the job description to see if it is reasonable in the first place. This can be very misleading of what the report is going to be. That two page report will expand when you go to fill it in!)
3. Applying for the job. (Self assign is great and earned with many MSC's. Now your wasting time to check if your application is accepted.)
4. Keeping tract of the applied jobs that have not been assigned, and not applying for an overlapping assignment.
5. Printing the shop/audit forms. (Some low paying jobs have 20+ pages!)
6. Time driving to and from the location that is not around the corner. (Gas, and wear and tear on the vehicle.)
7. Time spent actually filling out the report. (We all love this part, so you might as well deduct the time for this from all of the above.
)
8. The time spent scanning in receipts or proof of visit. (This is nothing when opening a bank account and getting that folder that they want every form/pamphlet/Business card scanned)
9. The time to add it to your spreadsheet to keep tract of the job. (Yeah, you need to do this.)
10. Calculating mileage. (You at the very least go to Google maps and ballpark it into the spreadsheet, right?)
11. Waiting for the payment. (Spending the time to update your spreadsheet and keep tract of when your paid, and if not paid, and the effort to attempt to get payment if they do not send it.)
12. The constant checking of email for several days after submitting the report. (To see if the editor has questions of your report sometimes a week after you needed to submit it within 12 hours or not get paid.)
13. If you did all the above and payment is received. (Updating your spreadsheet to reflect the payment. If you do many jobs that month for the same company, calculating the payment for each job to the payment amount received, as many companies don't itemize it for you. Yes, your doing accounting too.)
You can spend almost an hour to complete a one minute job, if there are any hiccups in the 13 step plan.
Of course, you can skip many of the steps above to make it easier. But you won't know if you don't get paid. You will be in real trouble if the IRS audits you, and you will end up flaking if a post-it note falls off your monitor.
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2015 06:42AM by scanman1.