Make sure you’re at the top of the list for mystery shopping assignments with our top tips to keep your shopper grade high.
Not getting picked for assignments? It’s not always for the reasons you think! Here’s how you can increase your chances of getting that sought after mystery shop and why we need to have quality assignments for our clients.
What is a Shopper Grade?
Every time we check through an assessment form, we give the shopper a grade. This helps us select shoppers for assignments in the future based on prior assessments and whether they’ve completed certain certifications (on some mystery shops). We love giving new shoppers the chance to complete an assignment and gain a high grade. The higher your grade, the more likely you are to be selected for assignments.
The grade, or score, is based on four elements. Timeliness, quality of report, quality of comments and quality of media/attachments.

We grade each assignment so that shoppers can see how they did and where they can do even better (if relevant) next time.
How can I improve my Grade?
Little things like checking your spelling, punctuation and grammar on assessment forms increases your rank, as does adding lots of detail into the comments boxes on the forms – this helps to provide context to the answers given. The more in-depth you are with your feedback, the more valuable your assessments are to our clients, and the less following up with you we’ll need to do.
Things like punctuality and overdue assignments are taken into consideration by our teams when setting your Grade, so make sure you only apply for shops that you can complete by the deadline, and make sure you arrive/depart on times according to the brief.
What difference does this make? Spacing out assessments over time allows mystery shoppers to experience different scenarios that occur during various times of the day, week, or month. This provides a more accurate and comprehensive view of the client’s day to day business operations and customer service performance. Not to mention customer experiences can vary, depending on factors like peak hours, weekdays, and weekends. In terms of punctuality, it’s all about keeping a good standard for both our clients and shoppers. If we can’t deliver on client projects, it has an inevitable effect on the assignments we can offer to shoppers.
Hit that submit button! Our teams often come across assessment forms sat in shopper’s inboxes where shoppers have thought they’d pressed ‘submit’, or forgotten to even after completing the whole form. Do make sure you press the green button. Without it we can’t process your form and make payment to you.
On most of our assessment forms, there will be some form of media attachment required like a photo of the outside of the shop. Our clients might use these to get a better idea of the customer experience, or an interaction (listening to a phone call recording for example) and we use them to make sure that our shoppers have been to the right place and demonstrate trust. Some assignments require covert recording equipment, for example video or audio recordings. Completing certain certifications will show you how to do this and what you’ll need to bring along. Keep your Grade high by making sure you take good quality recordings that you can see or hear clearly. Low quality images and recordings cannot be accepted. For example, if we can’t see or hear surroundings clearly, it’s difficult to accurately capture, and therefore assess, the whole shopper experience.
How do I know what my Grade is?
Before we send your assessments off to our clients, we check through them, and we’ll give you a Grade and some feedback by email. We usually write a quick comment or recommendation for next time, and give it a rating, e.g. ‘Excellent’, ‘OK’, ‘Improvement Needed’, or ‘Poor’. You can also see your grade when you log into your portal:
Happy Mystery Shopping!
If you have any questions, please get in touch with our Shopper team on +44 (0)1409 255025 (Option 2) or email shopper.support@mystery-passengers.com.