Mystery shoppers spend a lot of time and effort focusing on their mystery shopper ratings that providers issue. While not every provider has a rating system, many of them do. These ratings are a source of stress and anxiety for mystery shoppers, and any minor adjustment downward is enough to unsettle many people who work in this field and put their best effort out on each and every assignment.
So What Exactly Is a Shopper Rating?
A shopper rating is generally a system that ranks your performance as a mystery shopper, and in most cases the rating ranges from one to ten, with ten being the best rating that you can get. New mystery shoppers generally will start out as a five, and if they want to receive a higher rating, they do have to do some pretty exceptional work on a very regular basis with the provider in question.
What Does A Lower Rating Mean?
Many times, a mystery shopper will have a little bit of leniency with regards to minor errors on your reports, and you may be able to make a revision or two as requested without seeing a bump downward in your rating. Generally if this happens, though, you will not have the opportunity to get a bump upward in your rating. A lower rating typically will come about when there are more significant issues with an assignment such as if you turned the report in late or otherwise failed to follow the instructions fully, as an example.
Are Some Providers Stricter Than Others?
The mystery shopping rating system is somewhat arbitrary, and different providers do use it in their own unique way. You may do the same quality of work for one mystery shopping provider than you do for another, and with one you may have a rating of six while another may have you at an eight or nine. The fact is that your rating does affect which assignments you are eligible for, and so it is in your best interest to keep it as high as possible. If you feel that your rating is being unfairly dinged and that your paycheck is being affected, you may want to consider working for another provider who is more lenient in their use of the system.
Why Does Your Rating Matter?
Many mystery shopping providers that employ a rating system do provide mystery shoppers who have a higher rating with more work opportunities. In many cases, this means that the shopper will be given more assignments to work on, and it can also mean that those assignments are the better assignments in terms of ease to complete and higher compensation, too. As you can see, your mystery shopper rating does indeed matter quite a bit.
If you do not know what your rating is with the providers who you work for, you will want to hop online and take a look at what your score is. You should also pay attention to adjustments with your rating on a regular basis as this does have the ability to affect your paycheck as a mystery shopper.
Gotta love those companies that claim (on Sassie platform) that they don’t use “grades” or “ratings” yet you have a “1” or a “5” sitting on top with your profile. hhmmm….
I asked one why my “rating” was a 5 on the top of the shop log page when they don’t use ratings and they never grade reports. She said she would check into it and get back to me.
She came back to me to say that an employee was no longer with the company had done that. They had a lot of problems with this employee and shoppers. I guess a lot of he said, she said stuff.
She also said she would remove the “5” because I was definitely a better shopper than a “5”.
I also learned that they don’t post the grades – but they DO grade the reports internally and keep score internally.
I have an issue with one of the companies I work with. I know what I did to go down but there is nothing that is consistant about the way they go up. 5 shops no raise in grade, 7 shops no raise but then 2 shops it goes up. Very confusing to an lold man.
I have found that some companies penalized you if you have spelling and grammar errors. Others will let it go unless a lot of editing is involved. I had one company that penalized me because they had to get additional information from me. So you have to kind of watch what you are doing for each company because they all are different in their expectations of what they want on the reports.
I had one mystery shopping company that was so picky about how the reports were written. They would keep sending them back to me that I finally terminated doing any business with them. It was not worth my time and efforts. You could write an excellent report and they still not be satisfied.
I have one company that gives me a 9 (out of 10) no matter what I do. They always comment that I should use correct grammar, which I know I do. I like the company because they pay quickly and I always get the jobs I request. But I do think I deserve a 10 on my reports!
I often think the grading is unfair as I write the same no matter who I work for. Yet, some editors give me a 7 or 8 while another will grade me at a 10 with comments on what an exceptional job I do. It’s very puzzling to me. If I have problems on more than one shop, I simply do not accept work from that company anymore as it is truly not worth the time and effort.
Thank you, it’s very good information to know.
I started out working for several companies, then took a break. Now I am working with just one, for now. I find out
it all comes down to the proofreader. Out of 16 jobs, my average is 9.5. I will download a business card and then
they say they did not get it. So I have to do it again.
Don’t understand that. Did 3 car dealership test drives and had 3 different proofreaders. One called me and said “I need to know where you went on your drive?” Like she wanted to know the exact streets…no one else asked me this. The revisions drove me to not want to work with them anymore.
Am I being to picky?