Company Overview: Some mystery shopping companies are challenging to research. For some reason, there simply isn’t a lot of tangible information on the websites they maintain about their businesses. Nor is there much discussion on the Mystery Shop forum about them. These entities truly live up to the “mystery” when talking about mystery shopping companies.
Five Diamond Hospitality is one such company. Their website emphasizes its available services to clients in a big way, but it doesn’t provide facts about the company such as its history or founding dates or pay cycles. It wasn’t even easy to find out where they are headquartered, which happens to be Hollywood, California.
Five Diamond Hospitality specializes in the hotel industry. They state they serve nearly every major brand, and they publicly list their well known clients on their website. This company performs two major types of evaluations for hotels. One is what is termed as the complete experience, where every facet of the hotel is assessed. The other is for individual outlets. These would be for one location on-site, such as a restaurant or gift shop or spa.
Unlike many other mystery shopping companies that are always looking to expand its shopper base, Five Diamond Hospitality devotes little of its website to recruit mystery shoppers. Nor does its social media.
Signing up with Five Diamond Hospitality will take some time and effort. It’s also not the most user-friendly process. For the initial application process, visit their site at www.fivediamondhospitality.com. Click “Contact Us” and select “Apply to be a Service Experience Analyst”. Select your city. Choose a link for an assignment in your area. If no assignments are shown in your area, pick “Open”. Then click “Apply Now”.
At this point you can quit clicking and start filling out the application. It will ask you for the usual basic information as well as your prior mystery shopping experience, what kind of assignments you have completed, what other mystery shopping companies you work with, your availability for assignments, and a writing sample.
There is no job board. If Five Diamond Hospitality has an assignment in your area, they will contact you.
The screening process then continues.
When a representative contacts you, they will conduct a short phone interview to discuss your previous experience and assignment availability. They will send then you a test assignment for a quick audit of a hotel reservation. You will book a reservation and then fill out a report.
After that is done, Five Diamond will start scheduling you for meals at their client hotels.
Then at long last, when the company feels you are ready, they will move you up to complete overnight stays.
There is very little posted on www.mysteryshopforum.com about Five Diamond Hospitality. However, what discussions there are happen to be positive. Forum members report that the pay is decent and speedy, and that the reimbursements are generous. The visits are for decent clients. Representatives at Five Diamond Hospitality are accessible and responsive. Overall, shoppers that are signed up with the MSC enjoy working for them.
On the flip side, shoppers give a thumbs down to the rigorous application process.
Also, forum members weren’t altogether in favor of the reporting process, either. Several stated that it was the most intense of any mystery shopping company, and that too much was expected while offering too little. One shopper shared that they only had 1 to 2 hours free time while on-site because they were so busy with the interactions and taking notes.