Mystery shoppers

[chrisistheman]

Often, my supermarket pushes the "mystrey shopper" program. This is where someone comes in, not telling anyone, and grades the service. Usually, they moan or complain about something. This is frustrating, as mgmt will complain about not being nice enough. now nice can i get? They even post the results in front of my face.

[Crafty1289]

I always know our mystery shoppers - they ALWAYS ask about our membership scheme. Its one of the key scoring points. THEN they go choose something to buy - while I tell our cashiers to be spot on and smile and give her a reciept etc. The whole thing is so scripted, you'd have to be stupid not to realise.

Then they come back with the item they just purchased, and say theres something wrong with it. They are looking for a straight refund, no questions asked kind of thing. And of course, for the mystery shopper we move mountains!!

Then they walk around the shop with me, to check availability on key lines. about a month later, the results get emailed down to stores.

[Kitten in the box]

we get secret shoppers too. They grade us on the cleanliness of the store, how clean the lot is, if there are comment cards available, if we are nice, and the like. They CANNOT "shop" employees who are helping another customer and give them a grade however...the said employee can only be shopped if they are helping the secret shopper themselves. We get it emailed back to us as well and we hold meetings about it and go over what went wrong and how we can improve and what we did right.

However one time a friend of mine (retired now) got shopped while he was on vacation. He came in just to get a few items and 'ignored' the shopper. When he came back he was told about it and the manager was going to see if it can be revoked. They said no it will stand as a bad shop for him and the store because vacation or not 'He should have AT LEAST looked up and aknowleged them' so it stayed on as a bad shop. IDK sometimes secret shoppers can be a but weird at times and not know what they are doing.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We have secret shoppers too. They go up to random employees and ask them for help and see if they do all of the following:

1. Acknowledge the shopper
2. Offer to help the shopper in a sincere manner
3. Offer to walk the shopper to the product
4. Offer further assistance to the shopper (basically say "Is there anything else I can help you find?")
5. Thank the shopper.

My store always seems to do lousy on these secret shops, so the suits aren't so happy with us.

[ArenaBoy]

For some strange reason, a parking lot has secret shoppers also. It was a stupid idea, one of them was rude to us and the department head was being an idiot about having secret shoppers.

[Ljt09863]

i got a gem. we had a secret shopper two weeks ago. i wasn't there for it, but the reports gets sent to us and then posted. it was a sunday, and the store closes early. pharmacy at four, the store at five.

we get graded by department. anybody in department? offer assistance? taken to product or jsut showed where it is? overall attitude. if im there, i usually do pretty good. we once scored 100% because of me and one other girl, so we got gift cards!!!

but anyways, sunday, this secret shopper came in. now, the girls in cosmetics break down the drawers for the store, starting with the least used ones an hour before closing. since it was sunday, the girl in cosmetics started breaking them down at four. also, the pharmacy closed at four. when did the secret shopper come in? ten after four. so pharmacy is closed, and girl in cosmetics is up in office doing drawers.

well, we failed in cos cause nobody was over there, and the failed us for pharmacy because they closed like they were supposed to!!!!!but what also didn't help was the manager ignoring the secret shopper.

[South Texan]

At the taco fast food place I worked in high school, the same "secret shopper" came each time and at the same time of day (around 5:30 on her way home from the corporate office) and always ordered the same five items without fail. It got the point that we recognized her pink car when it drove onto the proerty (large windows in the front of the store) and into the drive thru lane. We also knew her voice the moment she started to order. She would get the order, then drive around to the front and come in as if she had not ordered before and would head directly into the ladies' room. Of course, we had already run in there the moment we saw her car and made sure it was spotless. Then she would come back into the dining area (again freshly cleaned or in the process of being mopped by the time she walked in) and order three more items - the same three she alway did, so they were ready before she ordered.

We always scored high for having such a spotless location and having the orders out so fast. Corporate never figured out how obvious they were.

[hecubus]

I can't stand secret shoppers, or more correctly, the importance companies place on the opinions of secret shoppers. A close friend of mine lost his job at a video store because of one of them.

He was working the day the secret shopper came in. For some reason, even though he treated this person the same as everyone else (and I know he is very good with customers and is very well liked). I don;t know if the shopper took offense at his tattoos or what, but she gave him a very poor grade. After the secret shop was filed with the company, my friend's manager got a message from corporate. They said that, due to the poor grade on the secret shop, the manager was to fire my friend. To her credit, the manager came to my friend's defense, saying that he was one of her best employees, and she was not going to fire him. Corporate responded by telling the manager that she had a choice. She could fire him, or corporate would fire him and then they would fire the manager as well.

I guess I'll never understand why some companies place more importance on the opinion of a secret shopper who has maybe half an hour of contact with an employee over the opinion of a manager, who works with the employee every day.

[SuperDan]

We have several secret shoppers and they do blend in pretty well. Each department has a different set of criteria that they are graded on, 10 criteria for each department. Some are the same, some are different. My department's list is eye contact within 10 feet, friendly greeting within 10 feet, smile, name tag visible, say "I'll be happy to...", take customer to product, ask if there is anything else we can do for you, friendly end greeting, thank customer for shopping.

There are a few bad shoppers though. Some people have received shops for days they were off and weren't even anywhere near the store. A former deli employee who is black consistently got very low shops from one specific shopper even though her department manager and crew leaders could verify that she always followed our customer service guidelines and generally had a good disposition.

Secret shoppers can be useful to companies if used properly. Companies need to remember they're not infallible though.

[Tutorgal]

Lies on a secret shopper report almost got me fired. I had just been rehired for the summer and a new manager had just started when the store got failed on a secret shopper report for the previous month. The shop reported really bad stuff, that both employees were on cell phones and ignored her.

This almost got me fired. Why? The shopper described me perfectly, including my extremely long, curly, bright red hair. No girl in the store had hair past the shoulders, never mind red hair. Fortunately I hadnt been rehired that point, so I was able to prove the shopper was lying. And I never once talked on my cell at work, it was always in the back in my purse.

The sad thing is that when the manager tried to prove the shop was BS, corporate was mysteriously unable to understand what was going on.

[Lace Neil Singer]

At the pizza place, all the mystery shoppers did their bit over the phone. We always knew who they were, cuz they were so precise so we were able to write "Mystery Shopper" in the "other comments" section and pass 100% every time, cuz when you see that flash up on the screen after taking someone's address, you make sure you do everything by the book. Only time it failed was once when the cool boss answered the phone and buggered up. We all teased him for that for ages after.

[Sunsetsky]

I have never had a mystery shopper come through my line. Actually...walmart doesn't need mystery shoppers now. Now we have survey questions on the credit card machines about the cashier. Customers get to answer them (or ignore them if they wish) and the cashiers are basically getting rated. I can't wait until Christmas. Pissed off people get to rate my job.

[Dark Psion]

I have never been caught by our Mystery Shopper, but I know my luck will run out eventually.

My bigest problem with Mystery shoppers is that they are like Mother-in-laws, they are looking for things you are doing wrong, in fact some seem like they must find something wrong.

We have had complaints such as;

They didn't like the look of the floor
They didn't like the way the ceiling lights were arranged
and one complained about bird droppings on the sidewalk outside.

The one item that we always fail is the add-on sale. Why?
Because they always buy the add-on item!

"Would you like a 5 gallon bucket of paint to go with your brush?"

The best Mysery Shopper program I have heard of was a Supermarket that had employees from one store shop at another and would reinburse them for the $50-$100 of groceries they bought.

[Kitten in the box]

I got shopped once when I was OFF THE CLOCK and going home...It was near halloween one time and I was dressed up as a crazy person/Mankind (wrestler) take your pick. (originally crazy person but people kept calling me Mankind...ok whatever.... ) anyhoo the shop came in and it said

Greeted sincerly:No
Anticipate need:No
Offer carry out:N/A (not applicable)
Selling Suggestion: No
Name tag:No

I was described...Poofy haired female wearing blood stained straight jacket with glasses. I was the only one dressed like that...my boss told me that and said it would not count because I was off the clock and I was not wearing my name badge.

[Gurndigarn]

The sad thing is that when the manager tried to prove the shop was BS, corporate was mysteriously unable to understand what was going on.

And that's the problem with mystery shoppers. Corporations assume they have god-like infallibility and omniscience, when, as someone else pointed out, they're more like mother-in-laws, deliberately looking for something they can turn into a problem.