I have over the last six weeks had the “pleasure” of travelling twice on business on behalf of a large corporate I have been doing some work. It came to on the third day of the first trip after getting yet more piss poor service at yet another restaurant that should know better of a new business idea.

Mystery Shopper Reviews

Every large brand and even some smaller ones conduct mystery shopping checks on their staff and different locations to verify that all is well. So I thought, how about a independent mystery shopper? There could very well be two elements to this.

Firstly, you, your wife and friends can write reviews when ever you deal with a company. This will be a great way for content to build on your web site thus giving you credibility. Ideally if you happen to travel for business or go on lots of short leisure breaks then this gives a wider spectrum of reviews.

Writing the review in itself will not get you any money but gives your site content. But you can still make money out of this. Once your review is written, write to the manager of the business with a copy of your review and say that it will be going online in 14 days time. If they would like add a comment before it’s posted they should get back to you within that time frame (although it could be retrospectively added). Now if your review is negative, you could say that their comment could include how they will fix it. Now the money making bit - offer to revisit in the future, say within three months, for £99 plus travel and expenses to see if they have fixed the issues. If they do this, your review will be marked that the owners are taking this issue seriously and you will be updating the review later.

You could also offer to provide for a nominal charge window stickers and posters saying “We’re reviewed at mysteryshopper.domain” which companies that get a glowing review might like.

If you happen to be a little bit cheeky now, you could while still at said organisation ask for the manager and give them your business card and explain what you didn’t like about the service. You might find they’ll give you a discount or let you have something for nothing.

Secondly once you have a good series of reviews online, you can start offering your services to companies. You could easily ask £299 + expenses for a mystery shop and basic report. The smaller companies might find this useful. How you advertise this service is up to you.

You can obviously also earn from your site with ads and the normal nonsense if you want. You could also allow people to pay for older, or the newest reviews, or to be notified when new ones are added in their area. It only needs to be a few pound per year so that they’ll spend without thinking, but it all adds up.