We've been involved with mystery shopping now for some years, in fact the founders of our Mystery Shopper Guide site were all part a team who were responsible for carrying out mystery calls to our staff working for a major cell phone company. The idea was that we would be able to find out quite quickly which areas we were communicating well with our customers and which areas we were not.

If a particular message was not being highlighted, then we identified this as a training requirement. This information would be used by the managers to ensure their staff are up to speed. Many workers saw mystery shoppers as a threat, it's not surprising really, if you can imagine someone calling you asking lots of difficult questions and then reporting their findings to your manager, that was what was happening.

After a few years, we decided to branch out on our own and offered Mystery Shopper services to other business clients. We would speak to their marketing, trading and HR departments about our solution and then provide a tailored service. We had a few full time mystery shoppers, however the majority were contractors, who we used as and when they were required.

The best work involved field trips to high street retailers or hotels, the worst would involve lots of scripted phone calls asking the same questions over and over again. Like all jobs, some of the work was repetitive, while some of it was very interesting, there were also some unusual perks and we were often allowed to keep any of the goods or services we acquired.

Nowadays, mystery shopping is big business. However, it is not core business, this means that many media, marketing or research agencies provide mystery shopping services as part of their offering, although it is not the key part any more, it is more of a value add. It's also a very competitive industry to work in, with so many people wanting to work in it, often for peanuts.

Our suggestion is that mystery shopping should be seen as a fun hobby, something different to enjoy and experience. It is definitely not a short cut to riches, unless you're fortunate enough to own your own company and come across the one contract we have been searching all our lives for.