Completing the site visits of mystery shopping assignments are without a doubt the most exciting aspect of our jobs as mystery shoppers. Each new job provides you with a unique experience, taking you into a new location, interacting with different people, and asking you to fulfill different requirements. Of course, since each new assignment that you work on is different, you will want to carefully review the assignment requirements before your site visit so that you know what is required of you. These requirements should be committed to memory, as you cannot take the assignment paperwork inside a site location with you.
Sometimes, though, you forget assignment requirements. You may realize your don’t have those requirements committed to memory as fully as you thought you did, and may be fuzzy about the requirements when you enter the site location. Or perhaps you thought the requirements said to check a display or visit a unique section of the site location that just isn’t there at all. So just what do you do when you have forgotten your assignment requirements?
Use Your Smartphone. If you have a smartphone that allows you to access email or the internet via your phone, you will want to head to a discreet area of the site location and check your phone. You can check your email for the instructions or head to the mystery shopping provider’s website to download the instructions again. This is the perfect way to double check your requirements on-site.
Pick Up the Phone and Call. Now you only want to call your provider if you absolutely have to. This measure can make you look bad to your provider, and may result in a drop in your shopper rating. However, you can also call someone back at your house and ask them to read the requirements to you, either from your home computer or from a printout that you have done. If you do have to call someone, be sure that you do this in an absolutely discreet location so that customers and the employees on-site cannot hear what you are saying.
Prevention Measures. When it comes to mystery shopping assignments, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You can prevent the stress and hassle associated with forgetting your assignment requirements in the first place by taking some extra measures. If you find that you often forget your requirements, you can jot down some notes in your smartphone or PDA, or you can even put some notes on a piece of paper to use as a sort of shopping list. These various formats can serve as a cheat sheet of sorts for you so that you don’t have to commit the requirements entirely to memory.
While site visits sure are one of the most fun and exciting aspects of mystery shopping, keeping track of all of the requirements sure can be stressful. Commit these tips to memory, and you can reduce some of that stress and really enjoy working on your assignments!
Sometimes I will print out the guidelines and take with me in the car. I will review them before I go into the store. The requirements are fresh in my memory and easier to remember if review a few minutes before you start the shop. This is especially good if you are doing 2-4+ shops in a day.
There are times that I am doing a series of shops that are the same but may have different items to look for or purchase. It helps keeps them straight by printing the guidelnes or jotting on a piece of paper what item is needed for each store. The guidelines are the same-just the item may be different.
It never helps to kill yourself, but when you are a remotely intelligent person, a very stupid mistake sticks in your craw for a very long time, like a splinter which one cannot remove. Attempting to ‘fit in’ in a very unusual locale could be very trying for some persons so my thoughts on that would be to go to the same but a different place to test the waters as it were. If one never eats at a Taco Bell, try one before you go to an assigned shop and try a taco so you know what to expect.
Thank you for the notes.