Mystery shopping, however, is not a way to trick or punish employees, but rather a means to measure the efficiency of the customer service they provide. Mystery shopping is a flexible and inexpensive method to boost consumer satisfaction with company services and to ultimately increase sales.

Many companies have established mystery shopping services to recruit secret shoppers for their partner companies. Some have questioned the reliability of these services, as the findings that mystery shoppers report largely depend on their value-judgment and unique perspective. However, these arguments have been refuted by the advocates of mystery shopping with the fact that mystery shoppers are ordinary consumers as anyone else. There is hardly any better alternative for assessing customer services, namely because mystery shoppers act so truthfully and closely to a real consumer visit that they cannot be recognized by staff and other customers.

Mystery shopping, however, is not an uncontrolled experiment with company staff. Mystery shopping has now been furnished with ethical guidelines, quality requirements, standard procedures and good practices that have to be followed by each mystery shopper. Building a reputation as a mystery shopper derives namely from the observance of these ethical prescriptions, and ensures experienced shoppers many quality, high-paying job offers.

Recruiting mystery shoppers is not that super easy as it seems, though. Picking the mystery shopper that will best embody your customer requires some selection. Employers should determine what aspects of their service will be targeted in order to choose the scenario and select the shopper that will best accomplish the goals of the shop, while providing quality, reliable feedback. Depending on the merchandise or nature of their services, employers have to pick a mystery shopper with a profile that promises to perform best shop on the company’s premises.

In response to the skyrocketing demand for mystery shoppers, online job sites have emerged, hiring mystery shoppers for various small and medium-sized businesses. It has proven a very reasonable undertaking, as these online job resources maintain large databases with job seeker resumes. Employers can browse and search for the mystery shopper that best matches their requirements. Mystery shopping is now largely popular both among job seekers and employers, as it is a viable option to research the market, increase revenues and attract more customers with improved service. Mystery shopping is also a very good job alternative for online freelancers, because it brings great rewards and cash incentives, while taking little of their free time.