Mystery Shopper is a bitch

[Evil Queen]

My twelve year old sister is completely white-headed too...your grandma shouldn't have spent so much time in the chlorinated pool water!

Your sister is lucky then. I knew a little girl (neighbor) when I was 9. She used to be blonde and by the time I moved away, her hair was green. Why? She never washed her hair after getting out of the highly chlorinated pool.

But she was a bitch anyways so it wasn't much of a lose.

[BarbieGirl]

When I worked at Lowe's the managers would always make sure to call around to the different dept's to let us know the shopper was in. Kinda defeated the purpose, but they didn't want to have to retrain everyone on customer service (had to do that a lot anyways.)

[Sliceanddice]

my father recently got a secret shopper job. One thing i think will show him off is the Gap. He ainta gap guy. He also hates to shop alone os sometimes most likely i will come along. I told him to just act himself not be bitch or too nice, you need to really see how the store works not how they work when some jackass is screaming at them. he agreed. btw evil queen i am not stocking you on purpose i swear...

[Shironu-Akaineko]

Uh...grey hair is usually a sign of over 40, dumbass.

Sorry to contradict you, but my Papy was snow white at 15 and his wife started getting gray hair at 60.

[marasbaras]

By the sound of it, they get all the sucky customers to be mystery shoppers. Why is it so hard for a company to get a handful of professional-acting mystery shoppers who rotate through their client list to prevent recognition?

Seems so easy.

[Hon'ya-chan]

One previous job I worked at had the shoppers. The reports were winners. Actually, more like what management did with the reports.

To be "Fair" someone in the office would take a sharpie and scratch out the name of the shopped person and then post the report on the wall. Trouble is, Sharpie =/= Inkjet printouts.

Glad my job right now got rid of the shops as being "too expensive."

[going gaga]

I like most of our mystery shoppers although we can't appeal against anything, they seem to be pretty fair.

Mainly because the reports they have to give are broken down into different sections.
They have detail everything , including the date and time they came down to the minute, what they bought, and my favourite bit - how many other customers there were & how many staff members.
The only thing they don't give are the staffs names, but since we don't have many staff & we know when they came, well working it out isn't exactly joined up thinking.

I wish I could spot are mystery shoppers, when they come in it's the busiest day of the week (Sat),preferably when it's absolutely heaving with customers.

The idea being your so preoccupied with everything else that's going on you can't spot them, as you've got to multi task between the different shoppers.

[Gurndigarn]

By the sound of it, they get all the sucky customers to be mystery shoppers. Why is it so hard for a company to get a handful of professional-acting mystery shoppers who rotate through their client list to prevent recognition?

Seems so easy.

Yeah, but it also involves money.

Yeah, it would be money well spent, but still...

[Lace Neil Singer]

I don't need to appeal against this, cuz my checkout manager is on my side and won't let it go any further. I just thought it unfair, cuz who wants to talk to someone who's giving you stink eye? A mystery shopper should be neutral and normal, cuz that's the only way they can be fair.

[Evil Queen]

I hate Mystery Shoppers!

One wrote me up as "unfriendly" all because I didn't follow the "say hi within 10 feet or seven seconds of seeing the customer" rule because I was... wait for it... HELPING ANOTHER CUSTOMER! I did acknowledge the Mystery Shopper by nodding and smiling in her direction (normal southern greeting when you're busy) but damn.

I wasn't in my department (baked goods) but I was in the bakery isle where all the mixes and icings are, giving a customer advice on icing tips and what ones work best with what kind of icing.

I was so mad about that because that bitch got me written up. Of course I hated working there, but it was a temporary job so it only lasted a month anyways.

[FlamingSickle]

Oh, God, mystery shoppers. Whoever it is that comes and does our theatre about once a month has to be the same idiot, because the reports continuously say that no manager was on the floor, and we've been able to prove them wrong every time with our camera records except for the one time our lobby camera was down on the day it occurred. Once a manager in full suit and gold name tag was even standing in Box Office itself, which, of course, is part of the floor area, but the checker still missed her. We keep wishing they would get someone actually competent for once.

[chainedbarista]

mystery shoppers seem to be a mixed bag; there should be some sort of process these people have to go through, as well as procedures to follow when doing the shop, as a way to eliminate those who are just in it for a few bucks and the chance to raise hell with someone's job security.

it makes me glad we don't have them; we do an online survey instead that randomly prints up a receipt on site, we tell them how to take it and that they *cue motivational tool* have a chance to win $1000 in the process. (a customer from our store did win once)

we get the feedback within about a month or so; some are good and helpful, others are just asinine. (not enough caramel, what a shocker )

[Fandangoose]

"Mystery Shoppers" - don't get me started on a rant about them!!! Lying pieces of s***!!!

IMHO, most of them should be used for military target practice.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We used to have mystery shoppers. Now we don't. Instead we have the online survey people can take and maybe win a gift card if they're lucky.

It never before occurred to me to connect the two--mystery shoppers being replaced with surveys. This to me is a good thing--ours had a nasty habit of approaching employees who were already busy with other customers or doing merchandise carryouts. These employees would then toss some of our service expectations out the window when helping the mystery shopper because they were in the middle of something else, and as a result they and the store got marked down.

When the mystery shoppers were first rolled out, we were told that 3 perfect shops in a row would result in our store being given 50 $50 gift cards to be raffled off among the employees. I don't think any stores ever got that.

[JLRodgers]

I'd make a good mystery shopper -- I'd be in the store for an hour, buy a few things and by the time I was out there'd be a small report on every employee in the store, almost exact number of people inside, and everything else lol.

But I don't think I've ever had to deal with one before.... Maybe my retail years were before it was big. I guess I just assumed that the shoppers were supposed to be nice, friendly, and wait their turn -- not intentionally try to make a store fail (approaching an employee that's with another customer, either you don't help the mystery shopper to their expectations, or you'd get marked down for ignoring the original person you were helping - it's a lose-lose situation).