shopperpro

On one memorable occasion I had a series of 9 stores to do in one day. I had my little route all mapped, instructions firmly clamped to the clipboard, and for once I was very organized. I went to the first location early in the day all ready to do and it was closed! As in closed permanently - well crap! What now? I double-checked the address and sure enough it was the right one. Undaunted I went to the second location - closed! You’ve got to be kidding me here. Yup - it’s the right address - well isn’t this odd. Third location and wouldn’t you know it this one was open. Since this was a revealed type of shop I didn’t have to worry about keeping my ’secret’ identity from the associate and chatted him up while I was doing my checks. I casually mentioned that I had already been to two locations and found out that they were closed. The associate replied, “Yeah they’ve been closing a bunch of stores lately.” Hmm…So I might make it to my other six locations and they might be closed? Let’s see if I can save myself some time here - I asked the associate if he knew which ones were closed. Hah! He did. In five minutes I was able to save myself some wasted time. Yes, I still got paid for the closed locations. After the initial trauma this was one of the easiest mystery shopping assignments I’ve had.

Now could I have saved myself some time by calling the locations in advance? Possibly - but if the store is closed it is conceivable that the voice mail was still picking up with a message that they were still in business. It’s also possible that the voicemail stated that the store was closed. Since I didn’t make the calls I can’t say for sure, but again, this is another reason to make your pre-calls to the location that you are mystery shopping even when one is not specified.

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