Mystery Shopping Thread 21 *PLEASE READ THE OP FIRST**PLEASE NO CLIENT NAMES OR FEES*

marvellousaunt

Haha... my mother and several people I know would hate to 'make a fuss', I think as long as you're polite and calmly explain what is wrong, a small gesture eg free dessert/drink/half price main or free tickets, will go a long way to placating you and often make you end up recommending the place, instead of complaining about it. So everyone wins, right??

My best complaint was to a West End theatre, who shall remain nameless, who on their opening night positioned cast members in the top price seats in the stalls to take notes on the performance. Nothing wrong with that, however they acted like children throughout - kicking my seats, talking loudly, pointing out bits of the show that had gone wrong... I couldn't believe their lack of professionalism. I've seen cast members take notes before - silently and on a notepad! Not having a full-on conflab during a performance. Grr. Anyway, I promptly complained and got two free top price seats to a performance later on in the run

/digression

*tries to make relevant to MS* ... so even 'off-duty' MSing can bring a few perks in And no, I didn't put the free theatre tickets on my tax return!!!!!!!!!

N.I.M

marvellousaunt wrote: »

*tries to make relevant to MS* ... so even 'off-duty' MSing can bring a few perks in And no, I didn't put the free theatre tickets on my tax return!!!!!!!!!

Are gifts taxable?

Lil_Me_2

Stryder wrote: »

Noticed today that on the Tesco Staff Performance (MS visits) notice board they put up photos of the mystery shoppers lol

Saw some shocking results listed also lol

I always have a nosey when I go behind the scenes for an audit! I don't MS them so I know my piccy won't be up there but I wouldn't be happy if it was.

marvellousaunt

N.I.M wrote: »

Are gifts taxable?

A complicated answer with a 100 page pdf from the taxing website. All I could gather from it, is that if your employer tries to 'pay' you in food/petrol/gifts etc, they're taxable.

If you get an incentive for doing market research (eg surveys), you're not a contractor for them in the same way you are an MS company, so not taxable. A freebie from customer services of a place I went to as a paying guest, definitely not taxable!

ChickenGirl

marvellousaunt wrote: »

A complicated answer with a 100 page pdf from the taxing website. All I could gather from it, is that if your employer tries to 'pay' you in food/petrol/gifts etc, they're taxable.

If you get an incentive for doing market research (eg surveys), you're not a contractor for them in the same way you are an MS company, so not taxable. A freebie from customer services of a place I went to as a paying guest, definitely not taxable!

I was just wondering actually, whether vouchers that are given in return for doing surveys are classed as income. Thank you for answering that.

serendipity2706

As we are all going to be eating hundreds of eggs, I just found this recipe I picked up in Perth Farmer's market for a sweet omelette
INGREDIENTS
about an ounce of unsalted butter
6 small fresh fruits (quartered or eighthed) like apricots or 2-3 peaches/pears/handful of stoned cherries etc, or similar amount of tinned fruit
3 large eggs beaten
1 Tbs apricot brandy or other liqueur
2 tbs caster sugar if using fresh fruit, or 1 if tinned

If using fresh fruit, add a few quartered soft fruit-peaches/apricots etc with a bit of caster sugar (1 Tbs) and cook in an omelette pan with a knob of butter for about 3 mins until soft, if using tinned just chop and add to pan with no precooking
pour over the eggs shaking the pan frequently until set (2-3 mins), fold over carefully and remove from pan
sprinkle with 1 Tbs caster sugar
add suitable liqueur to the pan,and heat,
pour over the omelette and serve with creme fraiche or greek yoghurt or whatever.

Becles

N.I.M wrote: »

Stryder, how did you see this notice board?

I've seen MS reports on the walls in stores in the warehouse and admin areas when I've been in store merchandising/auditing.

I've not seen any with photo's on, but I'll have a look out now.

debsjc

Re complaining about bad service when not mystery shopping, I think it's always worth a polite but firm discussion or email.

I had a couple of shocking hotel experiences in the last year, and both times I emailed the managers afterwards.

One was a dayroom and meal at a New York airport hotel, and they gave me a full refund (they had checked us into a room with guests already in it, amongst other things!)

The UK hotel I complained to, let us go back for a repeat stay for free, including meals. Again they had made some major errors.

editesztan

I just started to work for gap a couple of months ago. Can anyone tell me please who has more experience to visit the hamburger restaurants, how often can I go to the same restaurant? My visit has been cancelled. I was on the same place on 27th of Sept and I wanted to go tomorrow. I tried to find the answer, but the only what I've found was, I can't visit the day before or after another evaluation at the same site.

marvellousaunt

editesztan wrote: »

I just started to work for gap a couple of months ago. Can anyone tell me please who has more experience to visit the hamburger restaurants, how often can I go to the same restaurant? My visit has been cancelled. I was on the same place on 27th of Sept and I wanted to go tomorrow. I tried to find the answer, but the only what I've found was, I can't visit the day before or after another evaluation at the same site.

The notes tell you how often you can go - for burgers I think it's 6 times across all burgers nationwide per month. You can't do the same site the day before or the day after another evaluation. You also, apparently, can't shop the same site twice in a row. So the likely thing is that you were the last person to shop this burger place and you have to wait for another MSer in your area to shop it, before you can shop it again.

Does the assignment immediately come up rejected/cancelled? I had this problem recently and it was frustrating - two big premiums on convenient jobs and I can't do it because I was the last one to do a job before. Sigh, not really sure of the answer, but just keep trying them on the next wave and hope someone picks it up in the meantime.