Friday, January 11, 2013

Using a Smartphone when Mystery Shopping

A smartphone can really make your job mystery shopping easy. I invested in one a few years ago and it has greatly helped me when performing shops. Instead of secretly having to write notes on pieces of paper, you have all of the tools that you need right at your fingertips to perform a good shop. The type of smartphone that I use is an iPhone. With my iPhone I'm able to:
  • Save money on printing shop instructions by saving them to my phone and reviewing before going in to complete a shop
  • Using the phone to take notes while shopping
  • Using the camera on the phone to take photos for shops
  • Being able to record times (with the stop watch function when timing during shops)
  • Using the voice recorder in order to record some interactions to make sure that I'm as accurate as possible when performing shops
  • Begin entering shops (depends on the system-works well with Sassie shops)
  • Use apps that prove that I'm in the location that I say that I am when performing shops
A smartphone(or tablet like iPad which I use as well for some shops) is a great investment that can help you to perform shops and enter them a LOT quicker (which in turn makes your job easier). Some of the specific iPhone apps that I use when mystery shopping are (some of these come standard on the iPhone):
  • The Calendar (I sync it with Google Calendar so that I know each day what shops I will perform)
  • Notepad: I quickly jot down names and descriptions in this app. Everybody nowadays texts so when you're on a shop and begin typing on your phone it easily looks like you're texting.
  • Stopwatch: for recording times
  • Camera: for taking required photos when a time-stamp is not required for the shop photos
  • Voice Recorder: when I need to listen for specific things to be said and want to write a better account of how things happened, I walk in with the voice recorder on
  • Internet Browser: where you can quickly pull up shop information if you have forgotten something while on the shop (again can be passed off as texting)
Again, a smartphone is a really great investment for mystery shopping. Because you are an independent contractor (in most all cases) when mystery shopping, you can write off a portion of your smartphone expenses (consult a tax professional for specifics).
Thanks for reading! Please comment below!

No comments:

Post a Comment