Mystery Shopping Photography 101
November 17, 2014Tips for getting the perfect shot while mystery shopping!
Top 6 Mistakes to Avoid When Completing a Mystery Shop Report
May 24, 2011
Here at Confero, we get lots of questions from mystery shoppers asking how they can improve their shop ratings. One easy way to improve your shop rating is to make sure you are providing a clean, concise mystery shop report every time. Here is a list of the Top Six Mistakes to Avoid When Completing a Mystery Shop Report:- Copying and pasting shop information. Each mystery shop is unique, so each mystery shop report should be unique to each individual shop. Our clients do not accept reports with copied or “canned”comments, as they expect each unique mystery shop/audit visit’s conversation to be reported individually. That’s what they are paying for. Copied or canned comments imply that the mystery shopper did not make the required observations or give them full attention. For more details about this, see Cathy Stucker’s blog about all the “Dangers of Copy and Paste.”
Confero Consumer Protection Alert – How to Spot a Mystery Shopping Scam
May 24, 2011Unfortunately, scam artists have targeted unsuspecting consumers under the disguise of mystery shopping companies for several years now. Recently, there have been a couple of news stories involving a few of these scams. Last year, the wire transfer company, MoneyGram had to pay $18 million to settle charges with the Federal Trade Commission because it was found that “MoneyGram agents helped fraudulent telemarketers and other con artists who tricked U.S. consumers into wiring more than $84 million within the United States and to Canada.” Also, in early April of this year, a man was sentenced to six years in prison for running a $6 million job scam. Inside Look at Mystery Shopping by Jennifer X
October 13, 2010Contributed by mystery shopper Jennifer XMystery shoppers must remember all sorts of client-required details to fill out their reports. With pages of questions to answer and narratives to write, mystery shoppers can use all the help they can get recreating their experience.
There’s an app for that! Shoppers who have invested in Smartphone technology are at least one step ahead. There are apps to take notes, pictures, videos or audio recordings. Most voice recorders have time stamps, so coughing at the beginning and end of your shop can help determine how long it took. Don’t have a Smartphone? Can you text yourself? How about just calling your voicemail; you can leave your cell phone on during your shop and you’ll have a full account when you get home.
The Dangers of Copy and Paste
June 3, 2010Confero is excited to introduce guest blogger, Cathy Stucker. Cathy is the author of The Mystery Shopper’s Manual, the best selling guide to being a successful professional mystery shopper and blogs about the mystery shopping industry on her blog, The Mystery Shopper's Manual. Confero President, Elaine Buxton first met Cathy several years ago during a Gold Shopper Certification seminar held by the MSPA when Cathy was working as a trainer for the Gold Certification program.
by Cathy Stucker, MysteryShoppersManual.com
You just got back from shopping three locations of the same client. Each assignment used the same scenario, and they all went pretty much the same way. The temptation is to write the comments and narrative for the first shop, then copy and paste your words into the other two reports. A few changes of names and other details and you’re done, right?
Wrong! Although recycling is a good thing, recycling comments and narratives in your mystery shop reports is not. Not only do some shoppers do this when they shop multiple locations of a company in the same day, they may copy and paste comments from shops done for the same client in previous months, or even shops done for competing businesses in the same industry. I even heard about one shopper who copied and pasted comments from the sample report provided by the mystery shopping company.
Here at Confero, we get lots of questions from mystery shoppers asking how they can improve their shop ratings. One easy way to improve your shop rating is to make sure you are providing a clean, concise mystery shop report every time. Here is a list of the Top Six Mistakes to Avoid When Completing a Mystery Shop Report:
Unfortunately, scam artists have targeted unsuspecting consumers under the disguise of mystery shopping companies for several years now. Recently, there have been a couple of news stories involving a few of these scams. Last year, the wire transfer company, 
Contributed by mystery shopper Jennifer X