Top Fish & Chip Shop in Ireland via Mystery Shopping

A Co Tyrone takeaway has been named the top fish and chip shop in Northern Ireland - again.

This is the second year in a row that The Dolphin takeaway in Dungannon has claimed the Northern Ireland crown and been shortlisted as a UK Top 10 fish & chip shop. 

It will now bid to be crowned Independent Takeaway Fish and Chip Shop of the Year at the 2017 National Fish & Chip Awards ceremony in January, organised by Seafish. 

To get to this stage, the Dolphin has had to be at the top of their game, facing appraisal by industry experts and mystery shopping assessments to ascertain customer service levels and the quality of fish and chips.

Malachy Mallon, owner of The Dolphin, said: "We are so proud to retain the Northern Ireland title for the second year in a row and to be shortlisted once again in the UK Top 10. To be here again feels just as amazing! 

"We've been running for over 27 years, striving to offer the best quality fish and chips, but it's our attention to detail and the care we take with our product and customer service that we believe really sets us apart from the rest. 

"We're absolutely thrilled to be acknowledged for our hard work; we have been assessed to within an inch of our life to reach this stage of the game, only the crème de la crème make it through." 

Source: Belfast Telegraph

Go Undercover: Improve Your Brand Experience with Mystery Shopping

Providing your customers with a consistently great experience across all channels helps them form a positive connection with your brand. When customers expect a great experience, however, their expectations have to be met or you risk disappointing them.

As this article from Entrepreneur highlights, a great brand experience means that customers are satisfied with each channel of your brand, including your website, branding, atmosphere, and employee interaction, but a single bad experience with one channel can ruin the customer’s perception of your entire brand.

Controlling your customer experience is easier on some channels than others. Because your website, mobile app, and marketing are entirely under your control and offer lots of data and feedback opportunities, you can ensure that your customers have great interactions on those channels. However, it can be difficult to ensure the same consistency in stores.

In your stores, atmosphere, communication, competing priorities, and employee engagement can all be barriers to a positive perception of your brand.

Fortunately, there is a way that you can ensure you are creating a consistent experience in stores, too: mystery shopping.

Improving Brand Experience with Mystery Shopping

Your stores may look great, and your employees may be highly engaged when you and your managers are watching, but how can you be sure your employees are creating a great customer experience when they aren’t being monitored?

A well-designed customer experience program that includes mystery shopping give you feedback on your total brand experience, as your customers experience it. Mystery shoppers compare your stores’ appearance and merchandising to your expectations and, most importantly, monitor how your employees interact with customers. Because mystery shoppers look just like regular customers, you gain invaluable insight into actual employee behaviors and customer interactions.

They are able to review all aspects of the physical shopping experience and target specific concerns, including cleanliness, use of brand strategies, and employee engagement. Because they experience your brand as a customer, mystery shoppers collect data you can use to adjust your strategy and correct employee behaviors.

The data collected by mystery shoppers can help you identify trends in brand experience and pinpoint where your strategies can be improved. It also allows you to ensure that your customers are greeted with a consistent experience regardless of time or location. This is especially important for chain retailers who may have difficulties with consistency across different regions and sales volumes.

Mystery shopping programs provide you with rapid feedback, and store managers receive extremely timely results along with tools they can use to improve store performance quickly. One of the biggest benefits of mystery shopping is that managers can use this feedback immediately to encourage employee engagement by recognizing outstanding performance in front of the whole team, as well as correct subpar behaviors with training. This ensures that unsatisfactory behaviors stop immediately without damaging further customer interactions.

As Forbes points out in this great article, a great brand experience is about creating a culture change, rather than a change in “culture talk.” Mystery shoppers help you ensure that culture change is real and visible at all stages of the shopping experience and give you confidence that your customers have a great, consistent experience with your brand at all times.

SOURCE: Business 2 Community 
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Tesla Hilariously Finishes Dead Last in #MysteryShoppers Study

If there’s a list Tesla is probably OK with not being at the top of, it’s ‘Best Car Salesmen’. The company boasts about its distribution and servicing model being unlike any other in the industry and the latest mystery shoppers study by Pied Piper, a real consultant and market research firm (not based on the HBO series Silicon Valley), kind of proved that it is the case by placing Tesla dead last.

The study sends “mystery shoppers” to dealerships across the US in several different locations per brand to measure “how well dealerships follow sales processes, such as asking qualifying questions and ultimately asking for the sale”, according to Ward Auto.

Apparently, Tesla doesn’t follow standard sales processes in the industry because Pied Piper placed the company last with 86 points, 10 points behind the second “worst”, Volvo with 96, and 28 points behind the highest ranked, Infiniti with 114 points.

Here’s the full ranking via Pied Piper:

 Pied Piper CEO Fran O’Hagan said that while staffers at some Tesla stores were found to act more like car salesmen, and to be fair a lot of Tesla store employees were previously employed at other dealerships, he says that at most Tesla stores, employees tended to act like “museum curators” because they were knowledgeable about the product, but they never asked for the sale, which is actually probably more in line with Elon Musk’s vision for Tesla’s retail experience.

In a 2012 blog post, Tesla’s CEO explained the company’s approach to distributing and servicing cars. He described the goal of Product Specialists, Tesla’s equivalent of salespeople:

“They are not on commission and they will never pressure you to buy a car. Their goal and the sole metric of their success is to have you enjoy the experience of visiting so much that you look forward to returning again.”

While Tesla scored the lowest in almost every single category in Pied Piper’s research, like giving out printed materials for shoppers to take with them, the automaker received the highest rating for discussing features unique from competition.

Tesla doesn’t use a franchise dealership models like most automakers in the US and instead owns all of its stores. It is still struggling to instate its distribution model in several states where the auto dealer associations are pushing back and trying to force Tesla to use their model through legislation preventing automakers to own auto dealerships.

The main issue with Tesla using the franchise model is that dealerships make most of their profit on servicing the vehicles they sell, while Tesla aims not to make a profit on service. Musk is on record saying that he thinks it’s “terrible” to make a profit on service.

SOURCE: Elektrek 
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Five Ways Ace Hardware Proves David Can Beat Goliath

MYSTERY SHOPPING IS REASON #1!

"So, what are the secrets that enable Ace to win in an incredibly competitive marketplace?"

1. They mystery shop their stores. Many companies use mystery shoppers in their stores, but what makes Ace Hardware different is that the stores are independently owned, yet they agree to be mystery shopped by the corporate cooperative that supplies their merchandise. The headquarters provides customer service training and mystery shopping services that the dealers know will take them to a higher level of customer experience. Ace corporate has created stringent standards their retailers must meet to earn the designation of “Certified Ace Helpful.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON FORBES HERE 
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How Smartphones Help Retailers Do Mystery Shopping Better

Little doubt exists about the importance of mystery shopping to omnichannel retailers in ensuring a positive and consistent, 360-degree shopper experience.

Mystery shopping is a secret weapon of sorts, allowing retailers to recruit shoppers to visit specific stores to make and record observations about everything from customer service to display compliance. In the old days, this was done with a pencil and a clipboard, but just as smartphones with geo-location replaced paperback road atlases, mobile technology is bringing a new normal to the industry.

When it comes to smartphones in retail, the app is front and center. Retailers today use apps to communicate with in-store beacons and map store traffic patterns, to capture consumer data using rewards programs, and even to drive sales with geo-located, push notification coupons.

Mystery shopping is the next on the list for smartphone evolution. While traditional mystery shopping has its benefits, the crowd of smartphone users is infusing mystery shopping with a new degree of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Based on retail customer feedback, here’s a breakdown of each method’s unique benefits: 

Traditional Mystery Shopping

As a prevailing and well-understood methodology, traditional mystery shopping has serious street cred. It’s tried and tested, well-established and low risk in situations where the research process from problem to hypothesis to survey development and solution is well-defined.

Traditional mystery shopping has the advantage where familiarity, domain expertise and special skills are required. A large office supply retailer we work with uses this method for in-depth analysis of customer service, including store associates’ ability to diagnose and fix issues with products. Quick service restaurants (QSR) and niche retailers who require special skills to assess the quality and temperature of food or products also greatly benefit from old-school mystery shopping. However, for issues of scale and speed that don’t require particular expertise, retailers should turn to the smartphone.
Mystery Shopping Gone Mobile

The mobile flavor of mystery shopping relies on a crowd of smartphone users—and rather than tens of thousands of hired and trained mystery shoppers, the crowd is millions of users strong. Mobile-enabled shoppers can collect in-store data quickly and economically across a large geographic footprint, identifying local, regional or national trends to ensure consistency chain-wide. Mobile surveys can also be modified as hypotheses change.

Real-time, actionable feedback and alerts is one of the many advantages of mystery shopping gone mobile, allowing retailers across industries to identify and remedy issues related to inconsistent or competitor pricing, customer service indicators like store cleanliness, manager presence and associate knowledge, speed to checkout, promotional effectiveness and compliance and more. If something appears out of place, shopper feedback can alert the appropriate manager in real-time, who can take immediate, remediating action based on relevant KPIs. We’ve seen this with one of our major consumer electronics clients, who is using the crowd to determine when and where their marquee product is out-of-stock or missing a display.

A Successful Smartphone Strategy

Paired with current app-based and IoT initiatives, mobile mystery shopping helps create a 360-degree view of the “human condition” within stores. The crowdsourcing methodology is fundamental to this equation and has impacted our lives in many ways. Crowdsourcing is helping companies like Waze revolutionize navigation by allowing drivers to map and share real-time alerts about their commute. MyShake is crowdsourcing earthquake detection. Even the Smithsonian Institute has signed on, crowdsourcing history through its online Transcription Center. Though not (yet) as ubiquitous or buzzworthy, mobile mystery shopping is rapidly gaining traction in retail, providing retailers with insights that are critical in their quest to create a consistent, omnichannel experience.

It’s time to bring this smartphone-enabled technology in-store, to do mystery shopping better than ever before.

SOURCE: Multi Channel Merchant 
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Ely Railway Station Achieves 100% in Mystery Shopping Exercise

Ely railway station achieved top marks in a recent mystery shopping exercise.

Abellio Greater Anglia's rail stations were assessed between January 10 and February 6 as part of a regular mystery shopping exercise to check that stations are meeting the standards that customers expect of them.

Ely achieved a score of 100 per cent for good information provision to customers.

The criteria for scoring points for good information provision includes: visible signage and directions, a clear public address system and regular announcements and the provision of customer information screens which provide timely and accurate information.

It also takes into account relevant timetables and posters on display, local bus and taxi information available, as well as clearly displayed opening times, no smoking signs and maps.

Abellio Greater Anglia's customer service director, Andrew Goodrum, said: "I am delighted to see that Ely has achieved the top score for the information provided to customers.

"Our teams are working hard to provide excellent customer service at all times and good information provision at stations is a key element of this."

SOURCE: ELY NEWS 
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Onsite Mystery Shops -- Video

Feedback Solutions Help Improve Member Service

Some credit union executives found point-of-service feedback solutions have helped them make daily improvements in delivering in-branch member services – and given them a competitive edge to keep and attract members.

Many cooperative leaders typically rely on monthly, quarterly or annual surveys and mystery shoppers to find out what members think about their services and what could be better. While those tools are useful, they give cooperatives feedback information only from the time the survey and mystery shopping took place.

That's why some large and small credit unions are using point-of-service feedback solutions that record member satisfaction or dissatisfaction anonymously every minute of every business day, giving credit unions a daily report of their service performance and the ability to resolve issues promptly.

Credit unions are also leveraging this technology because they are finding the member response rate is higher than with email or snail mail surveys. What's more, it is motivating employees to achieve consistency in delivering excellent member service.

About 20 large and small credit unions are using a point-of-service feedback solution from HappyOrNot, a Finland-based company that manufactures small, portable kiosks that record member satisfaction or dissatisfaction, according to Ed Gundrum, CEO of DoublePort, an Andover, Mass.-based authorized reseller of HappyOrNot in North America.

The kiosks feature four buttons etched with a dark green face with a big smile, a light green face with a slight smile, a light red face with a semi frown and a red face with a frown.

One simple question printed on a small placard atop the kiosk asks members to “please rate our service today,” for example. Credit unions phrase service questions in other ways as well, but only one question is asked to keep it simple, which helps to increase member response.

The $120 million Duke University Federal Credit Union in Durham, N.C. installed 20 kiosks in one branch. Each teller station, as well as the desks of loan officers and member service representatives, has a kiosk. There is even one affixed next to the vacuum tube at its drive thru.

“We wanted to capture the satisfaction from the member at the time they did their transactions for every employee,” Duke President/CEO Dan Berry explained. “We felt like we would get higher volume of feedback.”

In December, of the credit union's 11,000 branch transactions, about 2,600 members provided feedback. That's a response rate of 23.6%, which is significantly higher than the response rate from an email or U.S. mail membership survey.

Berry said this response rate has been consistent month over month since the credit union installed the kiosks in April 2015. Other credit unions also reported the same response rate of more than 20%.

Member responses are recorded along with the date and time. That data is then uploaded to a HappyOrNot central server via a cell SIM card within each kiosk. The cloud-based service generates the graphic reports, which are emailed to management and employees for review early the next morning.

The data can be broken down to show employees on which days and during which hours they performed better or worse.

“I have a credit union with $146 million in assets and I really need to compete on services with everybody in the area,” Howard Meller, president/CEO of GHS Federal Credit Union in Binghamton, N.Y., said. “HappyOrNot kiosks are just a way for me to always check to make sure that we are providing the service that we need in order to grow.”

SOURCE: Feedback Solutions

Mystery Shoppers to Anonymously Evaluate all Aspects of Aquarium

Amusement Advantage Inc., has been chosen by the Florida Aquarium to help identify ways to improve its business operations.
The popular tourist attraction is keen to get a better understanding of how visitors interact with the aquarium and pinpoint opportunities to enhance the guest experience.

Scot Carson, President and General Manager of Amusement Advantage said the company was eager to start working with the aquarium. “Our expertise and experience in the industry fits perfectly with The Florida Aquarium’s high standards of excellence and service delivery.”

Amusement Advantage will draw from their pool of 30,000 mystery shoppers to anonymously evaluate all aspects of the aquarium including ticket purchasing, food quality in the café and the educational nature of the exhibits and presentations.

Matt Heller, founder of Performance Optimist Consulting will analyse the report which intends to highlight opportunities for further improving leadership and staff engagement and therefore, the guest experience.

The partnership follows Amusement Advantage’s recent appointment of a Director of Business Development based in Orlando to better serve the Florida tourism industry. The company already provides mystery shopping services to over 400 attractions in the US and Canada.

“Amusement Advantage will provide valuable insights into what we are doing right as well as identity areas we need to improve on,” Scott Rose, Chief Operating Officer of The Florida Aquarium.

 

SOURCE: BlooLoop

Mystery Shopper: Where's the Best Place to Buy tech Stocking Fillers Online?

Dads are notoriously difficult to buy for over the Christmas period, so we couldn’t resist tasking our Mystery Shopper with a special online stocking filler challenge for finding a dad-friendly tech gift for under £20. Here’s how they got on.

AMAZON 7/10
Surprisingly, Amazon’s homepage didn’t appear to have an obvious gifts section or banner for me to click on. Instead it was mainly full of recommendations for me based on previous things I’ve purchased.

After selecting the ‘electronics and photos’ section and typing in ‘gifts for dads’ I had to scroll through a few mugs, coaster sets and bottles of wine before I got to anything that I would call particularly electronic.

Eventually, something caught my eye. It was the Caseflex 2.4GHz Handheld Mini Wireless Keyboard/ Mouse/Remote Control for £11.95 – reduced from £19.99.

Other products that fitted what I was looking for were the Audience A2 Headphones for £10.95 (reduced from £29.99), and the Caseflex GoPro Accessories Carry Case for £12.88.

All three products were in stock, well within my budget and were available for next day delivery.

While I found something worthwhile, I was surprised Amazon didn’t make it easy.

ARGOS 9/10
It was much easier to find my way to the gift section on the Argos website. The ‘gift’ button on the navigation bar took me to a section that not only had dedicated areas for different members of the family, but also different types of products. One category – ‘gadgets and novelty gifts’ – was exactly what I was after.

This section was jam- packed with techy gifts. It started off a little pricey with its £80+ drones, but I soon found a host of products within my budget.

There were quite a few products by the brand RED5 that were of interest, including a Desktop LED Clock Fan for £19.99, Water Dancing Droplet speakers also priced at £19.99, and a Clip To Go Bluetooth speaker for £14.99. There was also a Star Wars R2D2 Desk Vacuum for just £9.99.

I went for the LED clock fan and I was given the option to buy or reserve for collection, or get it delivered.

I could also select the same day delivery option for an extra £3.95.

EBUYER 8/10
After working my way along the navigation bar at the top of the Ebuyer homepage, I found the ‘gadgets and gifts’ section under the ‘TV and Entertainment’ heading.

There was a lot of appropriate gifts for me to sift through, and this site was the first where I found a Quadcopter for under £20.

The Hubsan X4 Micro Quadcopter was originally priced at £29.98, but luckily it had £10 off. There was an abundance of specs, product description and images to check out. The product looked great, but as I added it to my basket, I realised that the cheapest delivery option for orders under £49.99 was £4.18, putting me over my budget.

I decided to go back and have another look for other gifts, and to my surprise, I found a Nano version of the same Quadcopter for £14.99, meaning I could buy this one for just under my budget.

I could also choose to pay via card or PayPal, and get the free ‘Super Saver’ delivery within five working days.

MAPLIN 10/10 - STAR SITE
Of all the sites I visited during this mystery shop, Maplin was the one that made the biggest deal of Christmas gifts.

The colourful top banner flicked between ‘toys and gadgets’ and ‘retro gifts’. I decided to check out the gadgets first.

All the drones were way over my budget, but there were a few robots that came in at under £20. The Connex Space Cleaning Robot Kit for £9.99 was available for home delivery and Click & Collect. There were lots of delivery options ranging from £2.99 for three to five working days and £16.99 for an early Saturday delivery.

Realising that I hadn’t even checked out the retro gifts yet, I went back to the homepage to check out some more products.

There were a few more cool gifts including a Rubik’s Cube Light, an ION USB Vinyl/Tape Forever Audio Converter and a Belkin In Car Mobile Cassette Adapter – all in stock and all within my budget.

I was impressed by the range of goods on offer.

JOHN LEWIS 8/10
My next destination was John Lewis’ online store, which had a large ‘Christmas Shop’ banner on the homepage.

Clicking on this banner led me to a page containing a long list of gift types for every kind of recipient you could imagine. The site highlighted its ‘novelty and gadget gifts’ which looked quite inviting, so I decided to check that page out.

It was easy to choose my price bracket, and once I entered ‘£0 to £20’, I found a few ideas.

One was the Yamazaki RIN Tablet Stand for £15, but the Luckies Smartphone Projector for £19.95 really stood out, as it was quite an unusual gadget with a decent price. Both products were in stock and had lots of pictures.

There were many options for getting my gift, including UK delivery, Click & Collect, and Collect+ (picking it up from a local shop).

However, it was a shame that all of these options cost extra, so I was unable to purchase the projector with my £20 budget.

CURRYS 6/10
I couldn’t find any ‘gift’ or ‘gadget’ section on the homepage of the Currys website, which was mainly advertising sales on TVs, washing machines and notebook computers.

I typed ‘gadgets’ into the search box and was presented with a lot of products way over my budget. After setting the max price to £20 I was presented mostly with kids toys and small kitchen appliances.

I was about to give up my search at this point, until I noticed something in a column at the bottom of the whole page, titled ‘People Who Searched “gadgets” Also Browsed’. It was a Misfit Flash Fitness Activity Tracker for only £19.99. “What a bargain!” I thought.

I hastily clicked through to the product’s main page only to find the actual price was £39.99 – much more in line with what I thought those devices cost, but way over my budget. It had a ‘sale’ sign next to it, so I added it to my basket anyway and hoped the final price might come down. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

SUMMARY
This was a surprisingly challenging mystery shop. Despite the fact that we are well into the Christmas shopping season, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be to find techy stocking fillers. And for half of the ones I did find, I was unable to actually buy them due to the delivery prices.

However, I did manage to find some gems, including a Quadcopter, a mini Bluetooth speaker and a cleaning robot kit – all great ‘dad’ gifts in my eyes.

I was stunned to see that the likes of Amazon and Currys were not making that big of a deal of Christmas stocking fillers during early November, instead focusing on more expensive items.

Maplin and Argos were both standout sites for me on this shop. They made a point of having banners and easy-to-find sections for gifts and gadgets, but I awarded Maplin the ‘star site’ this month as it had the biggest selection of appropriate gifts within my budget, and the most options for delivery times.

Source: PCR

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Oman Air Launches Mystery Shopper Program 'to Become the Best'

Oman Air announced the initiation of a secret shopper program agreement this week with BVA Mystery Shopping Services.

“Oman Air’s mission is ‘to become the best,’” Oman Air CEO Paul Gregorowitsch said. “Whilst we have built an international reputation -- and won numerous awards -- for the quality of our goods and services, we know there is still more we can do. And as Oman Air continues to expand its fleet and network, it is especially important that we not only maintain, but also improve, the standard of service we offer to our customers.”

Mystery shoppers from the company will be taking on the user experience and will report the quality of services that are provided by the airline on all classes of airline travel offered by the company, in addition to the services offered at airports and the ticket purchasing process.

“The mystery shoppers will have full access to all Oman Air’s customer-facing services,” Gregorowitsch said. “And because they will be posing as regular passengers, none of the staff they interact with across their passenger journeys will know who the mystery shoppers are.” 

SOURCE: Gulf News Journal

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Mystery Shoppers Uncovered Surprising Secrets About Local Supermarket Chains

Mystery shoppers at Checkbook Magazine uncovered some surprising secrets about local supermarket chains, and the results might just have you switching where you choose to buy food for your holiday meals.

Checkbook Magazine surveyed consumers and did its own mystery shopping to compare prices.

It shopped a list of 150 items at various chains all across the Delaware Valley, and what it found may surprise you.

Depending on your regular supermarket preferences, you might want to head elsewhere!

Click here to watch video from ABC6 News 

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Secret Shoppers Helping Improve Customer Service

A team of more than 100 mystery shoppers are helping improve customer experiences on Jersey's high street.

Secret shoppers talk to sales assistants and buy products, then write up reports about the level of service they received.

Retailers say it is the only real way they can get an idea of what it feels like to shop in their stores.

People often say to me, well surely you could judge it by sales. We can to a degree, but what you don't know by just judging it by sales is how many sales we lose if we don't give good service. So customer service, and measuring customer service is absolutely critical.
– David Elliott, Retailer

One mystery shopper has given her top three tips for retailers to deliver good customer service. Claire Boscq-Scott says it is all about delivering the basics:

Greet the customer
Smile
Use eye contact

The best customer service you can give is just so simple, it's all about basics, a smile, eye contact, a hello, those are the three free gifts you can give your customers and I think when people don't get the customer service and you get an apathy, when you get people who are not happy in what they do in their own jobs, themselves, they're not happy inside so they're never going to deliver a good service.
– Claire Boscq-Scott, Secret Shopper

SOURCE: ITV News 

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The Irish Kings of Online ‘Mystery Shoppers’ Now With $20m in Their Coffers

A DUBLIN COMPANY that takes the ‘mystery shopper’ concept online for the world’s biggest grocery producers has announced a major cash injection as it ramps up its international expansion.

Clavis Insight has received a $20 million (€17.6 million) investment from US venture capital firm Accel-KKR to fuel its growth in the US, Europe and China.

Garry Moroney started Clavis in 2008 and it has since expanded to almost 150 staff across offices in Dublin, Boston, London and Shanghai.

The majority are employed in its Dublin headquarters, where the company handles its main software development and data analysis.

Moroney sold his previous business, software firm Similarity Systems, to US-based Informatica in a cash deal worth nearly $55 million in 2006.

Clavis is expected to double its headcount to around 200 staff in Ireland over the next two years as part of the global push.

The company checks how products from its clients are being sold over the internet – from their availability to how the goods are advertised on e-commerce sites like Amazon and Tesco’s virtual store.

That information can then be used to tweak the online selling process to help suppliers offload more of their products. In return, it charges up to $20,000 (€17,600) per retailer it analyses as part of its service.

Clavis’s software is already used by the world’s 10 largest manufacturers of consumer packaged goods, including Unilever, Nestlé and Mondelēz.

The company, previously known as Clavis Technology, has previously raised money from investors including Dublin venture-capital firm Delta Partners, Enterprise Ireland and millionaire Irish software entrepreneur Jim Mountjoy.

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Three Ways to Earn Extra Money Before Black Friday

Saving money before the holidays is a great way to avoid going into debt to cover the added cost of gifts, parties and travel. But if you’ve already cut your spending, finding room in your budget to set aside more cash might not be possible. Or perhaps you just don’t want to live like a pauper for the next few months to be able to pay for holiday festivities with cash.

So consider the alternative: earning more. There are plenty of ways to make extra money over the coming months — and some don’t even require much time. Here are three you should consider when saving for your Black Friday shopping trip.

GET A SEASONAL JOB OR SIDE GIG: If you have time to work extra hours, now is the time to start looking for seasonal work. Outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas expects retailers to hire 755,000 workers for the holiday season. You’ll likely find openings at retailers such as Amazon, Gap, Kohl’s, Macy’s and Target, which add tens of thousands of employees to their payrolls in October through December.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas also recommends looking for positions at warehouses and shipping facilities, which ramp up hiring before the holidays. Restaurants and entertainment venues that see increased business during holidays also hire seasonal employees.

Another option, if you can’t commit to working several hours a week, is the occasional side gig. Grayson Bell, creator of the Debt Roundup blog, would find quick work — such as loading a moving van or doing yard work — through the “gigs” section on Craigslist.

SELL STUFF YOU DON’T NEED: Your closet, garage or attic is likely a treasure trove of stuff that’s just taking up space and can easily be turned into cash.

Leah Ingram, founder of the Suddenly Frugal blog, recommends taking clothing that’s in good condition to a consignment store now to get a payout in time for Black Friday. When you sell clothes on consignment, you typically get 50 percent of the price at which your items sell. You also can sell clothing, shoes and accessories through a fashion resale site such as thredUP.com, which sends you a pre-paid bag to ship your items in.

You can make money on items around your home such as furniture, tools or music equipment by selling them on Craigslist.

And don’t forget electronics: If you have cellphones you’re no longer using, you can get cash for them through trade-in services such as ecoATM, Gazelle, NextWorth and uSell.com.

BE A MYSTERY SHOPPER: Yes, mystery shopper scams abound, but there are plenty of legitimate opportunities that offer a quick and easy way to earn extra cash if you’re willing to evaluate products or visit establishments and offer feedback. “Mystery shopping won’t make you rich, but you can often earn free things that you may want to gift to others, and you also may earn a little bit of side cash for the holidays,” said MakingSenseofCents.com founder Michelle Schroeder-Gardener, who has earned from $5 to $100 for mystery shopping jobs. She found all of her opportunities through BestMark.

 

SOURCE: Dallas News

Flipkart Employees Turn Spies to Beat Fakes

India's largest online marketplace has deployed spies to keep tabs on the merchandise being pushed by sellers. Flipkart, which kicked off its five-day discount sale on Tuesday, is taking precautions after getting stung by instances of sellers listing counterfeit and sub-standard products and inflating the maximum retail price.

It has rolled out an initiative to enroll employees as mystery shoppers — those paid to masquerade as customers — to buy products from sellers listed on the platform and report on the experience. The online marketplace has also hired a Big Four consultancy firm.

"With rising customer concerns around fake and counterfeit products online, we have rolled out the Flipkart mystery shopping programme where employees can act as Flipkart secret agents to identify fraudulent sellers on our platform. This initiative aims to ensure optimum quality, uniformity and fidelity of all the packages delivered to customers," said Manish Maheshwari, head and vice-president, seller ecosystem, at Flipkart.

I just don't like the way they add delivery charged for each and every item ordered. Logically, they should charge for the total order.Sanjay Sable
Employees who sign up for this voluntary effort, which will continue after the festive season, will get special incentives. "Those members of the staff who enroll for this programme will get Flipkart shopping vouchers," he added.

Flipkart's 'secret agents' will have to send in photos of the packaging, labels and products that are delivered to them, which will be processed by the trust and security team. If the quality of the product, service and packaging is substandard, action will be taken against the seller, ranging from being recommended for mandatory training programmes to being delisted in extreme cases.

SOURCE: Times of India

Mystery Shopping Catches Some Advisors Off-Guard

 
Most advisors behave themselves, even if they don’t know a regulator’s watching. But some are still failing the basics of advice.

That’s what OSC, IIROC, and MFDA found in their joint report, Mystery Shopping for Investment Advice. The report describes the results of a mystery shop of advisors across Ontario between July and November 2014. The review didn’t find any serious misconduct, but of shops that made recommendations, 14% made unsuitable ones, 21% did not conduct thorough KYC and 29% didn’t discuss fees appropriately.

The first initiative of its kind undertaken by Canadian securities regulators, the mystery shop assessed retail investors’ experiences and evaluated the investment advice process.

A total of 105 shops occurred throughout Ontario across four investment platforms, including investment dealers, mutual fund dealers, exempt market dealers and portfolio managers. Of these, 88 shops had sufficient data to allow for an assessment of the shoppers’ experiences against a set of benchmarks for best practice, compliant and non-compliant advice.

Good news: In more than three-quarters of shops (78%), investors heard about investment products that advisors could sell. Investors were asked about their investment objectives in 89% of shops.

But, shoppers were less likely to hear about product fees (56%), be told about the risk/return relationship (52%), be asked for thorough know your client (KYC) information (32%) or be told about advisor compensation (25%).

And regulators concluded that since their experiences varied, investors would have difficulty comparison shopping, understanding the variety of business titles or knowing whether they received suitable advice.

About a quarter of shops (24) made recommendations. Suitable product recommendations (appropriate given the investors’ investment objectives, risk tolerance and financial circumstances) were made in 86% of shops, and unsuitable recommendations in 14%. For these 24 shops, thorough KYC information was collected in 79% of shops and an appropriate discussion of product fees in 71%. Sixty-three percent of shops met or exceeded all regulatory expectations.

In response to these findings, the OSC, IIROC and MFDA have set out detailed action plans to build on their ongoing efforts. These next steps will focus on an enhancement of advisory practices, setting out clear expectations and using the findings to inform policy making, with a view to improving the overall experience investors have when seeking investment advice. Investment industry firms and advisors should review and respond to the findings to ensure investors receive advice that is appropriate and leads to a better investor experiences.

The related Notices (OSC Staff Notice 31-715, IIROC Notice 15-0210, MFDA Bulletin 0658-C) also include critical information about proficiency and registration categories of the platforms shopped (Appendix A) and evaluation benchmarks (Appendix E) against which the mystery shop results were assessed.

#MysteryShoppers to Test Cardiff Taxi Drivers' Fares

 

Mystery shoppers will test taxis drivers for the remaining Rugby World Cup games in Cardiff following claims people have been refused fares.

Cardiff council has announced the initiative to ensure short-distance fares are being accepted, in the wake of three sex attacks in the city.

The city's taxi association has denied claims some drivers have turned people away for short-distance taxi trips.

Trading Standards Officers will pose as the mystery shoppers, the council said.

Residents, visitors and commuters have been advised to use the taxi ranks at Greyfriers Road and Lower St Mary Street on Thursday night.


Councilor Jacqueline Parry, licensing committee chairwoman, said: "I read with interest the recent media reports on taxi drivers and claims that people are being refused because the fare is too short.

"We take these matters very seriously. Taxi drivers should be ambassadors to our city and complaints will be investigated.

"If you are getting a taxi from a taxi rank, the light is on, and the fare starts and ends within Cardiff, the driver has to take you home and must use the meter. It is as simple as that."

SOURCE:  BBC

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#MysteryShoppers to Ride MBTA Commuter Rail Trains

Starting in early September, some state employees who work the Massachusetts Department of Transportation will be deployed as “mystery shoppers” on the MBTA’s commuter rail system.

They’ll be tasked with informally reporting things like whether riders are paying their fares and whether conductors on the trains are taking appropriate measures to ensure people pay their fares.

“They will be reporting to us what they see,” said Astrid Glynn, the department’s rail and transit administrator.

Gov. Charlie Baker’s transportation chief Stephanie Pollack described the program as an “ongoing way to make sure that we have an accurate picture of the way our customers are experiencing the service.”

The commuter rail is operated by Keolis, a French firm that won a $2.7 billion, eight-year contract. The contract started in July 2014, but the company has been hit with heavy fines related to cleanliness and late trains.

Earlier this year, the commuter rail was battered by the winter storms and took nearly a month to return to normal service levels. The company blamed the weather and old equipment.

MBTA officials hear from customers frequently, as well as from Pollack herself. She often takes both the Green Line and the commuter rail.

“Believe me, people get texts from me,” Pollack said. “This morning’s were water on the ground at Westwood Station.”

“I am my own mystery shopper but I think as part of the formal program, the goal is obviously that the folks from Keolis don’t know that those people are actually doing anything different than being regular passengers, and so anonymity will be important,” she added.

The details of the program – how many "mystery shoppers" will be active – are still being worked out, Pollack said.

SOURCE: Mass Live 

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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!
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