Many mystery shoppers spend a great deal of time and effort ensuring the site visit for each mystery shopping assignment goes smoothly. However, equally as important as the site visit is the report you submit to the provider. Your site visit may have been completely flawless or you have may have encountered many issues the retailer needs to be aware of. If you can’t relay your observations of the site visit in a clear, concise way in your report, your efforts will not be for naught. There are a few key things you can do before you click the “Submit” button on your report to ensure your report is the best it can be.
Spell and Grammar Check. Some providers offer a spell check on their website that will catch typos for you before you submit your report. If you are working with a provider that doesn’t offer this feature on their website, you can also copy your answers in a program such as Word that has a spell and grammar check feature. Simply make the changes, and then paste your revised answers into the report.
If you don’t have access to a spell check or grammar check feature, ask a friend or family member to proof your work for you. Or simply read through your report with fresh eyes at a slow pace to catch your own mistakes. Keep in mind that your “shopper rating” may be dinged if you have too many grammar or spelling errors in your report.
Check Your Content. Each question on the report is looking for very specific information. Do a thorough review of each question as well as each answer to ensure the answers you provided answer the question that was asked. As you work your way through each question and answer, make sure that your answer for one question does not contradict the information you provided in another answer. All of your answers taken together should give a full and accurate picture of the experience you had as a “shopper” in the store.
Check The Date and Time. Hopefully you double checked the date and time your site visit was to take place before you did the site visit. If you did this or not, it certainly won’t hurt to give this information another glance before you submit the report. If you find that you accidentally did the site visit a day or two too early, it’s not too late to re-do the shop until you hit the “Submit” button on your report. If you find that the date and time of the site visit have already passed, contact your scheduler immediately. The scheduler may be OK accepting your report anyway.
Take some time to give your report a thorough review in these areas before you submit your report to the provider. Spending a few moments doing so can save you a great deal of time and possibly even money in the long run as a mystery shopper!
One resource to verify accuracy is iespell.com, which can be uploaded free for spelling and upgraded for grammar check for a modest cost. It can be accessed under ‘tools’ and can be used and applied to any web page that you’re on.
A thorough understanding of the questions and required format for the answers is indispensable to enter a report that will be accepted.
On one occasion a shop was done and it was only when doing the report that it was discovered that a receipt was missing. This is a rare occurrence but it can happen. The scheduler was advised that shop would be redone, to get a receipt for reimbursement. I was out the first purchase, but that was my mistake. At least I was paid for the shop. The lesson learned is check, check, check the details.
Moreover if an issue does arise, prompt communication with the scheduler can promptly lay to rest any question. This makes the scheduler’s life easier. The whole idea is getting the report accepted. Right?