Outted as a shopper at hotel

I had a mattress shop where the salesman recognized me. I claimed innocence, and he was unconvinced. He did his routine. I reported that I had been outed to the scheduler. I was paid but did not submit a report. I was blocked from the assignments. About a year later, I responded to an email from the scheduler for a bonused shop at the same location. She reinstated me. I stated that I would self-exclude. I went to the same location with a different salesperson. Successful. Before going to that location, I'll make the required phone call, find out who is working, and if I had not shopped them before, will pick up that location and complete the shop that day.

I have used self-exclusion in a number of shops.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230

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More About Hotel Mystery Shopping

@metro25782 wrote:

I could have gotten a new toaster out of the deal! (Also shows how old I am).

Yes the new toaster really gives you away. My parents had an attic full of new toasters, sets of pots, electric can openers etc. all being saved until my brothers and I got married. All these were from bank accounts. When I was old enough to have my own apt I told my mom I could use a new toaster now, not at some time in the future when I got married. After many years of bachelorette status she finally gave in.

But on the point of AI taking over our jobs....I am interested to know how that would work. A computer or robot goes into a restaurant and orders one drink per person and an entree and dessert to share and then writes a report? How does the computer know what details to put in the report. I can understand how it might shorten the time necessary to write up the report and thereby lessen the fee, but how does AI get the timings and mistakes for the job? Perhaps because I am old enough to know about toasters from banks I cannot foresee how this would work.

@myst4au wrote:

I assume that you did not admit that you were a shopper. Once in a great while, I have been "accused" of being a mystery shopper. My response is that I don't think that I am mysterious at all, and I ask them why they think I am mysterious. Some of them just apologize, and some explain what a mystery shopper is.

I was only reported once to an MSC, by a pizza chain that was notorious about 10 years ago for reporting shoppers. I think that any place that suspects they are serving a mystery shopper should just go into "do everything correct mode" to earn high scores. All the pizza chain did was guarantee that someone new would order pizza the next month. I never went back on my dime.

I have a friend who was a waitress at a now-defunct restaurant chain. She claimed that they knew the rotating cast of mystery shoppers (never me) and just made sure that they did everything required for a perfect evaluation.

There was one teller at a bank where I shopped who I thought suspected me based on her actions. My solution was to go there even when I was out of rotation. It must have driven them crazy, but I got great service every time. It must baffled them to get reports when I was not there and to not get reports some of the time I was there. Eventually, they just treated me like everyone else.

There is a popular pizza chain. Starts with a G and ends with an I and there is an “R” in there as well. I was supposedly outed as a shopper and the MSC would not let me do the shop any more. It was the only good pizza in town for a while so it was doubly sucky.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with how we confirmed we broke the Japanese code in WWII but we sent out a fake message in the clear. They confirmed the information and used a code word to do so.

I sometimes wonder if it is a good strategy to report something that didn’t happen to sort of throw them off your trail if you think you’re being suspected. I don’t mean report bad service if you received good service. Say something like “I spilled my Diet Coke a little and Jenny the waitress cleaned it up immediately.” If that detail is mentioned to the staff and you didn’t have a spill...at least it will cause some confusion on their part.

Head fake to the history buff.

I am also ticked off with companies already using AI for their customer service online chat. I feel like I'm a genie pig teaching their AI how to help the customers because they never get it right. Even after 4-5 tries.

And I'll never understand how AI will replace person to person interactions.

@STL_shopper wrote:

@metro25782 wrote:

I really think that some companies use it as a way to drive sales for the franchisees when it comes to fast food.

I really don't understand how comments like this keep appearing in the forum from time to time. Do you really think that the $100-$200+ shop fee per shop the client pays somehow makes it a worthwhile expenditure to 'drive sales' to the franchisee or for corporate-owned locations? (with net income margins of maybe 5%, or getting a whopping 2% of sales franchise fee) And that 1-4 shops per month (depending on the company) amounts to anything even noticeable among the 1,000-3,000+ orders per month the location sees?

I don't disagree, but sometimes I think the possibility of us becoming return customers factors at least a little bit in their calculations.

"I sometimes wonder if it is a good strategy to report something that didn’t happen to sort of throw them off your trail if you think you’re being suspected. I don’t mean report bad service if you received good service. Say something like “I spilled my Diet Coke a little and Jenny the waitress cleaned it up immediately.” "

Isn't that the same as reporting a table was fully set with plates, napkins, and silverware when in reality it was not?

Or that the person answering the phone said " Hello welcome to Cozy Cottage, how may I help you this afternoon?" when the real greeting was " Hey!"??????

Yeah, don't take that advice.... if they review video and see you lied (about anything) you could (and should!) be banned. How can anyone trust the rest of your report if you lied?

@Rho* wrote:

"I sometimes wonder if it is a good strategy to report something that didn’t happen to sort of throw them off your trail if you think you’re being suspected. I don’t mean report bad service if you received good service. Say something like “I spilled my Diet Coke a little and Jenny the waitress cleaned it up immediately.” "

Isn't that the same as reporting a table was fully set with plates, napkins, and silverware when in reality it was not?

Or that the person answering the phone said " Hello welcome to Cozy Cottage, how may I help you this afternoon?" when the real greeting was " Hey!"??????

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Outted as a shopper at hotel

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