What is Mystery Shopping and How Much Can You Earn from It?
A mysterious term, but not a difficult explanation. Simply put, mystery shopping is a way of earning extra money for the people, who are not afraid of going into a shop or a restaurant and review it for other customers to help. You will behave naturally, not reveal anything about yourself and your anonymity is a given. You do not have to always go into the field. Sometimes you can just write an email message or call. In any case, it is an adventure, which can earn you some decent money and you will definitely not get bored with it.
In this review, we will explain what mystery shopping is and under which conditions you can become a mystery shopper as well.
What Is Mystery Shopping?
Mystery shopping is one of the marketing practices that, based on pretended interest in the buying, qualitatively examines the strength of the market and can successfully evaluate the quality of offered services or products. This specific activity depends on a fictitious shopper, the so-called mystery shopper, who presents himself as an ordinary customer all the time. His task is to evaluate the complete shopping process, based on the current situation or well-targeted questions, which means how he was satisfied with the whole process. Mystery shopping is thus an exciting option for the owner or company to get adequate feedback about their services or products from the perspective of the most important ones – customers.
As a mystery shopper, you evaluate the impression the service or goods cause to you. You also notice utter little things, refreshments in the restaurant and the speed of service, the expertise of the staff of the pharmacies, the level of comfort for the visitor of the cinema or, for example, the medical facility. The possibilities are so limitless that everyone can choose the best for themself there. Mystery shopping questionnaires are still set like this – you choose the areas you would like to be involved in, and when some of them get your attention, you only need to sign up.
Not always, there is something for everybody. Sometimes the number of participants is limited. It does not matter… Next time, it’s your turn!
History of Mystery Shopping
The tradition of mystery shopping began eighty years ago in the US, when the owners of big corporations wanted to test their employees in a slightly non-traditional way. These were mainly banks or supermarkets. Of course, as the Internet became broadly available, it helped to spread this practice, which continues to this day. The goal is simple: to improve the quality of services almost in all thinkable field. So what are the most typical forms of MS?
- Mystery shopping – this form is the most often used because you check something personally and it is the best way to consider and check all the details.
- Mystery calling or mailing – reaching out to customer helpline or sending the email request to the particular shop. The evaluation has to be done complex.
- Mystery delivery – let them send you a particular product and then test it and evaluate it – you check also the delivery option and way how the postman or courier was dealing with the situation.
The classic mystery shopping could be defined in short as feedback, which is treasured more than gold by each company, which constantly focuses on improving its services. Better comparison with competitors, another communication source and maybe a few tips on how to improve provided services. Isn’t this the truly sophisticated mechanism?
The Screenplay Is Fixed, You Will Only Be a Clever Actor
You must not be revealed, but it is enough if you not say too much or reveal yourself in some other way. You will make a short audio/video recording of your review, fill out a questionnaire or you will review the professionalism of the salesman, their behavior towards the customer as well as the overall appearance of the shop – Is it clean? Does the shop appeal to you at first sight? All of this is important as well. A complex assessment will help given company in its development.
Who Can Become a Mystery Shopper?
The conditions are, in fact, minimum, legal age, own bank account and, of course, mobile and email, through which you communicate with headquarters and where you get in time assignments with all details. Of course, there should be time flexibility, because you have to respond to some job offers early and also reserve a particular morning or evening to visit the store. In exceptional cases, the deadline may be shifted, but it may not be a rule.
Mystery shopper can be therefore anybody who fulfill the criteria above and is interested in earning an interesting amount of money from the comfort of his or her home.
Extra Income That Is Always Handy
Mystery shopping is suitable for students, retirees, mothers on maternity leave, whose children attend kindergarten in the morning and otherwise get a little bored at home. But also for everyone with extra free time, as they have no idea how to spend it and sometimes would like to get a few tens of dollars as a nice extra income.
There are many companies on the Internet dealing with mystery shopping. One of these is Helion Market Research CVBA, which operates in more than a hundred countries. Their official Facebook page has over 25,000 people, so you have an exciting opportunity to prove your skills. A particular disadvantage (for non-English speaking candidates) is that the site is still in English only. But the future mystery shopper can easily cope with it, as he speaks at least one world language.
Emails, Internet questionnaires or contact with the seller face to face, that’s what is Helion Research about. The mystery shopper can earn twenty or thirty US dollars per hour as a part-time job. All you have to do is to register and follow the page where you can learn more about specific tasks. At the moment, there are some job opportunities for mystery shoppers in the administration, so check it out. And do not forget to fill in your profile to 100%. Only then will you be able to participate in various tasks.
Many Mystery shopping companies are operating in the UK and the USA. The article An Overview of Companies for which You Can Work as a Mystery Shopper contains a list of companies offering Mystery shopping jobs and other types of remote job opportunities.
Conclusion
Whether you are from Canada, USA, Great Britain or any other country. Mystery shopper can become anyone who wants to earn extra money by part-time job and has some free time. There are quite enough opportunities for this, just choose a suitable company. You can even register in more companies, at least you will get a better chance to succeed, or be sure that there is a job offer for you too. This way of earnings is not a scam!
Do you have any experience with mystery shopping? Have you worked as a mystery shopper for some company? If so, submit your experiences to the discussion. I appreciate every opinion, by which you can inspire or motivate the other visitors of my site.
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My name is George and I currently work from home as a freelancer for a PR agency selling advertising. I also freelance as an online marketer for an e-shop, and I am actively involved in creating this website. I am always looking for interesting opportunities on how to make money online. I share my findings with my readers on this website. I consider this to be my hobby. I hope, that you can find some legitimate work from home, or perhaps you might be able to earn a little extra money.
