Every mystery shopper has a different idea of what their “perfect” mystery shopping assignment would be. For some mystery shoppers, trying on clothes or test driving cars is a great thing to do while making some extra dough. For others, earning money while eating out or going to the movies is the perfect job. Some mystery shoppers may even set their sights a little higher, opting for the highly coveted travel assignments that give you a free night’s stay in a hotel or even a room on an cruise ship.
Some of these assignments are pretty difficult to get your hands on, but others are more realistic in terms of your day to day work assignments. If you are looking for a way to get your hands on a few more of the day to day assignments you like doing, read further!
Mystery Shopping Forums. Unlike other jobs, with mystery shopping you can’t simply walk into your manager’s office and demand that you get better assignments. For starters, not all mystery shopping providers offer the same types of assignments. If you want to increase your likelihood of landing those assignments that you enjoy doing, take a few minutes to check out the online mystery shopping forums. Read through the posts other mystery shoppers have left to get some hints about which providers you should be working with. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, take a moment to post your own questions. The agreement each mystery shopper agrees to when they sign up to work for a provider forbids them from revealing specific company names that provider works with, but many mystery shoppers are happy to enter into a gray area and provide you with some helpful hints.
Check The Boards Often. You can’t expect to find the good assignments if you don’t look for them! If you only check the job boards once a week, chances are you are missing out on some of the assignments you are coveting. Many of the best assignments are snagged up by eager mystery shoppers within hours (and sometimes within minutes) of being posted. If you want the best odds of getting the top assignments you want, be sure to be the first one looking at the job boards! Plan to check the job boards at least once a day, and more often if necessary.
Expect A Waiting Period. You’ve found a great assignment you really love, and you can’t wait to do it again. But most mystery shopping providers require that you wait a certain amount of time before you shop the same location again. Often this period of time is three to six months. The logic behind this is to keep the employees from putting two and two together and figuring out that you are the mystery shopper that has been visiting their store. So in the mean time, make plans to try out a wide variety of assignments to find assignments to fully fill your schedule.
While very few mystery shoppers make all the money they want or need by only working the mystery shopping assignments they want, you can certainly give it your best effort to fill your schedule with assignments that are tops on your list!
I have a question…I am registered with about 50 companies. It takes such a long time to check all their job boards every day, even though I have them saved as “favorites” and can quickly click and get into the boards. Is there another strategy I am missing?
I find the best shops are the end of the month shops. This is a job, so I don’t expect to only get glamorous or exciting shops.
Samantha, I use roboform, which saves all of my passwords so that I don’t have to type them into each one. That saves some time. I also don’t check them all every day. Some I check daily, if they routinely have jobs in my area. Some I check weekly, and others monthly. I’ve signed up with nearly 200, so checking them all every day where most don’t ever have jobs in my area would be a colossal waste of time.
These are great tips!!! Thanks
You might also want to try registering with jobslinger.com. They have a free 30 day trial that allows you to search all of your sassie companies at one time. It also helps you to sign up for companies faster. They even have an option called jobdinger that will make your computer “ding” to notify when jobs you are interested in are available. This helped me tremedously increase my income to an average of $400.00 a month.
P.S. Jobslinger is free to join but you want to upgrade to jobslinger plus.
Thanks for the information. Very useful…
Roboform is indispensable for keeping track of MS companies. It enables you to click on quite a number of sites within just a few minutes. True, end of the month is a good time to earn bonuses. The key is make it known that you are available. Once you prove yourself with one company it seems that word gets around and others will call on you before too long. Efficient personal scheduling is indispensable. Mystery shopping can provide a flexible way to earn money, but another valuable perk is just that, the flexibility, the life style. For me there is more than one pay off.
Maven,
Thank You for allthe great lessons for us on your website