Even though mystery shopping has been around for more than 70 years, many people have never heard of this type of service. As you will discover, becoming a mystery shopper is easy, it produces a little bit of income, and gives you an opportunity to help businesses improve overall customer satisfaction. Working with a reputable company, one that employees the mystery shopper, you will have an avenue for getting out and earning some income.

Your goal as a mystery shopper is simple - you are there to ultimately improve the company. As a mystery shopper you undertake assignments which will ask you to evaluate certain aspects of a business. You could be trying to see how friendly the staff are, how they deal with a complaint for example, or you could be evaluating how easy it is to find a particular product. Once you have gone into a business and done your evaluation, you will then have to fill out a form to record your findings. Once you have sent that to the company which hired you, they will analyze the findings and provide a plan to the business owner on how they can improve.

While the overall goal is the same among all mystery shoppers, the methods that are used and the overall strategy that is employed may differ based upon the specific businesses that are selected to shop. For example, the process of mystery shopping would be different in a restaurant than in a hotel.

Additionally, a mystery shopper will be reimbursed for his/her services in several ways. Typically, anything having to do with the hospitality field, such as hotels, restaurants, or fast-food places, would provide a reimbursement to a set figure. For example, you might be asked to shop a restaurant, which in return, would reimburse you for your meal up to $20 to $50, depending on the price of the menu items. However, many other shops will pay a flat fee. Keep in mind that some assignments provide the mystery shopper both, reimbursing for a service and/or product purchased, as well as a small fee.

The requirements of a mystery shopper include being honest, confidential, and having a high level of integrity. You would also be required to have transportation, speak English unless a bilingual shop is needed, and complete the shop anonymously. Sometimes, a company will ask the mystery shopper to bring a cell phone or digital camera. However, if you do not own one or both of these items, we are now finding several of the larger mystery shopping companies loaning the items to the mystery shopper for the assignment. It is also required in most cases that the mystery shopper be a minimum of 18 or 21 years of age.

The last key set of skills that a mystery shopper should possess would be strong communication along with strong listening skills so that you can engage in dialogue with the people within the business that you are shopping. To compliment your communication ability, the ability to be professional can also play an important role when you are performing the role of a mystery shopper.