By Travis Campbell, Customer Impact Scheduler

It’s an unfortunate part of mystery shopping that sometimes, reports submitted by shoppers cannot be used.  The reason can often simply be that the shopper went to the wrong location, and the client cannot use the information.  There are a couple of reasons a shopper may end up in the wrong place:

There are many different stores of the same client in your area.

If the shop you’re assigned to is at a local staple, there is a good chance that there will be several different locations in your area. This could potentially lead someone to go to a store on one street, even though they’re assigned a shop on another.

There are similar businesses in the same area.

This is especially true of retail stores. Sometimes, there may be two or three different stores that all sell the same product within one shopping center. Understandably, this could be confusing if you’re assigned one but not the others, especially if their names are similar!

So how can you be sure that you’re shopping the correct location? It might be a good idea to plug the address into your phone or car GPS in order to be certain you’re headed to the correct area of town for your shop.

Also, be sure to double check the store address on the building once you arrive. Is the suite number the same? Does the address match the information you have?

Another great tool you can use is the GeoVerify app, offered by SASSIE. You can download this to your phone, and when you arrive at the shop, you click a button to record your location. When you go to submit your report, you will enter the code you received from the app, and the system will confirm whether or not you were at the correct place.

As always, when in doubt, ask your scheduler! We would be happy to answer a phone call from a shopper to help you complete a shop successfully. So give us a ring or shoot us an email, and we’ll make sure you’re on the right track!