Mystery Shopping Thread 22 *PLEASE READ THE OP FIRST**PLEASE NO CLIENT NAMES OR FEES*

serendipity2706

teendude wrote: »

I thought React was the newer name for Lodge :P

Yeah well, that's what I thought, so I'm a bit baffled- wondering if it is an 'honesty' test

Lil_Me_2

I think they're the same company, so perhaps check with them first? Would be a bit of a risk. If they were totally separate I'd say go for it though!

Monkeynut

teendude wrote: »

I thought React was the newer name for Lodge :P

If they want the exact same thing checked I would probably do them separately to be honest... If one was checking cinema service and one was a trailer check I might risk doing them together

See now I would have said the complete opposite of this I think - that if they were checking the same thing I would just do one visit, so long as neither visit needed me to ask anything or do anything that would affect the other.
A trailer check is overt rather than a covert mystery visit, so how could these be done at the same time?

Boredupnorth

Same company but lodge are a different arm, they do the security side of things.

Boredupnorth

As long as one did not interfere with the other I would do them together.

whitelabel

the above posts prompted me to check react, and noticed id been allocated a visit but hadnt received a notification, so worth checking if youve applied for anything recently

proshopper

serendipity2706 wrote: »

Yeah well, that's what I thought, so I'm a bit baffled- wondering if it is an 'honesty' test

I have sent you a PM. Lodge is loss control. React is mystery shopping. They are VERY different. Never confuse the two.

Big_Graeme

nehpets81 wrote: »

OK, I realise this has been touched on a few days ago but I just want to launch into a bit of a moan (sorry in advance)
I have been out of the loop a bit -relying on jobs from Tern, Grass Roots and Frontline Focus as I found the mystery shopping was taking up too much of my time. I am still registered with a lot of companies though and often get emails. I recently got one from Retail Active about a clothes shop and decided to take a look.

I literally couldn't believe it and assumed there must be some sort of mistake but it doesn't seem to be the case. This is a job requiring a purchase and return (ON A DIFFERENT DAY!) for a fee that, without exageration, even if you had no expenses, would not cover minimum wage. Is this really where we are at in this industry? Does the client have any idea how little the shoppers are being paid??

But... this is not all... (see, told you I was going to have a moan!!) I then noticed some station visits, and not to mention the insulting fee, these jobs actually require a photo of the receipt, a photo of the outlet in the station and a photo of the station itself!!! This may be ok in the country but have they not heard of terrorism laws?? Try doing all this in a large city station and there could be serious repercussions.

It seems in the race to the bottom, RE have slipped up and let someone else take control.

I avoided the clothes shops even though there is one close to work, poor fee for one visit never mind a return visit too.

I did take some of the station visits, I was a bit annoyed at the three limit and no alcohol, a bit of a pain shopping a bar and not being able to have a drink. It paid for lunch and the reports were not too bad.

marvellousaunt

The station visits are about equal to an RE underground sandwich shop when you take into account the reimbursement. Yes, not great, but with RE sandwich you can only do one at a time, you can do 5 at once of the RA LS stations and 3 of the SS stations.

A lot of the big city stations near me weren't taken so I emailed them and they manually added some extras.

I did 8 in one evening last night, which took less than 45 minutes in total to do the actual visit, with only one set of travel expenses.

My gosh the reports took forever though. Minimum character limits - the 150/200 were ok, but the 'describe your experience in detail' summary was 1000 characters minimum!!! I confess as I had already summarised my comments for the exterior, interior, service, queuing and seating earlier on that I copied and pasted all of these for my overall to save time. Must have taken me 10-15 minutes per report, and I do a quick report.

I think the Yes/No answers should have been all that was required, and an overall comment of minimum 200 characters, otherwise a bigger fee. It's strange though, the pharmacy visits had a better fee (I think? Or equal) and the reports were much, much shorter/quicker. Maybe 5 minutes a pop.

Big_Graeme

marvellousaunt wrote: »

My gosh the reports took forever though. Minimum character limits - the 150/200 were ok, but the 'describe your experience in detail' summary was 1000 characters minimum!!!

I'm more guilty of rambling on, sometimes I need a sub-editor. Mind trying to say there was no outside seating in 200 characters was a real PITA.

marvellousaunt wrote: »

I confess as I had already summarised my comments for the exterior, interior, service, queuing and seating earlier on that I copied and pasted all of these for my overall to save time. Must have taken me 10-15 minutes per report, and I do a quick report.

I work backwards, I compose the the detailed summary first then copy/paste/summarise from there. I'm not quite as fast as you but I don't hang around with them.