For most mystery shoppers, the fun part of their job is getting out of the house and doing mystery shopping site visits. Site visits may take you to clothing stores to try on some of the hottest fashions, restaurants to enjoy tasty treats, movies to watch a blockbuster and more. After the fun of the site visits is over, however, there is still work to do. With each mystery shopping assignment that you do, you must file a report. Typically, a report is completed and submitted online, but you may also need to fax or scan and email documents like receipts to your provider to. While few mystery shoppers fully enjoy writing reports, it may have crossed your mind that your reports are taking you far longer than necessary.
Take Notes
One of the best steps that you can take to decrease the amount of time that it takes for you to complete a report is to jot down notes about your assignments. A considerable amount of time is lost if you regularly spend time staring at the computer screen trying to recall specific details about your site visit. Wouldn’t things go faster if you had a few notes to refer back to? You can jot down notes on a faux shopping list or in your cell phone during the site visit, or you can take notes in your car immediately after the site visit.
Avoid Required Purchase Assignments
Depending on the type of equipment that you are using at home for scanning receipts or faxing receipts, it may take you almost as long to send your proof of purchase to the provider as it does to type up the report. You can consider upgrading your equipment so that it operates more quickly or so that you can use it more easily. However, another option to consider is to avoid assignments that require a proof of purchase to begin with. There is benefit associated with certain purchases. For example, getting money back on your grocery or gas purchases is always nice. However, you should always consider if the added time it will take you to submit the receipt is worth the hassle. By choosing assignments that don’t have a proof of purchase requirement, you can complete your reports more quickly.
Pay Attention
You may have noticed that some reports are simply and easy to complete, and others seem to take forever for you to do. Wouldn’t it be nice if all of your reports took ten minutes to complete rather than thirty or forty minutes? While you may have realized that some reports are easier to do than others, you may not have made the correlation between which providers or which types of assignments have easier assignments to complete. One way to figure this out is to write down how long each of your assignment reports takes to complete, which provider that report is for and what type of assignment it is. Over the course of a few days or weeks, you may start to see a trend. Then, you can use this information to make smarter decisions about which assignments you select from the job boards.
If you feel like your reports are taking too much time, there is a good chance that you can reduce the amount of time it takes to complete your reports. Follow these tips and see how much faster you can complete your reports!