How to become a mystery guest

How to become a mystery guest

As a mystery guest, AKA a silent customer, a mystery shopper, or a mystery diner, you will be asked to covertly call or visit businesses,  restaurants and pubs to experience the service, the food and other specific areas of the business. You will then be asked to complete a detailed on-line questionnaire.

Before you register...

Being a Silent Customer is a great job if you have good observation and written English skills and a constructive attitude. If they’re your natural strengths, it won’t take you too long to write a good quality report and it will feel like a fair and reasonable amount of work to put in for a free meal or drink.

Before you sign up, ask yourself honestly: Do I write very fluent, accurate and clear English? Am I a positive, objective person? Am I well organised and good at following instructions thoroughly? Am I known for being punctual, sticking to dates and times? If these are things your friends, colleagues and family would say about you, being a Silent Customer could be your perfect pastime.

If you want to ask other Silent Customers about us, you can join our Facebook forum.

Mystery Guest FAQ's

The number of visits you can do will depend on the availability in your area,  and/or how far you are willing to travel. In some areas we have lots of clients and in others very few. However, we encourage registrations in all areas so that we can provide our services as soon as we sign up a new client.

You will receive notifications when there are visits available in your area so you don’t have to keep logging in to check.  Please don’t turn off your email notifications if you wish to receive these prompts.  

We will not send you to the same venue twice within any three month period. This is to minimize the risk of the teams recognizing you. The software will automatically prevent you from applying if you have been too recently.

If you accept a visit and then are unable to attend you must contact us as soon as possible in order that we can reschedule or organise another Silent Customer. Please do not wait for us to chase you. You cannot reschedule a visit yourself.

If you apply for visits but are not successful please don’t be downhearted. It is purely because we’ve had lots of applicants for the same visit. We share out visits as fairly as we can and give new Silent Customers the chance to get their first grading with us but we do favour newbies who are willing to do the lower paid reimbursements and who have the better writing samples.

Please note that the software will only notify you if you have been assigned. If a visit you have applied for is neither in your inbox nor your applications it has been assigned to another Silent Customer.  

We expect a very good to excellent level of comprehension and English literacy skills. We look for insightful, objective narrative about the visit experience and expect a reasonable level of sophistication in relaying what happened so that the teams can understand the customer perspective. We will always look at the quality of your writing sample before we assign you, if you are new to us.   

Our clients briefs can be very detailed with a lot of instruction about what you need to assess. Some of our more lengthy reports can take several hours to complete. 

We favour Silent Customers whose reports need the fewest edits, because that helps us give the best service to our clients and return approved reports to them quickly.

You can view your average grading on your home page. After we’ve reviewed your report, we’ll send you an email with the grading for that report and some brief written feedback. We can’t give you details of every single edit we make – it would take too long – but we try to highlight specific ways to improve your next report as well as things you did well.

The grading system helps us choose the most proficient Silent Customers for future visits. If our editors mark you down it’s not because they are mean or harsh, it just reflects the amount of time and effort they’ve spent on corrections and changes.

Each of the 10 grading categories are marked 3 – 0 (Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor). An average score of 90% is classed as good although we love to get accurate and comprehensive reports so we can give you full marks!

Read our Essential Tool Kit for Silent Customers to learn how to achieve a 100% grading and be selected for the best visits  

Some visits will have a higher redemption value than others, typically between £15 and £60, and this is determined by our clients.

Some visits have up to £200 redemption value but only our loyal and highest rated Silent Customers get chosen for these assignments. This is, in part, because making a mistake on a visit with high reimbursement may result in us not being able to pay you and you would be very much out of pocket!     

If you are prepared to do a great job in completing the lower paid assignments for us you are more likely to be chosen for the higher paid visits.

There is not usually an additional fee or payment for completing a dining survey. Most drink only, retail visits or phone call audits, however, do often include a fee. These can range from £3 to £60 depending on the length of time they take to complete and the complexity of the brief.   

The agreed maximum allowance per visit will be transferred electronically into your bank account by the end of the month, though we do aim to pay weekly or fortnightly.

You will need to add your sort code and account number into your profile so that we can pay you but you do not need to do this until after your first visit.

If you have a non UK bank account we will also require your BIC code and IBAN number.

You will be able to view and download your pay statements via the settings menu in your profile.

Please be aware that we will be unable to pay you if you do not follow the brief or our terms. 

 

If you make a mistake or forget something on your visit, be honest about it and we will check if the client is still happy to accept your survey. Providing your feedback is fair, detailed and insightful we and/ or the client usually make allowances for small errors. Do not endeavor to cover up mistake because if our editors don’t spot them our client’s teams will. Most licensed premise use CCTV and they may share footage with us to verify your feedback 

The following will result in us being UNABLE to pay you:  

Going to the wrong venue or on the wrong day or time.

Indiscretion about the covert nature of your visit or making yourself known to staff.

Sharing your experience with a competitor client or on a public domain – including TripAdvisor!

Contacting the client after your visit and/or making a separate complaint to them. 

Inaccurate or incomplete survey that is missing the required photos, is poorly written or does not fulfill the brief.

Being untruthful or trying to cover up a mistake. 

Disparaging, offensive, sarcastic of supercilious feedback which could be deemed as hurtful or rude.

Failure to notify us if you are unable to submit your survey within 24 hours following your visit.

Failure to respond to any questions we may need to ask you after your visit and survey submission.

To ensure you don’t make any mistakes please read our Silent Customers’ TOOL KIT 

PC and reliable internet

You will need to register your profile on our software platform which will match your location and notify you of any opportunities in your area. All surveys are completed on our software as is any correspondence.  

We advise that the surveys are completed on a keyboard rather than a hand-held device as our surveys can be quite long, requiring a substantial amount of typing.  

Smart phone

We require to to use a smart phone to take pictures of the bill, your food and of any other visual requests to upload to the survey.

We may also ask you to download apps to support your feedback such as time and location stamps, call recording or online ordering. 

Reputation Management

Mystery Visits

Phone & Online Audits

Free Training Tools

Free Training Tools

Intercepting Complaints

Check-backs and complaint handling go hand in hand. Intercepting a problem before a customer tells you, or Google, not only prevents negative word-of-mouth but can increase revenue through loyalty and positive PR.

Use our fun PEP talk sheets to support your front-line teams in learning how to avoid complaints.

Engaging Conversations

Building a natural and genuine rapport with guests can be the most positive and memorable part of their dining experience. Whilst the food and the environment can be remarkable by itself, making a customer feel that they are more than just a table number, has a far wider reach in terms of spreading positive word-of-mouth.

Use our fun PEP talk sheet to support your front-line teams in learning how to have engaging conversations.

Positive Body Language

Being able to communicate positivity, and with enthusiasm, encourages customers to reciprocate in the same manner. However, most of us are unaware of how we are perceived by others and, whilst we may think we are coming across as welcoming and friendly, our body language could be telling a different story.

Use our fun PEP talk sheet to support your front-line teams in understand the importance of self-awareness.

Relevant Recommendations

Team members need good product knowledge to be able to describe and enthuse, but often don’t know what many of the dishes taste like. A lack of upselling is also often due to a lack of confidence in knowing where to start a conversation that leads to a recommendation.

Use our fun PEP talk sheet to support your front-line teams in learning how to upsell.