One of my favorite mystery shops I did was at Lowe’s. In fact, I was waiting for a mystery shop in store because of the bad experience I had every time shopping there before starting my mystery shopping career. Once I saw the Lowe’s store appear on the radar, I was quick to accept it, as I was sure I could get some revenge on the people who had treated me so badly in the first place. Now I know that mystery shopping is not about looking for bad experiences, it is about evaluating people for the work they do. This is how my mystery shop at Lowe’s ended.
Every time I walked into Lowe’s, the first thing I was supposed to do was find three different people to see if they would help me or not. I paced up and down the main aisle of the store, looking at each individual aisle to see if I could find an employee who was not currently busy. Even though I had a bad experience at the store before, I wanted to give them a fair chance so they could get a good review. Turns out, my first experience with the store ended up being pretty typical of all the experiences I’ve had. The first person I approached pretended not to see me and just turned and walked away. The second person I approached did the same, so I followed them to another island. They ended up ignoring me twice. The third person I approached with ended up talking on his personal cell phone, which was definitely against the rules.
Each mystery shop has a particular department that you will want to highlight. For this particular store, it was the kitchen cabinet department. I went back to that department, looking like I was interested in buying some cabinets or at least asking a few questions. According to the instructions I received in advance, I had to wait at least 10 minutes to see if someone would ask me any questions. After several people passed me without acknowledging the fact that I was there, I finally decided it was time to reach out to someone. The person I approached was not only uninterested in my questions, he was unaware of anything in the area.
I know that a mystery shopper is not supposed to be satisfied when he gives a bad report, even if he seeks personal revenge. In this particular case, however, giving them poor marks was quite appropriate. All he had to do was answer each of the questions accurately and provide them with the names of certain employees. I felt like I was giving the company what they really wanted, an honest evaluation.
