|
What is
Mystery Guest, Inc.?
Mystery Guest,
Inc. is a national market research company headquartered in Winter Park,
Florida. Established in 1992, the
company provides mystery shopping services for select Fortune 500
companies. Check out the “About Us”
section to learn more.
How can
I contact Mystery Guest, Inc.?
You can reach us
by telephone, fax and e-mail.
Toll free
telephone numbers
|
Voice Line
Fax Number
|
800-777-3882
800-322-3375
|
E-mail
addresses
Support (for
technical issues related to the Web site)
support@mysteryguestinc.com
Customer Service
(any shopper issue)
shopper@mysteryguestinc.com
When can
I reach a “real person” at Mystery Guest, Inc.?
We do receive a
high volume of calls and some may be routed through our voice mail system when
the operator is busy, but if you leave a detailed message with your area code
and telephone number and the best time to return your call we guarantee a
response no later than the next business day.
Our
operating hours are:
Monday -Thursday, 9:00am to 9pm EST
Friday, 9:00am to 5pm EST
Saturday and Sunday, 10:00pm to 5:00pm EST
Our offices will
be closed for major holidays.
What is
mystery shopping?
Mystery shopping
is a common practice in many industries to assess customer service
performance. At Mystery Guest,
Inc., we recruit individuals who meet our clients’ specified profiles to enjoy a
typical customer experience. The
only thing “unusual” about your mystery shopping experience compared to any
other time you might visit the establishment is that after your visit you will
answer specific questions and share your impressions about the experience in the
observation survey. Mystery
shoppers NEVER reveal their identity as a participant in the program as this
anonymity ensures you are receiving typical service. Our clients use multiple observations on
different days and at different times of day to develop an overview of how
specific employees, locations and their company are performing.
How do I register to be a mystery shopper?
How do I refer friends and family to mystery
shopping?
Mystery Guest,
Inc. requires all interested individuals to log on to our Web site at www.mysteryguestinc.com to complete the
shopper registration process in full.
You must have e-mail to participate.
When do
I get my PIN, username and password?
Your PIN
(personal identification number) is an exclusive number assigned to you by
Mystery Guest at the time you register.
You do not need to remember it.
You can select your own username and password (something easy for you to
remember) during the registration process.
Your selection will be honored as long as it is not already being used in
our system (if already taken you will be prompted to try another).
When and
how often will I be called?
Most registrants
will be called within a few weeks to verify their information. It is not unusual though for more time
to pass before we call to “activate” your profile in our system pending the
number of mystery shopping assignments in your area and the number of
registration responses. After your
profile has been activated, a Mystery Guest scheduler may call to learn your
availability for a mystery shopping assignment in your area. Mystery Guest shoppers may not
participate more than 6 times a year, so our contacts will be limited.
How do I know if there is a location in my area for mystery
shopping?
Are all mystery shopping assignments
at restaurants?
We’ll contact
you when your profile matches one of our assignments, but a quick visit to your
Close Locations option in your profile will also provide you with some details
in this regard. Our client
industries and locations are expanding rapidly…so be sure to update your profile
when your address, telephone or e-mail changes.
Do I
need to fax in my observation form and receipt?
We no longer
require the routine faxing of receipts and all observation surveys are completed
on the Web site using your username and password for access. Some shoppers may be asked to fax in
their receipt as verification and all shoppers are cautioned to keep their
receipts handy until after they receive their Mystery Guest reimbursement check,
sent six weeks after your visit.
What
should I do if I can’t complete my observation visit?
Contact us
immediately! We are required to
complete observations at nearly every location daily. Your inability to complete the
assignment requires us to quickly find a replacement. Please note that any cancellation
without reasonable cause will affect your Mystery Guest profile and dramatically
lowers the odds of future assignments.
When and how will I receive my reimbursement and is it
“taxable”?
Will I receive any travel
expenses?
Mystery Guest
shoppers are not employees and travel expenses are not provided. As shoppers typically dine out
frequently, the reimbursement is like a “coupon” to underwrite the experience
they might have enjoyed even without the assignment. Tax documentation is not required for
reimbursements of this nature and dollar amount.
Is the
Mystery Guest Web site secure?
Yes! We subscribe to VeriSign to ensure
complete Internet security for our shoppers. You can click on the VeriSign icon
displayed on this Web site to learn more about the protection they
provide.
Why must I check the guidelines before my observation
visit?
What time should I go to the
restaurant and whom should I take?
The guidelines
are very important! You will learn
when to arrive, what to look for, what to order and other important tips that
ensure you complete your observation correctly to be reimbursed. At least one of your dining companions
should be an adult (21 years of age or older) and it is recommended that you
leave small children at home when you have agreed to be a mystery shopper ---
you’ll want to avoid distractions so you can focus on the details of your
experience to share in your observation survey. Remember that no one under the age of 21
may sit at a restaurant bar.
Why must I complete my observation by 10am the next day?
What are the “best practices” for completing my observation and the
observation form?
How much should I write about my
visit?
It is important
for you to meet the observation completion deadline for two reasons: (1) so that
the visit details will still be fresh for you to share and (2) to provide our
clients with feedback in a timely manner that supports their training efforts.
The guidelines, which you should always review in advance of your visit on this
Web site, provide you with all the details necessary to complete the observation
successfully: arrival time, who to take, items to order, details to observe
etc. If you follow these
guidelines, remain observant during an otherwise typical dining experience and
then promptly complete the observation survey, you’ll find it easy to provide
the appropriate detail in the text portions of the survey. Expressive adjectives and specific
details greatly enhance your observation survey. For instance, if your service was
particularly quick and attentive you should state that and provide an example
(“our server brought our drinks out quickly and refilled the water glasses
regularly without being asked”). A
“great meal” might be a fair assessment of your visit, but “We enjoyed a great
meal because our server anticipated our needs and the quality and preparation of
all our entrees was exceptional.
The presentation of each plate was so attractive and unique. I have never enjoyed a better portion of
grouper.” provides the reader with a fuller picture of your experience. If something was less than ideal during
your observation, it is important to detail those issues too. Writing in complete sentences, using
proper grammar and correct spelling and using upper and lower case letter also
enhance your observation text.
What is Mystery
Guest's privacy policy for registered shoppers?
Mystery Guest, Inc. will not
sell, rent or trade its lists of shoppers. Shoppers' personal information,
such as addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses are held in a secure
database that is accessed only by Mystery Guest, Inc. Similarly,
demographic and habit/frequency information such as date of birth and household
income are confidential with data considered "in total" to describe our shopper
database as a whole (i.e. 55% of our shoppers eat out at tables service
restaurants more than 7 times each month). We never request banking or
credit information.
For anyone visiting www.mysteryguestinc.com, our web server does automatically
collect some general information about your visit to our site. If you do nothing
during your visit to our web site but read pages or download information, we will
record your domain name but not your e-mail address. Other information we collect
(such as the number of hits, pages visited, type of browser and length of user
session) is used for statistical analysis and to help us make our site more useful.
Like most sites, we use "cookies" to help you use our web site interactively. A
cookie is a small file that a Web site temporarily transfers to your computer's
hard drive to help us identify you while you are visiting the site. The cookies
on our web pages do not collect personal information about you, but rather, about
your browser session. The cookie expires as soon as you close your browser. It
is not permanently stored on your computer.
|
