Full Time MS / Telephone Surveys?

lizzyanthus

I will soon be finishing my job covering maternity leave and was thinking of doing mystery shopping/telephone surveys. I want to make a full time living out of it (about £250 per week). Can anyone tell me if this is feasible and what are the best MS companies.

red_devil

lol 250 a week dont we all.

PrincessTaylor

I really don't think that you could make that amount of money from MS in a week. You would have to live in an area where there are a lot of jobs and be lightening fast when allocating work. The pay for MSing is dropping all the time as more people are taking on MSing. Companies are only really bothered about cutting costs and making money and by dropping job fees they know that someone out there will take it. MSers that have been doing it for years are feeling constantly undervalued as they put a lot of input into their job but yet aren't getting paid enough to break even on their tax returns at the end of the year.
Sorry if i have put a dampener on your plans but its harsh reality i'm afraid

PrincessTaylor

Forgot to add, it may be possible to take in £250 a week but by the time you take off petrol, any purchases you made have made, any other expenses etc you are left with nought.
A lot of people nowadays join MSing companies just for the perks (ie a free burger)
I used to do jobs where my family would get a free meal and i would get paid a fee and expenses on top but those days are gone.

cabdy

I'm doing about the maximum MS work that I can manage, and that's using about 6-8 different agencies, and they all need constant monitoring to look for new assignments. I would say I spend nearly as much time on looking for the jobs, and doing paperwork as I do on the actual visits.
Once you get registered and organised, try to fit in as many jobs as you can in one day (obviously minimises travel expenses and raises your hourly "rate".) Fees range from £4 - £30 in my experience, possibly plus goods/meals. On a "good" day - exhausting actually - I might do 8-10 jobs, and that's in a large city. It's really hard to work out what you are actually earning.

jobbingmusician

cabdy wrote: »

. On a "good" day - exhausting actually - I might do 8-10 jobs, and that's in a large city. It's really hard to work out what you are actually earning.

Not that hard.... I totally agree with this assessment. And I don't think you could rely on this many jobs a day (I don't think there is that much work out there, for a start. And companies don't want to keep on using the same people, as their clients don't like it.

If you do 10 jobs a day, you will earn £50-£80. I was going to say 'on average', but this ISN'T an average, it's top rates pay for a trusted and experienced shopper. I don' think anyone could do 10 jobs a day, 5 days a week. And as cabdy says, you will normally have to take travel out of this, and certainly have to spend as long as you spend shopping researching, and then writing up, the jobs.

DevilsAdvocate1

Sorry to put a dampner on, but I don't think you will be able to make this amount from mystery shopping. Plus, mystery shopping as a main job takes a long time to build up. I've been mystery shopping for 3 years and have built a good reputation by doing thorough reports and making sure I'm 100% reliable. Even so, I don't earn anywhere like the amount you are looking for. My target is £600 a month and I usually meet this (I'm slightly down on it this month though). I have only ever earnt £1000 in a month once in 3 years.

When I first started mystery shopping I would often only earn £20 a month. Like I say, it has taken a long time to build up as companies already have a database of shoppers with a proven track record. It took over 2 years before I earnt more than £400 in a month.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

D.