I had some spare time this am (Yes, it's before 6 here) and I decided to "secret shop" the secret shopping app.

I started at the Aptivate website provided by Andrew Walker in his post in the Introductions section. Here is what I learned about the company founders:

BEGIN QUOTE:

Founded by a business banker, a marketing genius and a serial entrepreneur, Apptivate understands how the business world works, what it needs and what your customers demand. Our company and our products are always perfectly aligned with what matters most: business success and satisfied customers. No other app development firm gets this better than we do.

END QUOTE

Hmmm. Methinks they might need some ha'aha'a (humbleness.)

I found this on their July newsletter page:

BEGIN QUOTE:

Greetings from Apptivate!
Effective Mobile Business Solutions are now essential for any company seeking a competitive advantage in the 21st century. As innovators in this emergent field, we at Apptivate are bringing our experience and expertise to you in a monthly newsletter dedicated to key industry topics.

Mobile Marketing:Apptivate Revolutionizes an Entire Industry Overnight
Give! Get! Win! Introducing iSecretShop - the App that Pays!
When a disruptive technology is married to a disruptive business model, it changes the rules of the game forever. Apptivate is thrilled to announce the release of its newest game-changing innovation for smartphone users and businesses alike: It's called iSecretShop and it's turned the old-school Mystery Shopping model on its head.

"The traditional mystery shopping model is fraught with problems: fraud, subjective feedback of dubious value, high costs, small data sets and unacceptably slow response times," said Jennifer Ely, Co-Founder of Apptivate and veteran of the mystery shopping industry.

But the iSecretShop app changes everything, delivering 100% objective, error-free feedback instantly. Instead of comments like, "I had to wait forever for a table," whatever that means - iSecretShop agents will use the phone to timestamp the entire process. Instead of, "The dressing room was filthy," business owners will see a photograph of the mess. A picture truly is worth 1000 words - It's hard to argue with facts. And a built-in error check feature guarantees no question or shop requirement is missed.

Want another amazing benefit? How about instant feedback, reporting and analytics. The shop results are delivered the moment the agent exits the merchant's door - and an email notification immediately goes to the client. The shop results can be viewed in real-time allowing for unprecedented levels of control and response time.

"It's incredible when you consider that I can login to my iSecretShop Administration portal and not only know that each customer was actually at my business via the 'Proof of Patronage' guarantee of having the shop GPS recorded, but to have both separate and aggregate views of all activity in a timeline comparing progress, input, images, and specific question scores was - until iSecretShop - unheard of." said Sean Greene, President of Max Muscle Sports Nutrition stores and an iSecretShop client. "In a matter of moments I can see the entire health of my 150 stores, pinpoint issues, address concerns, and all with photographs time-stamped from minutes ago."

By leveraging the technology of mobile devices, Apptivate eliminated much of the infrastructure that makes traditional mystery shops so costly. iSecretShop clients pay far less money while getting far more shops, far higher quality shops and all while driving new and repeat customers through the door.

By offering shoppers cash, reimbursements and incredible digital coupons in exchange for their invaluable feedback, iSecretShop transforms your mystery shopping initiative from an expense item into a powerful marketing tool -putting your business and a powerful incentive to visit it - in every customers' hand everywhere they go.


About Us
Apptivate, LLC designs, develops and implements innovative business solutions leveraging the mobile device platform. Built by businesspeople for businesses and customers alike, our products increase sales, reduce costs, extend marketing reach and enhance the customer experience.
For Information
Andrew Walker
Co-Founder Apptivate, LLC
7683 SE 27th St Suite 262
Mercer Island, WA 98040
1.206.718.5239

END QUOTE

I set myself up as a faux applicant and "registered".

It required minimal info (email, name, address, home phone, birthdate, gender and number of children under 16.) As one might imagine, they did not require a writing sample.


There are "comment cards" you can fill out - FOR FREE! And the "info" it gives the "client" is laughable at best. One was for a hotel, one was for a jeweler, and all the others were multiple locations of the same client that Andrew mentioned here already. It asks when you visited, why you visited, who assisted you, and rates the experience. You may give comments at the end if you wish.

Then the fun began! I put an actual Honolulu zip code in when I registered. One of the great features of the iPhone is its location-based services. I guess Aptivate forgot about that feature when they designed this app. I looked for jobs "near home"; I got a list of the "client" locations in CA...all over CA. I looked for ones "near me", and got a list of locations scattered all over the country.

It appeared to me that despite Andrew's claim that they are adding new clients daily they only have the one client with the BOGO 50% offer.

As my faux persona, I applied for the first "near me" job which is 6000 miles away. Immediately, two things happened in rapid sucession: first, a small pop-up window told me I did not get the job as I was the wrong demographic or had reached my limit for the client. This was followed by another small pop-up window that said "Accepted. Congratulations, this shop has been assigned to you." These cycled back and forth one more time, and then settled onto the accepted screen.

I went to my accepted jobs panel and pressed the "start shop" button. Now the location based services kicked in. It would not allow me to do the shop as it recognized that I was not at the location. It told me if I was there that I should call a certain number for assistance.

I hit the "cancel shop" button and cancelled my shop.

I went to the profile and deleted my info, but it would not accept that.

I tried to use the log out" button, and the application told me to "Login In."

I then deleted the app from my phone.

My faux persona sees a need for improvement in the finding and display of jobs, the application deciding whether you were assigned the job or not, acceptance of shoppers, shopper payments, as well as a need for a larger client list.

Your mileage may vary.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2010 05:02PM by dee shops.

But...I can see this as being the way of the future. As I stated in another post, I see this whole industry being set up for failure. Don't get me wrong, I lovw mystery shopping and depend on the money I get from it. I don't want it to ever go away, but there is so much room for both error and fraud on both sides that if the "hand-held shopper" or app was perfected it would be the way to go.

Yes, ideally I would like an app that I can use for shops, but from the providers we currently know and love. I would like to continue to sign up with MSC's and be approved the way we do now, whether I do it from a smart phone browser or my computer.

I would also love app that was already set up for the notes and pix of MSing; it could have texting, pic taking and receipt scanning. Sort of like an app that had notetaking, a camera, and the JotNot features all in one. I would pay up to 9.99 for a good app like that, but before I did so, I would want a three day demo period.

Honestly if that app actually worked, that would make my life a lot easier. If only we could just take a bunch of pictures and timings with our phone and not have to write lengthy reports in the middle of the night

Yea, true. But that is NOT even close to what they are selling.

It's hard enough to find good shoppers, so requiring them to have an iPhone pretty much knocks you out of the game in the MS business unless your clients are only in major metropolitan cities and pay well.

There is firm that specializes in instant feedback using text messaging (SMS) that does not require using an iPhone.

Let's hope they are more effective at it than this one is. :-)