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Why do companies pay for mystery shops and do nothing with the results?

March 15, 2026 05:27PM
I did 6 Texaco/Chevron shops last week. Only one cashier had a nametag. I did 5 others yesterday and not a single one had a nametag. I have found that fewer than 10% of the employees ever have nametags. These shops were my bread and butter a few years back, but I stopped doing them when they started requiring a photo of the cashier if they weren't wearing a nametag. I had a couple of instances when the person got hostile, and that ended those shops for me. Now I do a few of them if a large bonus is posted. Maybe the reason they have a large bonus is because other shoppers know they will have lots of infractions which require photos. Why does the company pay for mystery shopping and then make no changes?
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March 15, 2026 05:54PM
A lot of these shops are tied to franchise agreements. They are a small piece to the overall franchise contracts. While the franchise owner “must” follow the agreements they technically can do whatever they want, pay the fine to the franchisee and keep it moving. I’m sure after repeated violations or severe enough violations, the dba is revoked.

Others like Whole Foods or Wells Fargo are the result of lawsuits or litigation and serve other purposes.
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March 15, 2026 05:56PM
The company can't force employees at the station level to wear name tags.
On a larger scale with gas stations, I've had owners in the past acknowledge to me that the cost of fixing something is not worth whatever the improvement in the score will be, so they accept a certain component is marked off.
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March 20, 2026 01:09PM
Because they are awful?

Have synthesizers, will travel...
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March 20, 2026 07:08PM
I asked myself this very question in 2010. I had accepted a quarterly visit to the Greater Cincinnati airport the prior year. While the pay was not what I normally would require for a round of 155 mls., my thinking was that once I had the stores in shape, the subsequent visits would be a breeze. When they weren't, I could not see any improvement, I inquired of the owner of the boutique MSC. I then learned all results would only be employed at lease time. No one had misled me; the goof was entirely on me. I immediately tendered my resignation.
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March 21, 2026 12:37AM
I have routinely done shops over and over again for years on end where there are continued infractions ranging from non-compliant signage to obvious cash theft (by the same person month after month). That these issues are not fixed is of some mild bemusement to me but nothing else. My job is to provide data. What the businesses do with that data it is solely up to them.
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