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When I tell people that I am in the mystery shopping business, more often than not I get a response like “Oh, I love to shop! I would be great at it!” or “My spouse is always saying why our food wasn’t seasoned to his liking at restaurants. We should be shoppers for you!”.Not a good start!A better beginning would be “I always am noticing all the small details when I go somewhere” or “I love to write and I think I am pretty good it”.Mystery shopping is not really about “shopping” per se; it’s about following directions and making objective observations while blending into the crowd unnoticed, and then transcribing those observations using accurate and descriptive words, and doing so on a timely basis.So what specifically is a mystery shop?It is an objective snapshot of a customer’s experience during a single occasion in the past which has been recorded for others to read or view.Tens of thousands of companies, government agencies and associations hire market research companies like ours to measure how well their employees are adhering to operational and customer service policies. We in turn use hundreds of thousands of independent contractors to select and qualify for these assignments and carry them out on our behalf.Here is what is required to be a successful mystery shopper:The ability to follow directions without any deviation.The ability to secretly make a series of specific objective observations while posing as an ordinary customer.The ability to accurately transcribe your objective observations vividly so that anyone reading your account of things can virtually see, hear, smell and/or taste your experience through your writing.The ability to respect deadlines and to provide your report on time or ahead of schedule.Notice I didn’t say anything about looking for bargains or why the bolognese sauce was too bland. Companies are not looking for people to buy things or be a restaurant critic; they are looking for people to accurately and objectively record specific criteria.Here is an example of what I mean. On a recent shop, the evaluator was supposed to observe cash-handling and pouring habits at a club bar. While that information was provided on the report as expected, the evaluator added all kinds of commentary about the design and decor of the club. There were no questions asking about those things on the form - put another way, the client didn’t ask us to measure those elements, and frankly doesn’t care what our evaluators think of them. As a result, the evaluator probably spent a fair amount of time to write that information up; and while the rest of the report was fine and submitted, all those comments about decor were removed before sending to the client.Another recent otherwise excellent restaurant shop that came back to us included comments about the dark and dated feel for the restrooms. The questions that the client wanted answered where, “were the restrooms clean?” and “were the restrooms well-stocked?”. They didn’t asked about feel or other status of the restrooms. I’m sure the restaurant owners know that when cash-flow is right, they will need to update the restrooms, but they didn’t ask for feedback on that. Those comments were struck.On the same report, there was commentary about how the evaluator preferred to marinate his shrimp in lime juice before frying. Let me say this is the nicest, yet most direct way: the client doesn’t give a crap how you like your shrimp when you make it at home! The client asked, “Was your hot entree served hot?” Again, none of us are looking for restaurants critics to offer cooking suggestions; just answer the question that was asked. Those extraneous comments were struck.So if you are still interested, how do you become a mystery shopper and how does it work?First, you must sign up with market research companies who do this type of work. There are about 150 in the US and over 500 worldwide. The more you sign up with, the more opportunities you will be made aware of to choose from. But how do you know if a company is legitimate? There is a very safe and simple answer.MSPA is the international trade association for mystery shopping and other customer experience measurement. There are three chapters: Americas, Europe & Africa, and Asia/Pacific. Each chapter has two representative delegates who serve on the MSPA Global Board. MSPA vets and verifies as legitimate every market research member company of each region.You can go the MSPA website (www.mysteryshop.org), search for companies to sign up with using the link from the MSPA website.Why is this important?As you have probably heard, disgusting scammers prey upon people who want to be mystery shoppers and rip them off for thousands of dollars each year (more on that at the end of this post). Many even steal the logos and names of legitimate companies to trick people. Linking to a site directly from MSPA guarantees you are going to the real legitimate, vetted market research company.Once on a company’s site, you can sign up to be an evaluator or shopper or field agent (all the same; companies use different names to describe them). You will likely need to provide a writing sample (hint: write one up and copy and paste it on every application, perfectly fine to use the same one on all your applications) and answer a lot of personal questions. This is because sometimes the clients want a certain demographic to participate, just like any other market research study. So you might need to have a certain credit score (could be high or could be low), drive a certain make of car, have a certain household income level or be in a certain age group.You will also be asked for social security number. You will not become an employee of the company, as is defined in labor law, but you will be an independent contractor, and any compensation paid you must be reported to the IRS; thus you need to give a tax ID number. Many serious mystery shoppers apply for a free EIN number from the government and use that instead. An EIN is like a social security number for a business. Believe or not, the minute you take and complete your first assignment, you are a business yourself as a sole proprietor, so you are able to track (if you like) your mystery shopping income separately by using an EIN instead of your SSN.Also as an independent contractor, you work when and as much as you want. In other words, you only take the assignments that you want. Shops are not arbitrarily assigned to you. You ask for it (and get assigned it) or you self-assign, but no one just drops one in your email and says “Hey this due on Friday”. That said, of course when you do make a commitment to complete a shop, you are on the hook for following through unless you notify your scheduler in advance and make other arrangements.As I said before, sign up with many companies if you are going to do this work. Why? The more companies you sign up with, the more opportunities you will see to choose from. And don’t just sign up with companies in your area or state. We all have national clients or clients from other parts of the country. So even though our company is in Orlando, Florida, only about 12% of our client base is local to Florida.The other reason why is it is good to sign up with many companies is the more work you do, the better shopper/evaluator you are likely to become as you gain experience. So the market research company providers (called MSPs in the industry) don’t try to horde their shoppers; we actively encourage our shoppers to work for as many companies as they choose to in order to better their skill set.Once you apply to a company, you will likely have access to their open opportunities. Most companies have an opportunity board on their website or app; some send them out periodically via email, and many do both. MSPA has its own free opportunity board, and there are many Facebook pages which schedulers, looking to find evaluators, place their opportunities there. Some are generic and some are specific to a region, like Mystery Shopping Florida, which only lists open assignments in the Sunshine State from multiple companies looking to fill gigs in Florida. Many companies also have their own Facebook page for evaluators, like ours is CX Orlando Evaluators, where we also post most of our opportunities.Sometimes you can “self-assign” a shop; other times you can request a shop, but a scheduler will have to assign it to you. In most instances, when you are starting out you will NOT be able to self-assign with any company until you have completed a number of shops reliably and on-time. Once you are a known and proven great shopper, then your status is generally opened up to where you can pick and snag the gigs you like, and then off you go.Don’t be discouraged if it takes a little while for you to land assignments with MSPs. You are an unknown to them. Granted you could be the best evaluator they will ever use at some point, but today you’re just a name and email address on a roster of tens or even hundreds of thousands. Be patient; you will eventually get an email or phone call, and when you do, do your very best so that your name rises on the company’s list of independent contractors!Don’t quit your day job to become a professional mystery shopper! These opportunities generally pay between $5 - $20/assignment; some harder ones will pay more (but don’t even think about taking one until you’ve done a bunch of easier shops), and some are reimbursement only for required purchases that you get to keep. There are some evaluators, known in the industry as “route shoppers”, who do this full-time; they pick up a ton of shops and drive the country knocking them out. They usually have some hotel shops mixed in to save on expenses. Again, this is for veteran shoppers who have become well known and trusted by the MSP community. These shoppers do the work full-time and, because of the volume of shops that they do, they can make a living at it. But these folks are a microscopic fraction of the millions of people worldwide doing mystery shopping, and it requires a total commitment. For instance, I visited recently with a route shopper from Virginia had been on the road for about three weeks straight.I think we are the only company in the industry at the moment that also awards Sunny Perks Rewards loyalty points for completing good assignments and for a few other things, like referrals or games and contests that we play with our evaluators from time to time. Accumulated points can be redeemed for gift cards and other discounts.Once given an assignment, your scheduler may review it with you, or you may have to study the requirements on your own and reach out to the scheduler with any questions. Almost all companies issue a project scope and the form to be filled out with each gig. The project scope is extremely important and will outline the client’s requirements for completing the shop, including days, times and how to go about doing the shop to meet their requirements. Think of a mystery shopping project scope as similar to being hired as a handyman, and the customer gives you your to-do list and the times and days that you can come over to do the work.You study the details of the form and then go do your shop. Sometimes the report is emailed back to the company; most times the data is entered online or via your phone, if it is a simpler shop. Often you may have to upload a receipt, if there was a required (and reimbursed) purchase, or a business card to validate that you were actually there, as fraud goes both ways in this business, unfortunately.Hopefully you have done a well-written report (using full noun-verb sentences when writing narratives or short answers, and paying attention to capitalization, grammar and spelling rules) that has followed the client’s directions and answered every question completely, and submitted that to the MSP along with any required documentation. If your report is good, you may hear nothing, as companies literally have thousands of reports coming in every day. If there is a problem or a clarification needed on the report, an editor will reach out to you for more information (and get back to them ASAP!). You don’t want that to happen too often…otherwise you will start seeing that you are no longer being scheduled for assignments by that company.Most companies pay within 30 days, and the standard is to pay electronically (via Paypal, etc.). Remember any shop fee that you receive is reportable income to the IRS; any reimbursement for meals or other required purchases are not income and do not need to be reported. You will get a 1099 form to use on your taxes if you have accumulated over $600 in income from any particular company in a given year. You may or may not get one for earning less than that (companies are not required to send them), but you are still required to report that income whether you received a 1099 or not.Please note: if you did not follow directions and your shop cannot be used, you will not get paid. MSPs don’t want to reject shops; the goals is to provide the end client with what they asked for, and they are counting on you to do that. If you don’t, the client will not accept the report, the MSP will not get paid, and you don’t get paid. You may also get dropped from ever being used again.Also, don’t even think about “flaking”. Flaking is accepting a shop, and then not doing it. People are counting you…you made a commitment. If something comes up, companies understand, but you must reach out in advance to let them know so that they have a chance to re-schedule the shop with someone else. Just not doing the evaluation without any reasonable prior notice will get you banned from ever getting an assignment from that company again.A note on scams. The most popular scam is to send you a check, unsolicited, i.e., out of the blue (not from a company that you are working for) for several thousand dollars; they tell you to go evaluate Wal-Mart or Best Buy or some other national chain and maybe give you a simple bogus form. They’ll tell you to make a purchase at those places, fill out the forms, etc. They tell you to use the funds from the check they sent you to cover those purchases, and then send the rest, usually about $2300-$2500, back to them as a wire transfer while you evaluate Western Union.Then guess what? Their very authentic looking check that they sent you and you cashed has come back as fraudulent at your bank and bounced. You are out $2500 and have $500 worth of junk from Wal-Mart that you didn’t need.There is very little that can be done when this happens. One of the most depressing things I ever heard was the state attorney general of Georgia say “I don’t know why anyone puts on a mask to rob a bank anymore, when you can sit in your underwear in your basement and rip off Georgians and I just don’t have the manpower to track down $2500 dollar thefts like that”.So never cash an unsolicited check, even if it looks like it is from a legitimate company. Nobody mails out thousands of dollars to strangers and trusts that they will do the right thing!You must first apply to a legitimate company, be accepted as a shopper, do the work properly, and then you will get paid. That is how it works, and only how it works in the real mystery shopping world.Also never pay to be a shopper. This is less common, but there are some who will sell you a directory of mystery shopping companies. You can get a current list of vetted, legitimate market research companies who use mystery shoppers for free on the MSPA website. Also, MSPA bans any of its members from charging evaluators to do mystery shopping.There are official industry certification courses that you can take (but are usually never required by an MSP - they simply advance your understanding of the industry and make you more attractive to MSPs for the better assignments as earning certifications demonstrates your commitment to honing and advancing your craft as an evaluator). These are offered by MSPA and can be found at their website. They run about $35 a course. There are about a dozen courses, but the three basic courses of Intro to Mystery Shopping, Professional Report Writing, and Professional Responsibility & Ethics must be completed before taking the advanced courses in things like Fine Dining, Brand Auditing, Banking and Financial Institutions, Retail, Video, QSR and others. Courses can be taken online or in-person at the annual evaluator conference, ShopperFest.On that note, ShopperFest is the annual conference for mystery shoppers which is put on by MSPA. It is a weekend of informative broad industry sessions (how to get better gigs; changes in the tax laws to save you money as an independent contractor, etc.) and specialized breakout tracks with topics for new/beginning evaluators and veteran evaluators. Optional certification courses are also offered on-site, and it is wrapped around a number of fun networking events, hosted by the owners and executives of many of the MSPA-member companies who provide mystery shopping services. Registration includes all education sessions (except course certifications), most of the meals, the opening night reception party and entertainment. There is a new video track added this year just for evaluators who want to specialize in video mystery shopping.ShopperFest 2019 will be held in Pittsburgh from June 28–30 this year. You can read more information on the conference here, and this year’s agenda can be found here.Mystery shopping is a great side gig if you enjoy writing and can follow details and directions. I left the “glamorous worlds” of network television and professional sports a decade ago to get into this industry, first on the side as a shopper, and then as an MSP. It’s been fascinating to learn so much about other industries and businesses and the evolving culture of customer experience around the world.Pretty much every industry you can think of does mystery shopping, including restaurants, retail stores, banks, medical facilities, theaters, sports teams, golf courses, city/county governments, car dealerships, new homes and apartment complexes, universities, law firms, online businesses, transportation, theme parks and attractions, homes services and many others.Finally I would say, here’s who does not make a good mystery shopper:I hate to writeI hate to be constrained by following directions and want to do my own thingI don’t consider myself very observant or pay attention to detailIf any of those are a match, this is not the thing for you!Mystery shopping is a fascinating side gig, being enjoyed on a daily basis by literally millions of people each day throughout the world. If this sounds like something interesting to you, I encourage you to go to the MSPA website and starting getting your applications in and become a part of those millions of people who are making a difference in customer experience every day (and making a little extra cash or enjoying a great meal on the side)!