Hello,

I have been mystery shopping for a couple of months. I don't have many shops under my belt, but I did fine on the last 4 shops for this MSC. I completed my first restaurant shop on Friday at a pub & grille. I studied the material and took plenty of notes on my phone. I spent hours perfecting the survey, making sure I had enough narrative. Unfortunately, the quality editor e-mailed me the next day and explained that I had inappropriate commentary. Boy was that an ego-buster! I'm almost afraid to take anymore restaurant shops. I understand what I did wrong. I shouldn't put "Exceeded" unless I was wowed. I really thought I was wowed, but I must have not made the narrative very convincing. Oops! I will chalk it up as a lesson learned.

I just needed to vent a little. Care to share your experience with restaurant shops? I could always use some advice.

Thank you!

kthanks Wrote:
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> Hello,
>
> I have been mystery shopping for a couple of
> months. I don't have many shops under my belt, but
> I did fine on the last 4 shops for this MSC. I
> completed my first restaurant shop on Friday at a
> pub & grille. I studied the material and took
> plenty of notes on my phone. I spent hours
> perfecting the survey, making sure I had enough
> narrative. Unfortunately, the quality editor
> e-mailed me the next day and explained that I had
> inappropriate commentary. Boy was that an
> ego-buster! I'm almost afraid to take anymore
> restaurant shops. I understand what I did wrong. I
> shouldn't put "Exceeded" unless I was wowed. I
> really thought I was wowed, but I must have not
> made the narrative very convincing. Oops! I will
> chalk it up as a lesson learned.
>
> I just needed to vent a little. Care to share your
> experience with restaurant shops? I could always
> use some advice.
>
> Thank you!


There is a MSC that I have decided not to do restaurant shops for anymore because they don't seem to want to accept that answers that you give them and every time that they contact you they ding your score. I think that we are may be talking about the same company. With some restaurants they want you to be 'wowed' and you weren't and with other restaurants they don't want you to be 'wowed' and you were. It gets confusing so I have decided to leave those to the experts :-)

Perhaps the clue to this is that they actually want the wow to exceed their expectations and not your expectations. That comes with getting a few jobs under your belt and getting a sense of what these types of restaurants expect their staff to be doing. You can usually tell by the questions they want you to answer what their expectations are. My personal expectations for an upscale restaurant would be that the food is fabulous. That is because my fave place is a cafeteria line mexican hole in the wall place with good food. So almost any place with higher prices should be much better in my estimation. I personally don't care if I have to wait 2 minutes and 1 second for a check back rather than 1 minute and 59 seconds. But I know from the question that they are expecting under 2 minutes. If you used some objective remarks about what made you feel the wow you should be okay...You can ask the editor for some examples of things s/he did or did not like in your report and how s/he would have worded it. That should help you get an idea of their expectations.
And try doing some restaurants that you might have dined in anyway with your own money so you won't fear not getting reimbursed so much on your first few jobs. It may not happen again but a few successful attempts will get you over your current thinking that you are no good at this, or perhaps you will convince yourself that restaurant jobs are not up your alley. Don't give up so quickly.

You also have to keep in mind that editors have varying expectations. The best of us have been downgraded for no apparent reason!

If the msc gives you another job, your work is fine!

You were told that you had inappropriate commentary because you used the word exceeded? That seems odd. I find that a lot of restaurant reports are filled with opinions in both the negative and the positive.

I started out mystery shopping doing restaurants. I actually recommend them to people as the easiest shops to start with. As long as you can remember the order requirements and you ask a food/beverage quetion, it's easy peasy. You let them do their thing, and you put a time stamp in your phone whenever they show up. Retail is so easy to screw up. I never really thought about the report side of things though. I may have to rethink my recommendations!

I would think inappropriate commentary would be expressing a personal opinion or commenting on something that was not asked about. Or saying they were outstanding then commenting about something that was not up to par. The comments need to fit the ratings.

But I'm just guessing here.

I only do resturants shops. During my last shop, I gave the resturant a lot of 9s because they didn't do anything that wowed me. The editor told me that each resturant should start with a 10 and then points are deducted as things go wrong and I should have comments to support my scores.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2013 06:29PM by VickyC.

Thank you so much for the advice. At first, it was a little discouraging to know I did something wrong, but I did appreciate the feedback. After reading your posts, I might try my hand at another restaurant shop and contact the MSC should I have any questions.

itsasecret Wrote:
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> I would think inappropriate commentary would be
> expressing a personal opinion or commenting on
> something that was not asked about. Or saying
> they were outstanding then commenting about
> something that was not up to par. The comments
> need to fit the ratings.
>
> But I'm just guessing here.

Yes, it kind of irked me that it was refered to as "inappropriate" as if I were using bad language or was biased. I made sure to remain as objective as possible. You're right. The comments need to fit the ratings. If I get the opportunity, I'll try my hand at another restaurant shop and contact the MSC should I have any questions.

Since you haven't listed the name of the restaurant client, can you tell us which MSC you're talking about?

If I were you, I would ask the editor what specific sentences/paragraphs were inappropriate. That seems awfully harsh unless you were cursing or comparing them to another restaurant.

I think its bestmark.

X out the identifying information (any proper names, times, proprietary dishes or other info) and post the narrative here and I'm sure we'll be happy to figure out the inappropriate part. I'm sure it wasn't the word "Exceeded".

Raisitup

raisitup Wrote:
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> X out the identifying information (any proper
> names, times, proprietary dishes or other info)
> and post the narrative here and I'm sure we'll be
> happy to figure out the inappropriate part. I'm
> sure it wasn't the word "Exceeded".
>
> Raisitup

Unfortunately, I did not save a copy of the narrative. I took notes, including quotes on my phone. I remember including "Exceeded" in the narrative which I realize now is not necessary. I was supposed to provide the level of detail that matched my score in a story-like format and in a few sections, I believe I failed to do that. The quality editor also stated that I should have marked "Met" according to my narrative. From now on, I should probably save my narratives in a file so I can refer back to them.

Believe me, I remained as objective and as professional as possible. I e-mailed the MSC to see whether I would get a partial reimbursement or nothing at all. I received a response a little while ago that the feedback was for coaching purposes and I would be paid in full. I was a little embarrassed because I can be a bit of a perfectionist at times. I didn't expect to get paid at all, but that was a nice surprise. We shall see.

Save a copy of everything. If the MSC comes back a week later with questions, you want to know what you wrote.

wouldn't they allow you to make corrections/changes?

audrialyn30 Wrote:
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> I think its bestmark.


UGH enough said......I wouldn't do it a second time.