Written by Barbry-Ellen Booth, Scheduling Manager
What is it?
Every mystery shopping company has their own, individual shopper rating system. They do not carry over from one company to the next. Shoppers can find their average rating in the upper right-hand side of their shop log.
All new Customer Impact shoppers start off with a default rating of 5. The schedulers are aware of this, so don’t worry about having a low rating. If you do well on your first shop, your rating will go up!
Every report is evaluated and given a rating by the editor. Ratings can also be added to the shopper’s shop log in the form of a citation. Although citation might sound negative, there are good citations, bad citations and neutral citations. Each rating in a shopper’s shop log is averaged together to formulate the average shopper rating. The maximum rating a shopper can receive is a 10. 10 is perfection, meaning the report required no revisions from the shopper and no questions from the editor. The lowest rating a shopper can receive is a 1.
What can affect my rating?
There are many things that can affect your shopper rating, but here are a few examples:
- Submitting a late report without contacting us.
- Accepting a shop and then not completing it, never contacting us.
- Poorly written report.
- Copying/pasting comments from another report or sample comments.
- Not following guideline instructions.
- Falsifying information on a report.
Why should I care?
Your shopper rating determines what shops you qualify for. Since we cannot personally interview every shopper, we must rely on ratings and past performances in order to determine who gets what shops. Retail and fast-food shops are often assigned to new shoppers (rating of 5) to get them started. The fine dining shops are more of a reward for the shoppers with a high rating (9 or 10 preferably). All shoppers are encouraged to keep their rating at 8 or above in order to be considered for most shops that we offer. When reviewing applications, the higher your shopper rating, the greater your chances are of being selected for one of those types of shops.
What can I do to ensure a high rating?
- Submit your report on time, within the deadline provide by us
- If you have extenuating circumstances that prevent you from completing your report within the reporting deadline, contact the scheduler immediately.
- Use the sample comments we provide as a guideline when writing your narrative. The comments show exactly the type of narrative we’re looking for.
- Write original comments! Do not copy and paste anything from a previous report or from the sample comments.
- Follow the instructions in your guidelines and shop comments exactly as written. If you have questions regarding the guidelines or are confused by something, contact our office immediately for clarification.
- Never falsify information in a report. The report should state the facts of exactly what happened while on the shop, both the good and the bad.
- If you receive a request from an editor asking for clarification or to make revisions to your report, contact the editor ASAP. If the editor sends you an email, reply back directly to the email. If the editor calls you, call the editor back as soon as you can.
- Use any feedback you receive from our staff regarding a submitted report to improve upon your next report. Just because a shopper gets a rating of 8 on one report doesn’t mean they can’t improve and get a 9 or 10 on their next report!
Have you ever received a low shopper rating from a company, but were given no explanation as to why?
Has feedback on past reports from other mystery shopping companies helped you improve your report writing skills?