One of the biggest frustrations new mystery shoppers face in their new career is getting enough mystery shopping assignments to work on to generate the amount of income they are looking for. As a new mystery shopper, there are some steps you can take to maximize your chances of getting some assignments.
Ask For It! Many new mystery shoppers simply don’t know where to start. After you’ve signed up with a few mystery shopping providers, you may not know what the next step is. You receive plenty of emails for new assignments posted to the job boards, and you spend time looking at the many assignments available, but for some reason you simply are not being requested to complete assignments.
It may sound simple, but some mystery shoppers do not know that most assignments will need to be requested. For the large part, providers will not ask for you to complete an assignment. Rather, they will post an open assignment on the job board and will wait for an interested mystery shopper to request the assignment. So if you aren’t requesting assignments, you are missing out on possible job opportunities.
Be The Early Bird On The Job Boards. Once job assignments are posted on the job boards, they are often divvied out on a first come, first serve basis. Meaning the first qualified mystery shopper who requests the assignment gets the job. This is not always the case, but is more often true than not. So if you want to make the most money as you can as a mystery shopper, you need to check the job boards often and preferably at least several times a day. Many providers send their mystery shoppers emails showing new assignments on the job boards, so it’s a good idea to check your email several times a day as well. It is not uncommon for some assignments to be snatched up within minutes of the assignment being posted, so the more often you can check the job boards, the more likely you are to get the assignments you want.
Experience Matters (Sometimes). Most mystery shopping assignments have specific pre-requisites for the mystery shopper. This may be that you are within a certain age range, that you have a certain “shopper rating”, or any other number of other factors. The shopper rating of a new shopper is typically an average rating, allowing you with the opportunity to move up on the rating scale for a good job done on assignments, as well as down on the scale if you perform poorly. If an assignment requires a higher than average rating, you automatically will not be qualified to perform that job. So while there are a great number of assignments you will be able to complete without experience, some assignments do require that you have some prior positive experience as a mystery shopper.
As with many things in life, getting assignments as a new mystery shopper requires persistence. So stick with it and soon you will be completing as many mystery shopping assignments as you can, making the kind of mystery shopping cash you’ve been looking forward to!
This article was very helpful as all of them have been.Thank you
I started out on this mission in April and I love it. Your articles are really appreciated.
Hi!
appreciate your info. Just need more jobs to help with current income
Hi!’
Appreciate your info.Just need more jobs to help with current income.recently widowed. I love doing this and I think I pretty good at it.
Hello ! I have been mystery shopping for about 17 years, now. And still, the highest pay I have ever got was $10/shop. It seems by the time I drive 15 miles to town, do the shop, and then come home and get online to do the report, I’m not making any money. Where can I find shops that will pay me for my time ?
My highest paying job has been with a company which specializes in financial institutions – 3 years with them. Because they also pay 40 cents a mile for travel, I can do quite well with those shops. Getting $10 each for two reports at each location plus an appearance report for free. Usually, I do five locations each month, but cannot shop any one branch more often than one every 3 months.
Then there was the most recent shop. I was expecting the promised $25 for attending a seminar on health care for a senior parent. Being the only one there, I had to do some quick thinking when I was asked directly what the name of Dad’s doctor was. I claimed that so many of them had died, I couldn’t keep up and didn’t know his name. Since Mom had died, he needed prescription drug coverage now that hee ouldn’t get prescriptions through her insurance… Ended up being paid $34.00 for that seminar and 150 question form filled out online.
Almost forgot about the oil change shops. What a shame I only have two trucks and only need the oil changed every three months!! More than one company has offered to let me shop the oil change shops. Free oil changes plus $5 or $10 to fill out their questionnaire is not bad.
Fast food shops are more concerned about the number of minutes and seconds it takes to get the food than the correctness of the order or taste of the food.