Maximising income - Mystery Shopping? Surveys? (Part Three)

beccabee_2

Dazzieboo wrote: »

meanwhile I will hang onto the bulky scales which never did fit properly in my handbag :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: ,

The mind boggles at what on earth you have to do for this one!

Dazzieboo

beccabee wrote: »

The mind boggles at what on earth you have to do for this one!

You buy the drink, collect any sugar you may need, but you mustn't add it, you then need to be discreet :rotfl: :rotfl: as you remove the bulky scales from your handbag, place them somewhere flat and weigh the drink, removing any extra sleeve you mave have got and also removing the lid, after weighing, you need to stick the probe in and record the temperature, giving it a few seconds to record correctly, you must remember to do it in this order and not the other way round, or you will end up weighing the probe, which will affect the measurements :rotfl: :rolleyes: , after you have done this all, keeping a straight face as you are bound to have funny looks at this stage, you are free to put away your equipment, add any sugar and enjoy your drink .
You are also provided with a very large and loud stop watch so you can record the timings, a word of advice..........don't bother using it :rotfl: a mobile phone is a lot more discreet and far quieter.

Cheers :beer:

ps, I don't think I actually miss them after reading this lot back to myself :rolleyes:

jobbingmusician

Or, if you are doing 4 of these on the same day...

You buy :coffee:, take its temperature, weigh it and drink the first one.

For the other 3, you spend 10 minutes doing the job and the next 15 trying to give the coffee away as you feel guilty throwing it down the drain. But sometimes it's irresistible to do 4 nearby shops......:o

beccabee_2

good grief all that for a cup of coffee!

jtb2412

I was wondering what you were all talking about when you said 'equipment' for a coffee shop ......... thought you meant some kind of camera but didn't realise you had to weigh the drink ! I was going to email and ask if I could do them but I don't think i'll bother now !!!

Had a couple of excellent shops this weekend (in that the staff were fab !) so submitted a couple of brilliant reports. I do like it when I can honestly say that I received great service instead of having to report a bad shop.

Not much around in my area at the moment though, i'm having trouble picking up even one for next weekend !

blindman

Dazzieboo wrote: »

You buy the drink, collect any sugar you may need, but you mustn't add it, you then need to be discreet :rotfl: :rotfl: as you remove the bulky scales from your handbag, place them somewhere flat and weigh the drink, removing any extra sleeve you mave have got and also removing the lid, after weighing, you need to stick the probe in and record the temperature, giving it a few seconds to record correctly, you must remember to do it in this order and not the other way round, or you will end up weighing the probe, which will affect the measurements :rotfl: :rolleyes: , after you have done this all, keeping a straight face as you are bound to have funny looks at this stage, you are free to put away your equipment, add any sugar and enjoy your drink .
You are also provided with a very large and loud stop watch so you can record the timings, a word of advice..........don't bother using it :rotfl: a mobile phone is a lot more discreet and far quieter.

Cheers :beer:

ps, I don't think I actually miss them after reading this lot back to myself :rolleyes:

You fail to mention the very important bit

All this must be done AWAY from the shop, not actually in it!

TractorGirl327

And you have to spend at least 10 minutes in the coffee shop to check that everywhere is clean, tidy and well stocked, and check the toilets ..... all BEFORE you even join the queue to purchase the drink!!

Dazzieboo wrote: »

You buy the drink, collect any sugar you may need, but you mustn't add it, you then need to be discreet :rotfl: :rotfl: as you remove the bulky scales from your handbag, place them somewhere flat and weigh the drink, removing any extra sleeve you mave have got and also removing the lid, after weighing, you need to stick the probe in and record the temperature, giving it a few seconds to record correctly, you must remember to do it in this order and not the other way round, or you will end up weighing the probe, which will affect the measurements :rotfl:

And all this has to be done within 2 minutes of leaving the shop in a secluded place where no-one can see you.

And sorry Dazzieboo but you are doing it the wrong way round.

The training says you should always take the temperature first, then weigh it, otherwise the time taken to weight it could make the difference between it being within the acceptable temperature range or not. The temperature must be taken within the 2 minutes, weighing it can be done outside this timeframe as the weight of the drink will not change.

willowthecat

RE: The coffee. I was beginning to feel left out lol but now I've read the other posts I'm not so sure now How on earth do you covertly test the weight??? The things you have to do for these shops just seem to be getting more and more ridiculous. You may as well have a placard saying "Hello! I'm a Mystery Shopper!".

Another example. Getting a receipt from fast food places. I wasn't doing a shop last night, but was in a fast food place with a couple of friends, and as one of my friends is self-employed, he does occassionally offset his dinner against tax, so gets a receipt.

He was in the queue before me, order his food, asked for a receipt, got his food, went to sit down and at this point the manager had an emergency staff huddle and I heard something along the lines of "Well I can't be sure but that gentleman over there asked for a receipt!" All of a sudden the cleaning equipment was out, the manager was in the restaurant talking to customers, I went the toilet and the toilets were being cleaned, and all the while the staff were glancing around to see if we were watching them. I found it quite comical if ever so slightly embarrassing.

It's certainly put me off doing fast food places in the future though.

Timmne

It's mainly this that's stopped me from accepting these assignments in future - that and the pay and my main issue with GAP. This issue is that when you try and feed certain things back to GAP (such as the receipt thing) they totally ignore you - their attitude is as long as they get a receipt and a job report, they'll get paid so why should they care?!

If they contacted the fast food place and said "our shoppers tell us asking for receipts is affecting the results", surely the fast food place would say OK, don't get receipts. The problem lies with GAP, that they won't trust us to do the job if they don't get a receipt although they haven't considered things like getting a photo of the place (with the assignment time & date automatically put on it by the camera) or paying by debit card and getting a statutory card receipt.

Their apathy really kills me and it makes me not want to accept any jobs because the lack of pay coupled with the risk of not being paid it!

ruthiejane

Dazzieboo wrote: »

It is a shame you don't like closer to me, you could have borrowed my kit, as I don't know when / if I will need it again.

Thanks! I (well my partner while I was out!) Got a phone call yesterday to say London office has lost the list of who has the kit and who doesn't! So they had to phone everyone with a job lined up soon to check!!! But one will be with me by the end of the week .... and they are looking into reimbursing the entrance cost of the caravan park.