I have been a mystery shopper since March this year. I enjoy the job, but sometimes feel isolated as there is no one to ask when I hit a problem. I think that you can only ask so many questions of the companies you are working for. At the beginning I was flailing about in the dark.!

I have tried to find a recent UK book on the subject - can anyone recommend one?. I am also considering buying some 'covert' equipment as that seems to be needed for some assignments. Can anyone give me a recommendation?.

regards
Chris

Welcome Chris. Part of the purpose of a forum is to ask folks questions when you hit a problem. I wonder if you are in the UK since you are looking for a UK book. Here in the US most of us see the same sorts of jobs so if someone asks about a job the chances are pretty good that somebody has done the job previously or jobs similar enough to be able to help out. I think that you are right that you can only ask so many questions of a company before they consider you a PITA.

Since you have been doing this since March you evidently have decided to continue on as a shopper. Absolutely my most useful piece of 'covert' equipment is my digital voice recorder(DVR). My first one was a little on-line purchase of a refurbished one for about $25. It had no possibility of hooking up to my computer, it was difficult to fast forward with any accuracy and it had no option for an external microphone. After a few months I realized the limitations of that original DVR and purchased a good Sony one. It hooks to my computer's USB port so I can now download and save the recordings to my computer, listen to them on the computer with slide bars to fast forward or go back, etc. Each recording has a time and date stamp. I no longer need to take notes on a shop because everything is on the DVR. A few months later I sprung for the cost of an external microphone which I wear under my clothing that helps isolate the recording to an area 3-4 feet around me so I pick up less extraneous conversations and noise. The microphone is sensitive enough that I can talk to myself quietly with observations and if I am going into a place where that might appear strange I can put on a bluetooth headset on my ear (not connected to anything), touch it as though I was answering the phone and start talking with folks assuming I am having a phone conversation as I chat to my microphone.

Mine is the Sony ICD-MX20 which retails at around $250 these days but is available frequently on Amazon.com in a refurbished model. I paid a lot less than that for my first one and when I saw a refurbished one on Amazon.com for under $100 I bought a second one as a backup because it has become such an indispensable tool.

There is nothing covert about my camera. I tend to avoid shops that are not reveals but require photos. If I can use a cell phone camera for the covert shops I am likely to take them, but otherwise I don't care to be outed or confronted about taking pictures on private property.

My DVR was $30 on sale at Amazon, doesn't have a mike or attach to my comp, but does the job. and there are many between $30 and $250.

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Welcome Chris. Part of the purpose of a forum is
> to ask folks questions when you hit a problem. I
> wonder if you are in the UK since you are looking
> for a UK book. Here in the US most of us see the
> same sorts of jobs so if someone asks about a job
> the chances are pretty good that somebody has done
> the job previously or jobs similar enough to be
> able to help out. I think that you are right that
> you can only ask so many questions of a company
> before they consider you a PITA.
>
> Since you have been doing this since March you
> evidently have decided to continue on as a
> shopper. Absolutely my most useful piece of
> 'covert' equipment is my digital voice
> recorder(DVR). My first one was a little on-line
> purchase of a refurbished one for about $25. It
> had no possibility of hooking up to my computer,
> it was difficult to fast forward with any accuracy
> and it had no option for an external microphone.
> After a few months I realized the limitations of
> that original DVR and purchased a good Sony one.
> It hooks to my computer's USB port so I can now
> download and save the recordings to my computer,
> listen to them on the computer with slide bars to
> fast forward or go back, etc. Each recording has
> a time and date stamp. I no longer need to take
> notes on a shop because everything is on the DVR.
> A few months later I sprung for the cost of an
> external microphone which I wear under my clothing
> that helps isolate the recording to an area 3-4
> feet around me so I pick up less extraneous
> conversations and noise. The microphone is
> sensitive enough that I can talk to myself quietly
> with observations and if I am going into a place
> where that might appear strange I can put on a
> bluetooth headset on my ear (not connected to
> anything), touch it as though I was answering the
> phone and start talking with folks assuming I am
> having a phone conversation as I chat to my
> microphone.
>
> Mine is the Sony ICD-MX20 which retails at around
> $250 these days but is available frequently on
> Amazon.com in a refurbished model. I paid a lot
> less than that for my first one and when I saw a
> refurbished one on Amazon.com for under $100 I
> bought a second one as a backup because it has
> become such an indispensable tool.
>
> There is nothing covert about my camera. I tend
> to avoid shops that are not reveals but require
> photos. If I can use a cell phone camera for the
> covert shops I am likely to take them, but
> otherwise I don't care to be outed or confronted
> about taking pictures on private property.


I agree. My DVR has gotten me out of some jams. I don't have to try remember everything. I just have to have extra batteries. Shopping without it is difficult. The stopwatch on a cell phone comes in real handy too.

Has anyone used voice recognition software after downloading recordings to their laptop from a DVR? I'm thinking of buying one of the Dragon versions and wonder if it is worth the expense.

You don't ever have to transcribe long conversations, just a comment here and there. I wouldn't invest in it unless I needed it for something else.

I have Dragon V9 and was terribly disappointed. I purchased it because I was doing huge narratives for hotel and resort shops and wanted to be able to dictate the reports while I rested from being out doing all the observations. I spent a solid weekend "training" it to recognize my voice, spelling for it and repeating words it could not recognize, etc. I had it "read" old report narratives and emails to try to build up its vocabulary of shopping words. Yet I was never able to get it to understand spoken language at reasonable speed--frankly, it was faster for me to type out the information rather than fool with it. Plus you need to remember to tell it when you want a "comma" or "Open quote" etc. so to get it to correctly type:

Mychele, our server, greeted us with a friendly, "Hello!"

You would need to say "New paragraph, Mychele, spell that cap M y c h e l e, say that Mychele comma our server comma greeted us with a friendly comma open quote cap Hello exclamation point close quote"

Now human beings do not think or talk that way and the artificiality of the whole thing destroys any rhythm of conversational thought.

I still had hopes of being able to salvage enough text from the DVR to be able to edit it quickly for final product. Even with the recommended Sony ICD-MX20 recorder and the expensive condensor microphone, the results have been garbage. Perhaps if I held the recorder 1" from my nose the recording would be good enough for the recorder to transcribe at least as well/poorly as it does from the headset with microphone, in a hidden microphone situation it only picks up random words (which do make for hysterical reading).

I recently got a call from the Nuance folks to try to sell me Dragon v10. Their records also showed that I had purchased PDF Converter 5. I laughed at the guy. The Converter software cannot turn a pdf form into a Word or Excel document with anything that appears similar to original formatting. It does an excellent job of keeping text. My hope was that a form I normally have to print, hand fill, type and print then cut and tape on narratives from Word, then scan and email could simply be converted to a Word document that could be filled in on the computer in its entirety and then saved to pdf format to upload to an email. No such luck. The salesman tells me that the Converter software is great, State of the Art!! Obviously the art is not advanced enough to be useful. Then he was indicating that Dragon v10 is ready to use right out of the box--no training needed. Duh, if you can't train it, how do you fix what it can't figure out?

Thanks for the replies - especially the one from Flash. I didn't intend to use the actual transcription as the complete report - just use the printout as a memory jogger instead of listening to all the playback. Reports say the latest version 10 is a big impovement but until you use it you don't know do you? Anyone tried version 10?