Techniques to Help You in Mystery Shopping

How do I act during a shop?

1 When you go on a shop just act like an ordinary customer, and make mental or written notes (if possible).

2 Be an ordinary customer and allow the employee to perform under regular circumstances (unless instructed otherwise). Do not take the initiative to be overly pleasant or demanding. In most cases you will be collecting information that reflects normal circumstances

3 Do not take the initiative to omit something negative about an employee or establishment because the employee is nice. Remember, you are thereto be unbaised, and to collect data which will answer the questionnaire.

4 Do not concentrate so hard about the elements on the questionnaire that you miss out on other shopping occurrences. Just pay attention to what is happening around you and to what employees are saying to you. When you answer the questionnaire your memory will recall the events, and what was said without to much difficulty.

Tips for remembering information during a shop

Often you will need to collect information on service times, prices, specials, product names, and specific terminology used by employees. If this is the case, you may need to take extra steps in order to remember vital information.

1 If your assignment is to shop a restaurant, try to get a booth so you can sit next to a wall. Keep a pen and small piece of paper under your leg or next to the wall where it cannot be seen. When your server is out of sight, you can secretly take notes undetected.

2 An effective method in a retail store, is to excuse yourself to get a drink of water or to use the restroom, but of course what you’ll really be doing is taking down notes.

3 An effective technique is to take out your checkbook and a calculator. You can pretend you are balancing your checkbook as your taking down notes.

4 Take a cell phone with you. You can take down notes while holding your cell phone to your ear. Pretend you are talking with someone or checking your voice mail

5 Whenever you have more than one person on a shop, let each person remember different bits of information. One person may remember names while the other remembers service times.

What if an employee is not wearing a name tag and does not offer their name?

Not getting an employees name will ruin practically any shop. You must find a way to get the employee names.

1 If at the end of your shop you still don’t have a name, come right out and ask the employee what their name is.

2 One way is to be a name giver. Say "How are you? My name is Carol.. what’s yours?"

3 You can pretend they gave their name previously and say something like this…”Excuse me what was your name again?

4 You can always ask another employee. You could say "he told me what his name was... I forgot and I’m embarrassed to ask him again. Could you tell me his name?."

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