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Are Mystery Shopping Opportunities Worthwhile?

Mystery shopping can be a part-time or a fulltime occupation; however, it is uauly part-time and good assignment swith regular work can be hard to find. However, there are a few professional mystery shopping and survey companies that can help you to supplement your income while you are establishing other home businesses or when you are between jobs outside the home.

If you have spent any large of time on the Internet, you have been invited to participate in some sort of online survey. You might have ignored some emails, including some that offer Mystery Shopping work. Some of them are legitimate and offer real money and free goods and services besides. Go to Volition.com and find out about many legitimate Mystery Shopping companies that really do pay you what and when they say they will. Some pay within two weeks and some take 6 weeks, but they do pay. Do not ever pay THEM. Those on Volition will not ask for money or sell shopping directors. There are Internet surfers who earn hundreds of dollars monthly and earning lucrative rewards points through their participation? These individuals are aggressively signing up for surveys and methodically book marking the sites, keeping track of their submissions in an organized method of keeping a spreadsheet such as Excel.

Now, you might be the type of individual who just wants to earn a little extra money. Or perhaps you want to accumulate points that can be redeemed for gifts or money? Either way, there is a level of participation with survey offers that is just right for you.

The biggest issue with survey offers is deciding which offers are legitimate and which are appropriate for you.

Keep in mind that many surveys are targeting people that are 21 - 49 years old and some target teens. It seems that very few want to talk to 50+ year-olds because the marketing belief is that people over 50 have their minds made up and won't buy new things. The bigger truth is that they have likely seen most of the scams and less-effective products and services already and are jaded against some new ideas because they don't want to be scammed again. However, plenty of people over the age of 50 are eager to try new things. These seniors are often Baby-Boomers (born 1945 - 1964) and remember the they did and still do experimentation with a lot of things. They have not all "sold out to the man." NASA has even operated a space training program for seniors from 50 to 80+. One man and his son trained in that program and the story landed in the local news.

At any rate, I look for surveys to target older folks soon.

A search for "survey offers" or "mystery shopping" in a major search engine will yield a huge number of results: recently Google: 6,370,000 for the first and 1,210,000 for the second. Some companies had suspended using mystery shopping companies since the minimum wage increased, but they are coming back to it because mystery shopping and surveys both provide these benefits to companies:

• Effective ongoing monitoring of customer service levels.
• Opportunity to ensure one's organizational standards and policies are met or exceeded. Most companies want to exceed nowadays, through "continuous improvement."
• Ability to identify weaknesses in current client/shopping processes.
• Better understanding of the perceptions you are fostering among the public.
• Creation of an exceptional customer service focus, motivating staff to provide good customer service (possible through awards and incentives).
• Improvement of staff moral - as good customer service is recognized and rewarded and poor achievers are given training to help them improve. It is not meant to be an adversarial approach!
• Increase shopper/client recruitment and retention as a result of improved customer service and products.

The Significant Differences

It is important to differentiate between online survey offers and mystery/secret shopper opportunities, since there are clear differences.

Survey offers represent filling in online surveys based on feedback you can provide for products and services. Frequently these surveys are based on profile criteria that you establish with the marketing company.

Mystery or secret shoppers go to business establishments like movie theaters, restaurants, and retail stores and monitor service based on criteria that is given them by the mystery shopping company. These opportunities can also be very enjoyable since it is possible to visit restaurants for free food, see the latest movies, stay in a hotel and be reimbursed for the cost, etc.

Beginning the Right Way

There are some important criteria to follow when selecting survey offers in which you want to participate. Start by choosing a few sites that offer paid surveys and then read carefully what they are offering. Some sites will provide direct access to the marketing companies that put forth the surveys. Then browse the database and apply for the surveys you like. Some sites act as intermediaries -- the "go between" connecting the marketing company and the participant. These sites have agreements with large marketing companies from which they receive surveys. These sites distribute the surveys through registered users. In this case, you will have to wait for surveys to be sent to you to complete.

Not all paid surveys are actually cash paid surveys. Some surveys do not offer cash as a reward. They can offer a free product, a product sample, or a service, even discounts at certain merchants, or vouchers/coupons, free trials, or free 2-for-1s (take a friend with you free). There are also surveys that only hold a contest based upon the survey completion - these are hard to win.

How Do You Get the Money?

Another important criterion to consider is how you will receive the cash and who is paying. If you have joined a go-between site, you are usually paid by that site, not the one sending the survey. If you joined a database of companies seeking survey participants, you may be paid by the surveying company. Regardless, you should be aware of what the payment is and how you will get it. Some pay only through PayPal. Be sure to check your contact details very carefully. Make sure that your personal information matches what you originally submitted. The don't be surprised if you receive more junk mail and junk eMail regularly. Some companies provide your information to other companies, some do not. It will/should be in the fine print.

There are some fraudulent survey websites that attempt to lure you to participate in cash paid surveys, only to receive your personal financial information. Your personal financial information can later be sold to many other companies or used for Identity Theft.

Focus groups pay more than online surveys (single experience comparison), but you may not be able to find them in your area. They often advertise on Craigslist in the Jobs section.