What does the future hold for the Mystery Shopping business?

The people whom we're hired to report on, are being replaced by automation and AI, so that work vanishes over time.
The people that oversee the work, seek to protect each other, so we'll never be hired to report on them.
It's pretty simple lol.

PS/the UPS stores near me are replacing employees with self serve stations...just another example.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/2024 04:08PM by BarefootBliss.

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AI cameras are increasingly smart and can report employee output from recordings. Secret shopping will dwindle overtime and only constitute meagre assignments of only reimbursement or tiny profit.
Another sign that sticks out for me is that I have been MSing for 7 years. In that time, while the rest of the world speeds by, the MS community uses the same tired tech tools - no investments in the future are being made. If there's no investment, it's because no one sees a future value for it.
I've always enjoyed the digital shops like e-commerce, screenshots of purchase to check-out, online banking and investing platforms, and food delivery. The starting pay tends to be fair. It can get bonused if you have access to a certain platform that not many in your market have. Some of the clients and programs are very well organized. Well I take that back, the food delivery shops tend to be lower pay due to the convenience factor. I wish there were more shops like these available.

I guess the one thing a MSC can do is ensure the professionalism, validity, and timeliness of actionable and structured feedback. Also, as more services are becoming more subscription-based, there are some programs with long-term studies.

Some locations have shifted towards an entire self-checkout model. However, someone always needs to be on duty to oversee. The report may be shifted to evaluate a scenario involving the employee. Also, at one Panda Express, the location has done very well with using AI at the menu board to take orders. It does not interfere with existing employees.

For MSCs and shoppers, the shopper experience can be more modernized. I won't nitpick much in this area. As an example, I will pick on the MSC that has Kroger, when Kroger moved to the new MSC. The new MSC's platform was not ideal for reports with a large amount of questions. You had to continually click next for the next set of two to five questions. Also, as questions got updated, it was just a long list of answer choices with cluttered checkboxes. If there was some time invested, it could be less wordy and organized by a navigation pane for different sections.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2024 10:51PM by Okie.
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