Dear experienced mystery shoppers do you realise that you hold a wealth of knowledge in your hands and all those days of staying up late doing reports could pay off.Am thinking of starting a website where you post your reviews on a certain shop/client We all have different experiences when we shop and what may be ok to you may vary. Another shopper could have a completely different experience. This has nothing to do with MSC's . Companies always want to hear about how they are doing.Instead of them going to MSC's who have to recruit "us" to tell them it is time the companies paid us directly.They would pay to get on the site and see what "experienced shoppers" like us have to say futhermore most shoppers do shop the competition and will give an unbiased view.Stop going to places like facebook or angies list to write your reviews do it on the website. How you as a shopper will benefit is if the company uses one of your reviews on its site you will get paid that is for the positive reviews.There will also be an additional fee should you give pointers on how they can improve or reasons why the experience was negative.We will have a universal form with not too much detail which can be tweeked to cater for minor changes.It is time you took some control instead of giving all your power to MSC'S.Get paid for you opinion but eliminate the middleman. You will still need the MSC to do the shop and get paid why not use this opportunity to also post your reviews online to other shoppers who really understand you.We all could do with a little green

Problem #1 - when we do a shop for an MSC, the information we gather is the property of the MSC for which we did the work. Multiple posting of our reviews or findings would be all sorts of violations of our ICA.

Have you looked over this forum? That is what we do everyday. We comment and crtique MSCs. Just search for what you are looking for. As Flash idicated we are bound by rules and for good reason. I know you are new to posting here,but this is howit works and the word gets out.

The website is not for you to report your experiences on MSC's .It is a client website.If you happen to have done the shop and got paid for it well and good.
It is more about your opinion the client will not ask which MSC you work for .If you are MS certified that will be a plus but with time all members will be required to get some form of certification .Ultimate goal is to get a shopper's view who has a more critical eye than the average customer and who just happens to shop or visit the competition.This site will not be for you to duplicate the reports you send to MSc's as the client already gets this information from the MSC there will be standard reports applicable to most companies/clients.Have you ever heard of zagat rated basically their reviews are quoted by companies to show that they are the best in quality customer service etc.Website will do the same thing.Only instead of dealing with mystery shopping companies they will deal with actual shoppers. Dont you ever wonder what happens to all the information you collect and submit on a report. Does the client see it do you notice changes when you visit the location again.Think beyond the immediate pay you get after doing a report and use your knowledge to work for you.In a nutshell this is how it will work you log into the site and see a client that you happen to have shopped for .Leave a comment and answer a short questionnaire negative or positive it does not matter.Once a considerable number of opinions are collected this automatically gets sent to the client. If yours gets picked you get paid.Incentive to the client is 2 fold free publicity and advice or should I say what needs improvement.Think undercover boss you do this everyday why not pool your resources .Knowledge is strength

Your concept is a Violation of ICA. Plus it undermines the work that we do. If you get another idea, please post it.

This one will NOT fly...

MAJOR ICA violation. I notice you just registered here at the forum. Have you read many of the posts here? Have you done any mystery shopping yourself? Are you associated with a mystery shopping company? What experience in customer review area do you bring to this venture? As Flash noted, when we perform a shop and we are paid for it, all information in the report belongs to the company that pays us for the report.

Don, you're a new poster so maybe you're not a shopper, and if not, you don't understand the contracts we sign. If you are a shopper, please take a closer look at the independent contractor agreements that each MSC requires. You'll see this can't be done legally.

No, it's not about to happen. Work product on every assignment belongs to the MSC. Doing what you suggest would be wrong. It's out of the question.

Even if shoppers were not under contract and had no personal ethics, there is another huge problem with the concept. You are asking shoppers to post on your site for free, with the POSSIBILITY someone will pay them if their opinions are selected. Slim chance and fat chance (both). Sorry, I can't see the upside in that for me when I could be spending that time on something that will definitely pay off cash money.

That said, Don, I'm not saying there aren't threads of possibility in your proposal. It just won't work with mystery shoppers under contract to MSCs. You'll have to find some other pool of consumers to work with. Best of luck and I hope you can get something going. You're thinking, and that's a good sign.

Intriguing post. However, to do "there" exactly as we do "here" is a duplication. In conjunction with that good idea, you would be taking on the admin costs ($, time, pulling your hair out, and spammers). I operate several web sites (PHP forums) and one on my home town, Vegas, has over 5,000 spammers that are cut off but kept for the numbers. You will get there freaks Don. Ask yourself, does your name appear on your mortgage? It can be traced and would be by some freak. If you decline their posts, however, they will send you [postal letters...telling you they know where you live. There are some awful people that are not spoken off often in forums, newsgroups, and you will be the man up top taking the heat, the automated spam engines from Estonia and Latvia and RU, .... In all humility Don, I would suggest against it. I am disabled now and my shopping for the moment, is limited to the telephone and internet. So I have the time when well allocated to handle it and automate it. But well over 50% of my time goes right down the porcelain throne chasing someone else screaming monkey down their street...aka spammers.

Just my humble input...no better or worse than anothers view...just mine.... I'd not do it all over again as I did before. It takes a lot out of a person running one of these simple forums. Sometimes it is not worth the price paid to the person. It is worth it to the valued participant as we see their forum from the outside. Ever seen PHP from the admin side? Its enough to make your hair turn white when it runs in its full blown beauty, and automated as well. But it still requires a lot from you and the Spammers still get through. They are smart and resilient. No one can tell them, and really shouldn't as they push us farther into better security. No crooks no lock and key industry.

And then ya have to keep track of these little ads you see to make sure they are paying properly. It is more work than it looks.

I really like our little family / friends we have here. We learn, we ask questions and we share experiences. I really like it. Oh, did I say I really like it whoo ever tlls me I have memory issues, well, ...uh, what? hahahaha

Thats my view. That, and hand full of quarters'll getcha on the NYC subway. ...awready. Anyone got some kowafee?

Don / Vegas



donbosco Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dear experienced mystery shoppers do you realise
> that you hold a wealth of knowledge in your hands
> and all those days of staying up late doing
> reports could pay off.Am thinking of starting a
> website where you post your reviews on a certain
> shop/client We all have different experiences
> when we shop and what may be ok to you may vary.
> Another shopper could have a completely different
> experience. This has nothing to do with MSC's .
> Companies always want to hear about how they are
> doing.Instead of them going to MSC's who have to
> recruit "us" to tell them it is time the companies
> paid us directly.They would pay to get on the site
> and see what "experienced shoppers" like us have
> to say futhermore most shoppers do shop the
> competition and will give an unbiased view.Stop
> going to places like facebook or angies list to
> write your reviews do it on the website. How you
> as a shopper will benefit is if the company uses
> one of your reviews on its site you will get paid
> that is for the positive reviews.There will also
> be an additional fee should you give pointers on
> how they can improve or reasons why the experience
> was negative.We will have a universal form with
> not too much detail which can be tweeked to cater
> for minor changes.It is time you took some control
> instead of giving all your power to MSC'S.Get paid
> for you opinion but eliminate the middleman. You
> will still need the MSC to do the shop and get
> paid why not use this opportunity to also post
> your reviews online to other shoppers who really
> understand you.We all could do with a little
> green

The concept is we would get paid IF a company chose to use our review? In other words, we go about our daily business and write a review of a hotel, restaurant or retail establishment and maybe, just maybe, somewhere down the line we will receive a few bucks. For me it would be damn hard to plan my monthly budget around a maybe and right now I go to many of those places because I'm being paid to go there not just for grins.

Paid reviews are a slippery slope.

yes...the anonymity of the internet has its problems with paid and non paid reviews alike

yelp has been accused in the past of using false reviews in bullying owners to pay their subsciption fees

sites like IM reportcard only allow positive reviews and delete ones they dont like for some reason

my main problem is peoples experiences vary like night and day due to the differences in schedulers much less the business itself

if you are looking to start a website though www.hubpages.com is a great place to start

blessings