Mystery Shopper cover blown!

Henry_Hoover_2

When I worked for a well known homeware shop, we were told by head office which DAY the mystery shopper was due! Totally defeats the object of having a mystery shopper!

Being told in advance meant that we were vigilant for the MSer, and so could very easily spot them.

vixxxen

I dont agree with the being told equals being vigilant scenario...I worked for Co-op once and there were rumours that a MSer was in store; we were more aware of what we were doing, but none of us spotted the Shopper. A good one is discreet.

lisa76

When I worked in a pub years ago we knew when the mystery shopper was coming in, it made good fun all day trying to guess who it was!!

davidjwest

I mystery shop for a few companies and when I was visiting my local fast food shop (not as a mystery shopper) they had a note for their staff to read that said "mystery shopper due" and included the date range and company doing the visit - the details were correct as I could see this job as being available on the company website.

So they do know quite a bit depending on what company it is.

jonno1001

I was in a catalogue shop and on the counter was an A4 piece of paper telling all staff what to look out for and what the MS would be ordering. Totally defeats the point, but hey, Msing makes me a few extra quid.

paulwf

Even if you don't spot the MSer at the time staff can usually work out who it was after the event as the day and rough time is usually given...and the reports usually reach the store within a day. MSers usually stand out from the regulars and CCTV makes it even easier. I expect the OP was detected after visiting the first store and they probably share managers around.

To be honest a lot of companies don't seem to use MSers to find out how their shops appear to customers, but rather to keep staff on their toes which is why they may give warnings. I used to work in one shop where we had a weekly mystery shop and we were bonused on the results, the company probably didn't care what was on the report it just meant we constantly had to be on best behaviour if we wanted our bonus that week.

WhiteHorse

vixxxen wrote: »

And there's no way a company would be able to find out who the shopper was in advance...that's the whole point of the job!

It's just a question of the size of the brown envelope, that's all. It's the sort of advance information that firms will pay for.

andrewnottingham

I was in hotel management for about nine years and mystery shoppers visited like clock work. We always knew roughly when they would call whether that was due to a lack of a visit for a while or being tipped off by another hotel in the chain.

There was one large international chain I worked for where we actually picked suspected mystery shoppers and briefed their details to the staff on a regular basis. I would say that out of every ten we probably knew who six of them were before they came in the door.

In one hotel I worked we even managed to work out who the AA inspector was before he checked in, hence the highest star rating in the city following his visit!

These things just happen and being rumbled is nothing to worry about and i doubt very much it was due to anything you did. Dependant on the industry there are numerous ways of working out who your mystery shoppers are and there always will be.

DeeDee66

Doesn't it entirely defeat the point knowing who they are? Surely this should be to check the staff are working as they should, not just giving good service to that particular one person that hour, and potentially being awful the rest of the year?

andrewnottingham

DeeDee66 wrote: »

Doesn't it entirely defeat the point knowing who they are? Surely this should be to check the staff are working as they should, not just giving good service to that particular one person that hour, and potentially being awful the rest of the year?

That's the way it should be but some of the companies are so foccussed on the scores achieved by the units that the mindset of better safe than sorry is taken.

As far as I am concerned if there is a fundamental problem with a particular units service then it will be raised as a concern by "real" customers and acted upon by that units management. The mystery customer is a great way of us all earning some extra cash but really just a snapshot of the service at a particular moment and could be hit or miss for any amount of reasons!