Hello Guys,

I recently did a shop that i gave a very poor review (my first poor review). My question is the shop was accepted and I felt I covered all that was asked of me. However now i see the exact same shop to be done again. As far as I know my shop wasn't rejected. Is this normal for this to be done (less than a week ago i turned in the report). Should I be concerned or am I over reacting.

Mainly I would just like to know if i did something wrong and what I should do to correct it in the future.

If you haven't seen or been told that your shop was rejected, don't worry about it. It may be that the June cycle is now posted and you picked up a late May cycle shop. There is one company that seems to keep the shops on their board accepting backup shoppers until the client accepts the report. So I know that odd gut wrench when you go check the board and "your" shop is still there.

We always worry about the shops that were either poor reviews or in which you could not get folks in the store to do what they are supposed to do. I had two such shops this past weekend was highly relieved to see that one has been accepted without further question. I have not yet heard anything about the other shop so am about ready to exhale.

I gave a coffee shop a bad review and they posted the location again two days later. I was still paid. the shop asked for a specific drink to be ordered, which I did, but I was given the wrong one and the employee was texting on her cell phone.

Poor reviews are the most difficult and time consuming to write. Most MSPs will send notice of rejection, or rating comments. Hopefully, you have either received something from the MSP or can check your history in their site for status of your report.

Lots of times, numerous shops are scheduled for the same location within a defined period of time. Maybe the shop you're seeing is not a re-post, but simply another post for another point of view.

I did a fast food shop that got a very poor rating from me. I felt bad, but I was telling the truth as I was paid to do.

If a company is setting up mystery shopping services, is'nt it normally because they are aware there are problems with customer service? I don't see how shoppers can be critized for telling the truth.

Hope that doesn't sound too negative! The poor rating I gave was actually the only one I've ever given. I mostly have good experiences with store staff when doing shops!

There are, of course, a variety of reasons for companies to have shops done. I remember one a bunch of years ago that was for a company with a nationwide presence. I was interested in the shops because I had that company's stock in my retirement IRA, and they had not been doing well. A new CEO was brought in about a year before the shops began appearing.

The first several rounds of shops I did were so tight in their requirements that it would be virtually impossible for any retail establishment to get a good score. Over the months, the guidelines for how to answer the same questions became more and more lax, so 'good reports' were more and more easily attained even though nothing in the store environment had changed.

Came time for the annual report and the new CEO cited 'independent research' as having shown huge increases in customer satisfaction. He proceeded to award himself and his colleagues obscenely large bonuses for the 'improvements' they had brought about. I sold the stock very quickly on this 'good news' because I felt I knew how that improved 'independent research' came about. Sure enough, not too long after that the stock tanked because there was no improvement in sales or margins to go along with all that 'customer satisfaction'.

There are also shops that are to protect the image of the franchise. There may or may not be problems with customer service but rather an interest in making certain that locations are doing what they agreed to do to protect the brand image.

There are many and diverse reasons to perform shops.

Sometimes competitors request mystery shops on rivals too.

AnonymousGirl Wrote:
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> I gave a coffee shop a bad review and they posted
> the location again two days later. I was still
> paid. the shop asked for a specific drink to be
> ordered, which I did, but I was given the wrong
> one and the employee was texting on her cell
> phone.


I think I know this MSC (which I like and work for). I had to give the coffee shop a so so review, and they were not happy, my grading went from a 10 to a 8. I have not been offered that location again, and it is in my town (3 miles).