Normally when a developer in CRM goes to check Option set value only finds out that the Option Set is stored

as an integer and to get the string value normally people use methods like this one:

Look at the approach at this link:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24873581/get-the-string-value-from-optionsetvalue-in-crm-plugin

Doing a metadata call for this.

Metadata calls are more time consuming than value already available in memory.

Well CRM does provide a direct way if you have the entity already retrieved, which most oldies in CRM know:

string optionSetText = entity.FormattedValues[“optionsetname”];

Hope it helps and Happy CRMing!