Job's Attraction is No Mystery

Last weekend, I was eating lunch with my friend Barry - just grabbing some burgers at a drive-through joint - and he asked for a separate receipt for his No. 2 combo meal.

A receipt for $5 meal on a Saturday? OK, what's up?


Well, my friend Barry has been keeping a secret from me.

Since January, Barry (not even close to his real name) has been a "mystery shopper," specializing in, no mystery here, restaurants. Barry is a good eater.

He dines and dashes … off a note with his opinion of the restaurant to the mystery shopper company, which in turn forwards it to restaurant executives.

And Barry makes out like a bandit. A well-fed, well-paid bandit.

"I hooked up with the company when I noticed a toll-free number on the bottom of a receipt I got from a restaurant. I called them, and they offered me a tryout to be a mystery shopper. They asked how many miles from my house I was willing to travel. I put down 50 miles - the most on the application - because I live way out in Fort Bend County and I wanted to hit restaurants in Houston. I visited a few restaurants for them, and they hired me," said Barry, who is an accountant when he's not eating for free and reporting just the facts, ma'am.

Here's how the mystery shopper deal works.

Each week, the mystery shopper company posts the names of restaurants and other businesses (its clients) who want to hear how they're doing. It's called the Mystery Shopper Job Board. The restaurants will ask specific questions about service, cleanliness, parking, personal safety - pretty much the entire customer experience.

Except one thing. Mystery shoppers are not food critics. They are not asked if they enjoyed the food. Alison Cook need not apply.

His first job was Five Guys, one of his favorite burger places. Nice work if you can get it.

"I ordered the regular burger, fries and a fountain drink. I watched for how long it took to prepare my meal, how clean the restaurant was, the service, how friendly, how efficient. I gave it straight As," Barry said.

Each restaurant also lists how much they're willing to reimburse the mystery shopper and how much the mystery shopper will earn on top of that.

Two weeks ago, Barry and Mrs. Barry went to Churrascos. They were allowed to spend up to $150 between them, and Barry picked up $25 for his time and work.

I know what you're thinking … how do I get that job?

Next time, look at the bottom your restaurant receipt. You may see a toll-free number.

Barry said he averages about 50 restaurant visits a month.

"It's not a career, you won't get rich doing this, but it's really good walking-around money. And I get to eat in some really good restaurants," he said.

And some, well, not really good restaurants.

"There's one fast-food chain that drives me a little crazy. One thing they demand is, I have to order the dish the way it normally comes. I can't tell them to hold the pickles, or substitute ketchup for mayonnaise. This one fast-food chain puts onions on their burgers. I hate onions, so I have to open up the burger and take off the onions," Barry said.

Poor baby.

Upscale restaurants usually will cover dinner for two. Fast-food restaurants, you're on your own.

The most he makes (above the food bill) is $25. The smallest pay check is $2, typically from a fast-food chain.

Some days, he eats three meals as a mystery shopper.

"I'll look at what restaurants are offered and plot them geographically, so I don't have to go out of my way. I don't like having to double back or drive too far in the wrong direction," he said.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a lazy mystery shopper. Go the extra mile? He won't go the extra block if he can avoid it.

Barry likes to think of himself as a versatile mystery shopper. Next week, he's visiting a boutique that sells adult videos, toys for the boudoir and sexy lingerie. He is supposed to say he's buying a nightie for his wife.

He's getting paid for this?

His most difficult assignment was a supermarket that sold health-food products.

"They gave me a list of about 100 things, and I had to find them in the store and see if they were displayed properly. I'd never heard of 75 of the products," he said.

Let me guess, they were vegetables. Barry is a burger guy. The only vegetables he eats are french fries and onion rings.

Next week, he's also grading a convenience-store gas station.

"I'll be checking to see if the store is clean, if everything has a price on it, if the prepared foods are displayed right. I'll see if the attendant is wearing his uniform. Outside, I'll check to see if there's water and a squeegee for customers to clean their windshield, and if the curb is painted the right color."

George Carlin joke: You know why gas station bathrooms are always locked? They're afraid that someone may break in and clean them.

Once, it almost broke his heart to give a restaurant, specifically one waitress, a poor grade.

"The funny thing is, most Hooters get perfect scores from me. They deliver the customer experience exactly as promised. But this time, my Hooters Girl wasn't wearing her uniform properly and she didn't tell me the specials. She said her name was Jazz, but her name tag said Bambi. She just didn't fit the bill of what a Hooters Girl is supposed to be. But she was the exception, by far," Barry said.

Barry should be a mystery shopper in a New York City taxi cab. The photo on the hack license on the dashboard may not match the guy driving 60 miles per hour down 8th Avenue like the "Dukes of Hazzard." And where I get my hair cut, yeah, sometimes the person matches the license on the mirror.

He's checked out other cities to see what places they have available for mystery shoppers.

"One mystery shopper company has a massage studio listed. I'd be all over that," Barry said.

The rub is, the company is in Phoenix. 

Source: Houston Chronicle 

If you're considering implementing a mystery shopper program for your company, or would like to join us as a mystery shopper, we'd love to have you join us!
Learn more here by clicking HERE!  

How I Made $14,000 A Year Mystery Shopping

​Like everyone else, I have an inbox full of spam. I ignore most of it. But, one day in 2007, I decided to open an email that read: “Sign up to become a Mystery Shopper!” And, for some reason, I clicked the link.

I’d heard the pitches: “Get paid to shop!” and “Get free stuff!” But I didn’t know what was required to be a mystery shopper. So I took a chance, figuring, “What do I have to lose?”

It was more like what I had to gain—not only little perks, like free jeans, but also enough money to buy a car in cash.

How Mystery Shopping Works
When I first signed up to shop, I was 30 years old and had just started a new job as an intellectual property assistant (a specialized form of legal secretary) at a law firm. On top of my regular expenses, I owed about $45,000 from two years of law school, but I was earning just enough to afford my overpriced studio apartment on the outskirts of Boston. And that was about it.

When I got that email about mystery shopping, I was cautiously optimistic. Although I signed up to be notified about opportunities, I elected not to pay the fee (about $5 per month), which meant that I could only see the first few lines of a job posting. But that didn’t stop me: I quickly realized that, most of the time, the listings offered just enough information that I could Google the info to figure out the company name, go to their website and apply directly through them. I’d discovered a loophole!

Mystery shopping is pretty simple: Companies hire people like me to visit their stores, pretend to be an average customer and report back on the service and overall experience. For each shop that you visit, companies pay an allotted amount of money (usually $5 to $20), and since they often want you to make a purchase to get the total customer experience, they also offer to reimburse for a certain portion of the item. It sounded doable, so I signed up with 20 companies to start.

Let the Shopping (and Earning) Begin!

My first “shop” was for an electronics store. (I can’t say which one because discretion is a big part of the mystery shopping code!) The company provided a scenario: I would interact with sales associates in two different departments, ask about a plasma TV or a GPS—and see if they engaged in conversation, were helpful or only answered questions in a cursory way.

It seemed weird to pretend—in fact, it’s still a little weird sometimes. You have to get an employee name, so if the customer service person isn’t wearing a badge, you need to ask, which can be awkward. Afterward, you file reports online, which are structured as multiple choice or two-sentence fill-in-the-blank answers.

At my peak, I’d dedicate four to six hours on a Saturday going to different locations of the same coffee shop, and then spend another two hours working on the reports because you must file within 24 hours. Yes, mystery shopping is a time commitment.

And, just like that, I was hooked: I began doing jobs during my lunch hour. I could even do them on my way home from work, since I’d be walking past retail locations anyway. Slowly but surely, the money began to roll in …

The Glory Days

After taxes, health insurance and other deductions, my daily take-home pay at that time was around $100. Most shops paid me $7 to $15, so a $7 shop fee (plus the reimbursement for the meal) equaled about 10% of what I was making at my “real” job. That extra 10% a day was a big deal for me, even if all it afforded me was the chance to buy lunch a few times a week.

Once in a while, I’d have a big score. When you shop for more expensive items, like electronics, the company requires you to make the purchase and then ship the product back to them. But, during the flush days of early 2008, a sportswear company asked me to buy a $250 watch for reimbursement—and I got to keep it. (Actually, I returned it to the store, making twice the amount back.)

It was amazing how quickly that money grew: Thanks to my mystery shopping, I was able to set up automatic withdrawals each month from my checking account to an emergency fund and an account for house savings. At the height of my shopping, I was probably registered with 75 companies. I was shopping six days a week, sometimes even on Sundays—for brunch, of course!

But it was worth it: I made about $14,000 that year as a mystery shopper, and that’s not including reimbursements—just pure earnings. (For the record, I was issued a 1099 by any company that paid me more than $599 and taxed on those earnings.)

In September of 2008, I paid for a 2009 Honda Fit—in cash! There’s no way that I would have been able to do that otherwise. I love that car to this day.

Why I Scaled Back My Mystery Shopping

When the recession hit, a lot of companies that prevously relied on mystery shoppers for customer feedback switched to different methods—like customer surveys in exchange for small giveaways—so there are fewer opportunities now.

I also changed law firms, and I make roughly $20,000 more annually, so I don’t need to spend as much free time mystery shopping. But even though companies aren’t as liberal with their perks due to post-recession budget tightening, they’re paying similar rates—and I can still earn decent extra cash.

In an average month these days, I probably do 10 to 15 shops. Although it’s all about convenience now—if I know that I’m going to be headed to a certain restaurant or store, I’ll squeeze in a shop. I can’t see a reason to stop!

Source: Forbes 

If you're considering implementing a mystery shopper program for your company, or would like to join us as a mystery shopper, we'd love to have you join us! 

Learn more here by clicking HERE!