@Flash wrote:
If you have done mystery shopping you must be aware of the Independent Contractor Agreements which shoppers must sign off on that indicates we will not disclose any information which the company feels are proprietary, so nobody can really answer your questions. You will also note from those Agreements (ICAs) that we agree not to be engaged as an employee of any Mystery Shopping Company for a period of usually two years after terminating our Agreement with them.
That being said, all banks do training and have expectations of their tellers and bankers. The majority of bank mystery shoppers are testing that bank employees are abiding by their training. So deciding what to test depends on what the bank most wants to check.
If you are talking about 10 banks, you are probably talking about a fairly small geographic area. You can possibly advertise locally for part time folks or even check with a temporary agency to find shoppers. As for verifying what they have reported, you need to discuss with shoppers what you need and how to do the observations and from your conversation decide whether you sense they are going to do what is needed or just produce a report they think is what you want to hear without actually performing the needed tasks.
@LisaSTL wrote:
So you are going to be running a mystery shopping program as a direct employee of the bank?
@KimRod wrote:
The original scenario posted by the OP just seems "off" to me. Anyone else getting that vibe?
Why would a financial institution offer such a project to someone who is new to mystery shopping and only has retail experience?
@LisaSTL wrote:
If I was selling my services as a mystery shopping company I wouldn't present my lack of experience Since we have visitors from all over the world, it is entirely possible the OP is from another country. It also doesn't mean the inquiry is anything other than what is stated. I do agree choosing a forum made up primarily of shoppers is not the way to go. Few of us have experience on the other side of the business. While performing some bank shops for several clients with different needs would supply the shopper perspective, he/she still needs to speak with someone else for the business perspective.
The idea of bribes is not so far fetched. Over the years I have heard of it happening. Most of the time it was the reverse of what the OP suggested where the shopper was offering a good report in exchange for money. Since we have visitors from all over the world, it is entirely possible the OP is from another country.
@LisaSTL wrote:
After reading the first post again, it appears the OP is in the beginning stage of negotiations for the contract. The bank has shown interest in the concept of mystery shopping their locations and now wants the details. Most mystery shoppers know if the shop parameters allow for a natural interaction getting outed is rare as is a target attempting to bribe us. These sound more like questions a business unfamiliar with MS would ask. It also gives me the impression the program presentation was lacking. Ideally mystery shopping would be presented as a training opportunity rather than something negative which is designed to get employees in trouble. When a program is administered as a positive, the employee has no reason to consider bribing the shopper.
@OCyou2 wrote:
If I was an employee of a bank that had recently mystery shopped me, and gotten a bad report, I might come on here posing as an interested party, to gather information on how to fight it with my employer, or even on a legal basis.