LoveTrains re: mystery shopping

[LoveTrains]

Excellent question.

With this particular company that I posted in the other thread, they do a flat reimbursement for the shops. So for example, at a steakhouse, they will say that you have to order one appetizer to share, one bottle of wine (or two glasses), two different entrees (one must be steak), one side, and one dessert. Then they will reimburse you $150 for the dinner and $20 for valet parking. if you spend over that, which I often do, that is on you. Plus oyu will have to visit the bar either before or after dinner and order at least one drink and observe the bartender. For this, I often arrive ten minutes ahead of H, check in with the hostess, and have a drink at the bar before he arrives.

The report for this particular company is extremely easy. It is multiple choice and online. So you will need to get the names of the server and the host, and then you will answer questions like: "Did the entree arrive within 20 minutes after ordering" or "Were the flatware and plates clean?" or "was the bathroom clean?"

You generally have to write up a three sentence summary of various areas of service, and then you have to elaborate for any negative or "no" answers. so if the question is "Did the server suggest dessert without being prompted?" and you answer No on the survey, then you would write "The server did not offer dessert after we finished our entrees" or some such.

They make the application hard and specific to weed out people. The actual task itself is pretty easy.

I don't really get asked about mystery shopping very much anymore on the boards, but I started doing it in 2005 to earn some extra money to pay for our wedding and honeymoon. I started off doing stupid stuff like McDonalds, cell phone kiosks at the mall, radio shack, etc. I started doing a lot of research online and found out the companies that do the more interesting shops, and signed up with those companies.

I have mystery shopped all the Kimpton Hotels in Boston (and in several other cities), The Seaport Hotel (two or thee times), the Sheraton in Boston, the Waldorf Astoria (four times) and the Waldorf Towers in NYC, the Atlantis in the Bahamas, and lots of other restaurants ranging from the Capital Grille to the cheesecake factory to that steakhouse at Nine Zero (KO Prime I think?). Doing a fine dining mystery shop can often be incredibly difficult and can require extensive free-form narrative, as can hotel shops. It really varies by company. My report from the Atlantis in the Bahamas, which was 5 nights long and included my entire stay comped with three meals a day and resort activities, free airfare, plus a payment of $150/night was probably 100 pages of single spaced type.

[LoveTrains]

Actually that trip to the Bahamas was awful. I don't think it was worth it!! I hated the resort and my H was miserable because he hates crowds. That place nickels and dimes you to death, and even though we weren't paying for anything, he was annoyed by it.

You always decide whether you want to do a shop. With the company that I posted earlier, once you are an accepted shopper, you have access to a website that you log into. Once you log in, you can see all available shops within X miles of your home address. This company allows you to self assign a shop. So the steakhouse ones always go really quickly. They normally get posted around the 20th for the next month. So you kind of have to be dilligent about logging in and checking what is available. They also do the Border Cafe and John Harvards.

There was a time when I was probably bringing in $500/month with mystery shopping. But it was a lot of work to generate that kind of money when a shop at mcdonalds only brings you $10.

I now only do shops occasionally that interest me. Stuff like Fire & ice in Providence (b/c its easy), cap grille, and I still love doing the Waldorf and will normally do that if they call me for it. That company is different, they will call and offer you specific assignments.

The company that does the Kimpton hotels also does cruises. I always think that might be kind of fun. But the competition is fierce for those types of jobs, that is for sure.

[LoveTrains]

I am probably signed up with 20 companies, but at this point I really only shop for 3 or 4. Maybe 5.