Every mystery shopping has found themselves at one time or another in the midst of completing an assignment that they know is a dud. Perhaps you’ve figured out along the way that you are losing money on the assignment with a high cost on a required purchase item. Or perhaps your scheduler is hassling you about your responses on the report and you are fearing you may not receive payment for your time and efforts on the assignment. These and any number of other challenges can face you during a mystery shopping assignment that may make you pause for a moment with the understanding that this was perhaps an assignment you should not have taken on.
What Is A ‘Good’ Assignment? Determining this in the midst of completing an assignment is one thing. The trick, however, is how to determine which assignments are duds before you request the assignment in the first place. For many mystery shoppers, a ‘good’ assignment is one with a trusted provider, where the work is relatively easy and the pay is reasonable. This of course begs the question of how to determine which providers are good, which assignments are easy, and what reasonable pay is.
Keep A Spreadsheet. As you go along in your mystery shopping career and complete various assignments, keep a spreadsheet, journal, or whatever other format works for you on your experiences with each assignment. Rank your assignments based on how well each one compensated for you based on the time and effort involved. Rank your providers based on how easy they were to work with and how fast they paid. Over time, you will have a very valuable document filled with great information that you can analyze and easily determine which providers are good to work with, and which assignments are the top paying for time and effort involved.
Ask Your Co-Workers. The on-line mystery shopping forums are a valuable source of information. Mystery shoppers are more than happy to share their experiences with you via the on-line forums, and all you have to do is simply ask the questions! So if you aren’t sure about a provider or an assignment, simply post a question on-line and what for the many quick answers that you will receive.
Spend Your Time Wisely. Once you have a good grasp of which providers are the best to work with and which assignments pay you the most money for your time and efforts, you have the information you need to hit the job boards. Keeping this information in the back of your mind, scour the job boards and request the ‘good’ assignments over the bad ones.
From time to time, you may find the job boards a little slow and you may still need to work on a lower paying assignment or two. But you will find that you are better equipped to make assignment selection decisions when you have a clear way of determining which assignments are ‘good’ before you request the assignment. Ultimately, this will boil down to you making more money for your time and efforts, and being happier with your job as a mystery shopper!
I have recently cut a couple of providers from my rosters because the cost is just to high for the payment. However I have found others who pay very well for relatively easy jobs. You just have to keep looking.
The idea of a spreadsheet sounds like a good idea. It takes time to learn about various companies, and shops, and to acquire experience with each. I have determined that one scheduling company in particular is not worth the hassle. Besides wanting wordy, redundant information in their reports, I have perceived discrepancies, and different expectations from different parties within the company, with whom I have had communications. Another near impossibility, is to not repeat in the summary, the same things that are written in the separate sections of the report. Really, is not the whole, a sum of the parts? I always give careful thought before writing and am very thorough with my reports. I am always scouting for new prospects.