Time is Money: Are You an Efficient Mystery Shopper?

If you are like so many people, you no doubt can pinpoint a few of your more significant personality flaws. Perhaps you are a bit too shy, or you like to control the conversation a bit too much in social situations. Such flaws are rather easy to pinpoint, but it can be a bit more difficult to determine flaws you may have in a working environment. This is especially true when you are working as a mystery shopper, as you work on your own without anyone to offer constructive criticism to you and without you having the ability to observe others in action to compare yourself against. As a mystery shopper, however, being able to work in the most efficient and effective way possible can make a difference in the total income you can earn. This is, after all, a job that pays based on performance rather than with an hourly rate or a salary. By identifying some ways to be a more efficient mystery shopper, you may be able to better determine if these are areas you can and should work to improve on.

Time on the Job Boards. You likely have realized that you can waste a lot of time on the job boards, and this is time that you are not getting paid for. Of course, it is important to pick great assignments and to identify those that will provide you with the greatest compensation with the least amount of time and effort. Yet it is also worthwhile for you to limit your time on non-paying activities so you can get out in the field and actually work. Clearly there is a balance here. So first you should determine if you are wasting time on the job boards because your providers just aren’t offering enough good assignments. If this is the case, you will want to consider finding a few providers to work for who do have more and better opportunities to choose from. Then you want to consider if there is a better way for you to identify what good assignments are. Sometimes even something as having a calculator on hand to add up costs, and using Google Maps to track distances between your home and the site location can really help you to speed the process up.

Time On Site. Some mystery shoppers really love to get into their assignments and find enjoyment in playing the role of an undercover shopper. There is nothing wrong with enjoying what you do. Yet if you are trying to be more efficient, you may find that spending time walking down store aisles and browsing needlessly at merchandise does nothing more than waste time. Consider if there is a faster way to complete your assignments than what you are doing now. In some cases, you may find that you can cut your site visit time in half, if not more.

Time Writing Reports. Reporting writing can take up a considerable amount of time, and so you do want to spend some time reviewing your efforts with this task, too. Consider if your reports are being returned to you often for corrections. If so, you may need to take a few extra minutes before submitting them to review them for errors. This extra time up-front can save you time later dealing with revisions. Everyone can consider if taking notes or using memory strategies during the site visits can help them speed up the report writing process, too.

As you can see, there are many different aspects of mystery shopping that may be slowing you down. If you are like most mystery shoppers, you may be able to shave off more than a few minutes with each assignment you do by paying attention to these things and making a few changes. With this free time, you may be able to add an extra assignment or two each day to your workload to earn some extra money!