I know this sounds crazy and I am sure that everyone has read this in the shopping instructions, but why would someone call the shopped location and ask questions about their mystery shop? Does anyone think that this actually happened or was it the store associates making this up? ;-o

Frequently there are calls to be made in advance of a shop, but these are to check courtesy etc. so are usually some general question such as store hours, location, etc. Even those make me queasy so I always do a *67 first before I dial.

These calls do not ask specifics about the shop itself that are supposed to be on site observations. I am aware that there are some shoppers who attempt to get names and other information to fraudulently write up a report for a location they did not bother going to. This is why the shop requirements now pretty uniformly require a receipt or other 'proof of visit'. Of course the sad byproduct of this is that a real issue for new mystery shoppers is that they forget to get a receipt or fail to guard it with their life. Their shop is then invalidated and there will be suspicion that they did their shop by phone or otherwise made up their 'observations' without actually going there.

The peron that answers the phone is also being evaluated...did he/she give her name (Hi, this Debbi, thanks for calling xyz), clear voice, good directions, and such. I've never been bothered by this, just part of the evaluation.

No problem with calling the location, asking questions, and reporting it on the form, although it is hard to sometimes hear their name with background noise. That is sometimes part of the job. I was asking about the possibility of a shopper actually calling the location and asking questions about the assignment instead of emailing or calling the scheduler.

I could just imagine the person answering the phone trying to clarify the question. OK, let me get this straight, you are scheduled to perform a mystery shop between 6 pm and 9 pm and want to know if it would be alright to come early? I don't see any problem with it. Why don't you ask for me at the podium and I will escort you around the place. ;-o

That would be pretty dumb, don't you think? It may be that one of our esteemed colleagues was that dense, but I seriously doubt it.

That was my original question as I was reading over instructions of a shop that I was just assigned, why would someone call the shopped location and ask questions about their mystery shop?

Perhaps they have had a dense one who did?

Edited to add: It is really hard to tell, sometimes, just how much of shop instructions and requirements are knee jerk reactions to shopper errors or poor instructions that didn't really get the expected response when used on site. I did some phone shops that said, "Get a name." So when Suzy answered the phone and gave me her name, I gave her credit and reported I spoke with Suzy. The client expected Suzy to give both her first and last name. News to me. My shops weren't disallowed but the instructions were changed to "Get a first and last name." That immediately makes the shop more complicated because now if Suzy only gives me her first name, I need to elicit her last name without throwing suspicion that I am a shopper. Since only about half of their employees gave first and last name, I am rethinking whether the pay (which was marginal to start with) is worth the risk of being identified as the shopper and not paid for my work at all.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2011 06:13PM by Flash.

I am sure that if it is in most shopping instructions it has happened at one time. ;-o

I don't normally chime in on shoppers' discussions, but I couldn't resist this time.

You know those warning labels on blow driers, and how you think they are just ridiculous? It's because somebody, somewhere actually did it.

It's the same with this biz. We don't put those warnings in shop instructions lightly. If it's there, it is because somebody (or more than one somebody) has done exactly that.

You might just be surprised

Jana Baker
Owner
Star Scheduling

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Perhaps they have had a dense one who did?
>
> Edited to add: It is really hard to tell,
> sometimes, just how much of shop instructions and
> requirements are knee jerk reactions to shopper
> errors or poor instructions that didn't really get
> the expected response when used on site. I did
> some phone shops that said, "Get a name." So when
> Suzy answered the phone and gave me her name, I
> gave her credit and reported I spoke with Suzy.
> The client expected Suzy to give both her first
> and last name. News to me. My shops weren't
> disallowed but the instructions were changed to
> "Get a first and last name." That immediately
> makes the shop more complicated because now if
> Suzy only gives me her first name, I need to
> elicit her last name without throwing suspicion
> that I am a shopper. Since only about half of
> their employees gave first and last name, I am
> rethinking whether the pay (which was marginal to
> start with) is worth the risk of being identified
> as the shopper and not paid for my work at all.

Someone that dense is a "Dunce", right?

If you went to the dictionary you would find that the definitions are quite similar. In normal use, a "dunce" is generally a person with limited capabilities while a person who is "dense" may be of normal intelligence who just doesn't understand for whatever reason. I would certainly not use the words interchangeably.

Flash Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you went to the dictionary you would find that
> the definitions are quite similar. In normal use,
> a "dunce" is generally a person with limited
> capabilities while a person who is "dense" may be
> of normal intelligence who just doesn't understand
> for whatever reason. I would certainly not use
> the words interchangeably.

Hmmmm...I think I understand now. You don't have to be a dunce to be dense, but it helps.

:^)

JanaBaker Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't normally chime in on shoppers'
> discussions, but I couldn't resist this time.
>
> You know those warning labels on blow driers, and
> how you think they are just ridiculous? It's
> because somebody, somewhere actually did it.
>
> It's the same with this biz. We don't put those
> warnings in shop instructions lightly. If it's
> there, it is because somebody (or more than one
> somebody) has done exactly that.
>
> You might just be surprised
>

And if we dare speak back, because an MSC or scheduler has done something equally dense? We get deactivated or the assignment gets cancelled.

Give you a live example. I have to do an expensive dealership service shop this week. Suits me, free service that I need anyway. Instructions from scheduler are EXPLICIT-I must call this certain number to do a prescreen call and ask questions about the needed service, preferably the same day but can do it the day before.

The number given? The Service Dept Mgr's personal cell. NICE.

I blew it off, pretended I had the wrong number. Called back through the Service Dept main line from the phone book-got the same guy, lol. He certainly recognized my voice and played right along, feeding me the exact verbiage off the shopping guidelines.