Mystery shopper Restaurants

orzabal

Hi does anyone know of any companies who let people visit restaurants in the UK for the purposes of surveys.

Thanks

Raksha

Yes, but if they told you, they'd be breaching the very strict terms and conditions they agreed to when they signed up to the company.....

orzabal

Thanks but how do I find the companies?

MikeLB

Most companies will have some resturants on their books. But worth noting that in a lot of cases, you will only get a meal reimbursement to a pre-agreed limit or at most a £5 fee on top of the spend limit. The spend limit is defined and does not vary according to what you decide to spend. Also worth mentioning is that you will usually be guided as to what you must have for the meal (eg A meat dish. a liquer coffee etc) so if you are vegitarian or have special dietary requirements, then these jobs arent really for you.

I get quite a lot of meals for 1 or 2 people but with a spend of say £23 and a standard 3 courses according to the job specification and a coffee and drink, its really only works for 1 person, unless you are happy to over spend. You may also have to wait anything from 1 to 7 weeks to get your money paid by the company.

Dont forget the long reports too for Resturant jobs! Usually more detail and observations from standard MS work (reports can take 20 mins to an hour to write up). I tend to do them just as a treat at end of a busy day, certainly not money makers. Certainly not, as cliche goes, any such thing as a free lunch!

langers1

My parents and i have been doing this type of thing for well over 20 years and MikeLB is partly true, he must be set up with some of the rubbish ms companies though. I have had jobs where you get £15 per visit to buy a car you are in and out within 15-30 mins and can do 9 in a day, you also get milage at 45p per mile.

NOP (http://www.cybershoppers.nop.co.uk/), Intelligent Marketing Solutions (http://www.cybershoppers.nop.co.uk/) and retail eyes (http://www.retaileyes.co.uk/2006/uk/home/retaileyes_aboutus.php) are 3 companies but one bit of advice is dont be choosie with the jobs you take you have to pay your dues before you get offered the decent jobs. I know we also say we will do the ones that no one else wants and in return we get pick of the bunch next time.

hope this helps

Rachie_B

I've done restaurant jobs with TNS https://www.tns-global.com/uk & Retail eyes https://www.retaileyes.co.uk

Mike LB, ive never had to order a specific meal for a course (except a coffee at the end of the meal !) have had to buy a specific drink for some assignments though

Also i dont find the restarant assignments any longer to input TBH

you dont often get a "fee" but some will pay mileage
we have found the allowance easy to stick to and only once have spent more than we got paid and that was because we brought our sons too

But its a free meal eat the end of the day ? like mentioned yes you do have to wait a few weeks to "get the money back"

Raksha its only breach of T&C if you specify names of the restaurants (clients)

Quasar

I am an allocator for a company specialising in assessing middle-market to up-market restaurants. We require very high standards of reporting and out of 10 new shoppers, about 2 make our grade. This is because we specialise in restaurants and are more expensive for the clients than other mystery shopping companies, but in turn we provide very extensive report which can take up to an hour an a half to complete.

We usually prefer to employ experienced shoppers because of our strict criteria. A mystery shopping meal may be a freebie in terms of money, but certainly not in terms of time, because as I said our reports take a while to complete properly.

tiff

I think Gapbuster do McDonalds, Retail Eyes do a chain of pub restaurants but cant remember the name of them now.

Quasar

tiff, sorry to pull you up, but it is a cardinal rule of confidentiality that we do NOT mention which companies do what clients.

tiff

Well I dont do mystery shopping so is that not ok?

Sinope_2

langers1 wrote:

My parents and i have been doing this type of thing for well over 20 years and MikeLB is partly true, he must be set up with some of the rubbish ms companies though. I have had jobs where you get £15 per visit to buy a car you are in and out within 15-30 mins and can do 9 in a day, you also get milage at 45p per mile.

NOP (http://www.cybershoppers.nop.co.uk/), Intelligent Marketing Solutions (http://www.cybershoppers.nop.co.uk/) and retail eyes (http://www.retaileyes.co.uk/2006/uk/home/retaileyes_aboutus.php) are 3 companies but one bit of advice is dont be choosie with the jobs you take you have to pay your dues before you get offered the decent jobs. I know we also say we will do the ones that no one else wants and in return we get pick of the bunch next time.

hope this helps

thanks for these - they look like good companies to join, i have applied am am now waiting