Hello everyone!

I applied to Coyle recently and was surprised to be accepted in about 5 hours. After reading through so many boards, I thought I would never hear anything again. I have done mystery shopping before, but just fast food and retail locations. I have a couple of questions:

For availability, what is the best way to word it? I have applied for three phone shops. I can probably do them nearly any time they are assigned to me, so that is what I said. The three shops I applied for are all for June. Specifically I said, "I am available every Friday all day and most other days". What is the best way to word this?

Second, should I try to apply for restaurant and/or hotel shops, in the off chance they choose me? I am in a touristy area and there are several shops I could easily access by driving.

Third, it seems like some of the phone call shops have dates that passed (April or May). Should I apply because they are still listed, or why are they there?

Thank you so much for your help!

Congratulations,

I have only experience with restaurant shops with them, so I'll address your comments about those.

Starting with phone shops is their preferred method of showing your competence and reliability to "move up the ladder." This is a good method of becoming familiar with their instructions and level of detail required. Their restaurant shops do require significant narratives and have many details. If you are comfortable with such shops, I would encourage you to apply now for restaurants. If not, try some phone shops for them and see how it goes for you.

Good luck.

PS: Perhaps they have a shortage of shoppers in your area. That might explain the quick approval.

I shop for them as well and would second the suggestion to go ahead and apply for the restaurants if you feel comfortable. Hotels are definitely a significant step up in terms of intensity- I'd probably do at least a few of their restaurant assignments first.

With regards to your first question, I always apply with specific dates. Not sure if the phone shops are different, but I literally write, "I am available June 1, 2, 3, 5..."

Regarding how to structure requests; I recommend requesting a specific day and then offering 1 or 2 alternate dates that you could take the assignment. Have the alternates be on different days of the week and different times of the month. Make sure that you are 100% available on the dates you request and don't have to switch the date if you are scheduled.

A scheduler will tend to shy away from requests that say "Anytime" because plugging a shopper into a random date that works for the scheduler will often lead to a request to move the date. When that happens, the scheduler will be doing more than twice the work and coming out with a less than perfect result.

Well, I did a subjective bar evaluation about a week and half ago, and got a 20, so I was excited about that. I did my first "real" restaurant shop on Sunday and got a 17/20. I only made three mistakes, so it was a point off for each one. I can easily remember to fix them next time ("debris" instead of "trash", etc.). Is that a good score? Will I still be positioned to get more shops? It took me 3-4 hours to do my report, I was hoping for at least an 18.

Does anyone have Coyle's Prophet log in site? I lost it after I signed into their hospitality site. TIA!

I only have this one.

[evaluators.coylehospitality.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2013 11:34PM by eveb.

[coyle.shopmetrics.com]


cubbiecat Wrote:
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> Does anyone have Coyle's Prophet log in site? I
> lost it after I signed into their hospitality
> site. TIA!

Isabelle1106 Wrote:
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> [coyle.shopmetrics.com]
>
>
> cubbiecat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Does anyone have Coyle's Prophet log in site? I
> > lost it after I signed into their hospitality
> > site. TIA!

Thanks Isabelle1106!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2013 04:53PM by CAscotch.

I do the occassional shop for Coyle and everytime I accept a shop and then start preparing, I am once again reminded why I don't do very many of shops for Coyle. The reports are very intense. You have to get everyone's name, description, describe all of the food and drinks, you have to time everything - somehow without being noticed.

But they do have some good shops. I'm afraid to try a hotel shop.

And like the rest, I went straight for the restaurant shops, and I was also accepted within 24 hours. It might have to do with the writing sample. They want the best grammer, punctuation, sentence structure, etc.

Ashley57 Wrote:
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> It took me 3-4 hours to do my report.

Coyle is an MSC with an attitude. Coyle is the "diva" of MSCs. They don't tell new shoppers that their reports take 3-4 hours to complete. It only gets worse if you make the mistake of doing one of their coveted fine dining shops. I prefer to pay for my meals instead of spending 4 hours reporting to Coyle's illustrious editors. Coyle's reports are bad for the digestion. Did you know that Coyle actively recruits editors from Intellicheap? Coyle is the top of the mountain for editors. It's their Mt. Everest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 08:54PM by aggiejim72.

What makes you say they recruit *editors* from "Intellicheap"?

Thanks - I'm still learning

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 10:09PM by LindaM.

I think he said "editors".

(heart)

I love working for Coyle. They were my first company to work for and I enjoy it. Don't let other people here get you down.

1) For availability: DO NOT word it the way you did. I did it that way at first and it doesn't help. Put your dates like this "7/21, 7/22, 7/23". If you can do every day, list out every day. You will learn early on that they are nit picky in format and when you say "every day" or "every Friday" they don't necessarily believe it. If you have a preference, you can put it in parenthesis after the date such as 7/21 (preferred), 7/22, 7/23.

2) my first shop with them was a restaurant. You should apply. They will probably start you with something simpler (like a bar or a burger shop) than a fine dining dinner. Hotels you should definitely wait for. You have to outlay a TON of money and Coyle is so particular that it would be a risk to do one before you have experience. I have yet to do a hotel.

3) not sure why there are phone shops that have passed. You can still apply.

Happy to help if you have other questions!

Beware the hotel shops! You will work from the moment you arrive until 48 hours after you leave, all for $2 per evaluation. The last one I did, I drove 5 hours each way (to a resort town), did 40 different interactions between check-in at 5 PM and check out at 11 AM two days later. That's 40 interactions in about 42 hours. It took me all day the next day to complete the reports. They "paid" me $70 and gave me $50 for travel expenses. It did not include dinner on either of the nights I was there, so that came out of my pocket as well. Definitely NOT a vacation. I didn't even get to take a shower in the luxurious bathroom! I ended up getting a 16 on the shop (no contractions!) and they asked for more details on an interaction that I added in because the employee had to come back after the first interaction. So, that shop cost me since I took four days (with drive time) to do the shop, a full day to get ready to do it, and did not recoup my expenses. That was my last shop for them.

iamloved1, you posted about this same issue back in May:

[www.mysteryshopforum.com]

One post says you checked in at 4 PM and another says 5 PM. You also said that you were paid $70 but I believe the assignment in question paid $75. These are small details, but isn't that what we shoppers are supposed to be so good at paying attention to?

It's my understanding that you also knew what meals were included and what the assignment paid when you signed up for it…did you not?

As for as the number of interactions; some of those are as simple as setting and receiving a wake up call. Receiving and reporting on a wake up call takes me exactly one minute. Three separate interactions are immediately handled on check-in as well, and the same with check out. If you sleep 10 hours per night and arrived & departed as you stated above, that leaves you 22 waking hours to complete the remainder of the assignment + shower. My last assignment sheet for that exact hotel brand had precisely 26 interactions, with only 15 taking place between check-in and check-out. Most involved walking up to staff member and asking a question, visiting a reception for 20 minutes, or calling for an item to be delivered (most of the hotel assignments have at least one room service meal). With the exception of the breakfast interactions, I don't really see any of the tests potentially ever taking over an hour.

I'm sorry that the assignment was so overwhelming that you could not shower, but I am not so sure that your details of the time required are accurate. As I said in the other post you made about this experience, I have evaluated that very same hotel. On that assignment, I was able to go snowboarding for a full day during the assignment and there and still plenty of time to complete the assignment. I also took a separate dinner assignment at a restaurant there and completed that, went to the pool and jacuzzi, walked around the town and took in some art exhibits….and I showered three times during the stay! Were you really required to interact with staff members for over 22 hours?

Some people write slow, Steve!