Mystery shopping

Dr M.Only came across this now . Customer perceptions is a Dundalk company and is an part of Optimum Results also based in Dundalk. I think optimum results are a company staff training outfit. Companies hire customer perceptions to purchase/test out their level of customer service. As far as I know they have no uk affiliations but are a small local company. I know someone who was hired by them to do a test on a company fairly recently. had fairly defined questions to ask about products and how to use the item . also had to find out if staff remained friendly throughout the questioning.

Hi I am a full time mystery shopper, I work for several differnt mystery shopping companies both Irish ones and UK based ones.
I would do a lot of work for Customer Perceptions and I find them really professional. And the staff are very pleasant.

Have done some work for Pan research, based in Ranelagh ... mostly phone work, involving calling for insurance quotes etc.
I also do a bit for catalyst market research ... the variety of shops is a bit limited, sports shops and mobile phone shops mostly ... the reports are a bit labourious so you really would need to be interested in whatever you are shopping for ...

I do some mystery shopping with a company called Catalyst based in Dublin. They have a number of high profile cutomers, and i've visited and phoned a number of different companies over the past year to report on customer service, or whether they are promoting what the company wants them to promote.
I've been asked to purchase various products but do get re-imbursed for it, normally its a max spend of approx Eu15, and they provide you with a number of possible items. You get paid Eu20-30 on average for the shop, and you are responsible for advising revenue of this additional income, the comany do ask you to sign a sheet.
As another poster has said it can be very detailed in terms of the information you need to pick up, names / descriptions / availability of products / what selling staff try and do / state of the store.
Having worked for a company that did get mystery shopping reports, and part of our bonus was based on our cummulative scores, I'm happy enough that its a valid form of checking customer service.