And some of the things they make us look for on the spinning rack seem to be way outdated - most stations haven't had them for years.

@mystery2me wrote:

My experience was they usually read one of the brochures or signs and gave the exact right answer. Not having to search every aisle for the little round thing is a big plus for me. Now if they would just stop making us look for each of ten things on the spinning rack.

Any of them are pretty simple once you do a bunch of them so, whichever one you do, do a lot of that brand to increase your comfort level. My personal favorites are the ones that pay the quickest which also means that they edit them the quickest (and if I don't get a 10, as long as they pay me that's the grade that I care about). So that puts BP, Mobil, and Shell in order, for me, as my favorites. BP I like because, even though the reimbursement is the smallest, since I do 10-15 stations typically in a day, I'd rather have a higher fee than lose out not spending the entire reimbursement. If you can swing it, mix brands in a day so that you can max out the reimbursements. I also don't wait to get a perfect picture - I've rarely, if ever, had a customer who couldn't wait 30 seconds for me to snap my pump pictures and, on the rare occasion when they sit in their car, I just take whatever I can get and submit it. I have never not been paid. If it's faster for you, take multiple pictures of the pump so you can move as quickly as you can and then sort them out at home.

On all gas stations, The brand doesn't matter. I take 2 pictures of every pump (that I am required to take pics of), One of the entire pump, one close up of the facia or bezzle, that also includes the pump number whenever possible. If there is no pump number on the pump, I try to get the canopy flag with the pump number on it in the picture too. I take a picture of the forecourt, the building, canopy, and the "curb appeal" from at least 2 angles, hopefully with no customer cars. I get 4 - 6 pictures of the amenity bins, depending on the infractions. And at least 2 different pictures of each infraction, inside and outside of the store.

There have been too many times and I have gotten back home and one of the editors wants a different picture on a different question, so now there are always extra pictures to put almost any place they want me to put them.

And unless the shop requires me to take a picture of each pump or each fueling position, I can generally get all of the pictures and get back in my truck in less than 30 minutes. But I never leave the site until I have finished the survey and submitted it. At some stations I am there for an hour, but rarely more than that.

Unfortunately my health is not what it once was, so usually my limit is 5 or 6 shops in a day. And especially in the heat, 3 or 4 shops is about it.

@Morledzep wrote:

And unless the shop requires me to take a picture of each pump or each fueling position, I can generally get all of the pictures and get back in my truck in less than 30 minutes. But I never leave the site until I have finished the survey and submitted it. At some stations I am there for an hour, but rarely more than that.

Doing on-site is probably the most efficient and best given the results are fresh (less chance of getting confused w/ other shops you may have done that day). I don't always do the report on-site, but i do complete on the phone or tablet. Straight upload of pictures from device. It is still more efficient vs. how I did the reports when I first started. I use to save and name every picture and then upload on the laptop. This process for the yellow stations was especially time consuming. Plus I was not good at purging pictures from my laptop, but for some reason am with the phone and tablet.

There was a Circle K shop/gig on one of the apps that usually allows 4hrs for completion. You use the app out in the field. It paid $5, no reimbursement at all. It seemed like a lengthy consumer survey. I quickly cancelled it by swiping to the left. Pay for gigs on that app have been reduced considerably while the amount of work/ pics has increased. But at least they pay with $ and not points, lol!

Aaah I wish I hadn’t listened to this advice about airplane mode. Pretty sure everything’s lost from a shop (all the photos are in my photo library I assume) and I’ll have to re-enter everything. It apparently didn’t load everything and now when I try to access shop it just gets stuck trying to reload. If I access the survey from the website it’s blank except for the geo coding confirmation. Im going to have to delete and reinstall the app. before re-uploading all the photos.
Do you have an iPhone?

@AZwolfman wrote:

@patman9760 wrote:

I've seen several people on here mention Circle K. I know that we cannot divulge the MSC in this thread because we are talking about the clients. Are people referring to Circle K mystery shops or revealed audits (whether they include a mystery shop component or not)? I know that Circle K gets mystery shopped each month, but I am now curious as to whether the chain is audited similar to Exxon, Chevron, etc...

BP - I do not know if others already know about this or not, but I thought I would pass it along. When you arrive at the station, check in, allow the survey to load for a few seconds, and then switch your phone to airplane mode. This will save your battery in addition to keeping the program from crashing and 'glitching' while you are performing the audit because the program will not be attempting to upload images while you are entering data. When you complete the audit, turn airplane mode off and allow the images to begin loading. After everything loads, hit the button to submit. I generally wait until I get home to Wi-Fi before submitting so that I can check over everything on my PC. Works like a charm.

Actually, the Circle K and audits are both quick and easy. All I have seen this year for Circle K are mystery shops.

I don't usually use a smartphone to submit gas station shops/audits while onsite, but when I do, it's not with an iPhone.

Well I lost the data not submitting, but using the app in airplane mode. I could never retrieve the data again, or even open the shop from the app. Isn’t that what you recommended? Using the app in airplane mode? That’s what I’m talking about. But if you don’t use an iPhone then it’s just more problems with the iOS app.

@AZwolfman wrote:

I don't usually use a smartphone to submit gas station shops/audits while onsite, but when I do, it's not with an iPhone.

No - that was me that mentioned airplane mode. I learned about it on a BP webinar at the beginning of 2020, but I didn't try it until a shop in April of this year (because I was in a location with hardly any service). I have an iPhone also - it's an 11. My phone would freeze every time I tapped the screen before I switched to airplane mode. I don't understand what could have happened to cause your data to be lost. I got to the location, tapped the button to check in so that it tagged my location, waited for the survey to load, and started trying to enter data. The phone kept freezing, so I put the phone into airplane mode. I input nearly all of the survey while in airplane mode and then turned data back on after I got finished. I waited to tap "I'm done" until I got home to my computer and could look over everything. I am sorry to hear that this happened to you, @Notme2021. Were you able to successfully submit the evaluation?

Has anyone else had this happen? If so, please let me know and I will go back and edit the original post to remove this information.

@Notme2021 wrote:

Well I lost the data not submitting, but using the app in airplane mode. I could never retrieve the data again, or even open the shop from the app. Isn’t that what you recommended? Using the app in airplane mode? That’s what I’m talking about. But if you don’t use an iPhone then it’s just more problems with the iOS app.

@AZwolfman wrote:

I don't usually use a smartphone to submit gas station shops/audits while onsite, but when I do, it's not with an iPhone.

Oh, sorry Wolfman I hadn’t noticed the quote within quote.
I had to re-input everything from the web page and just skip the app. I probably need to delete and reinstall the app again.
There are still issues with the iOS version of the app that they haven’t fixed in over 6 months. This was because they couldn’t deal with the latest iOS update and now there’s gonna be another iOS before they even fixed the last one. But the issues seem to be intermittent and maybe depend on the phone, idk. I have an 8 Plus. Someone’s giving me their old 11 and maybe it will work better. You could just edit the post to say something about testing it first time if you have an iPhone. I know that for the Best But audit they recommend using airplane mode. That would be a nightmare to lose all that info. I haven’t done those yet but the form is much longer than the BP one.

@patman9760 wrote:

No - that was me that mentioned airplane mode. I learned about it on a BP webinar at the beginning of 2020, but I didn't try it until a shop in April of this year (because I was in a location with hardly any service). I have an iPhone also - it's an 11. My phone would freeze every time I tapped the screen before I switched to airplane mode. I don't understand what could have happened to cause your data to be lost. I got to the location, tapped the button to check in so that it tagged my location, waited for the survey to load, and started trying to enter data. The phone kept freezing, so I put the phone into airplane mode. I input nearly all of the survey while in airplane mode and then turned data back on after I got finished. I waited to tap "I'm done" until I got home to my computer and could look over everything. I am sorry to hear that this happened to you, @Notme2021. Were you able to successfully submit the evaluation?

Has anyone else had this happen? If so, please let me know and I will go back and edit the original post to remove this information.

@Notme2021 wrote:

Well I lost the data not submitting, but using the app in airplane mode. I could never retrieve the data again, or even open the shop from the app. Isn’t that what you recommended? Using the app in airplane mode? That’s what I’m talking about. But if you don’t use an iPhone then it’s just more problems with the iOS app.

@AZwolfman wrote:

I don't usually use a smartphone to submit gas station shops/audits while onsite, but when I do, it's not with an iPhone.

I updated the post - thank you for the info @Notme2021!

@Notme2021 wrote:

Oh, sorry Wolfman I hadn’t noticed the quote within quote.
I had to re-input everything from the web page and just skip the app. I probably need to delete and reinstall the app again.
There are still issues with the iOS version of the app that they haven’t fixed in over 6 months. This was because they couldn’t deal with the latest iOS update and now there’s gonna be another iOS before they even fixed the last one. But the issues seem to be intermittent and maybe depend on the phone, idk. I have an 8 Plus. Someone’s giving me their old 11 and maybe it will work better. You could just edit the post to say something about testing it first time if you have an iPhone. I know that for the Best But audit they recommend using airplane mode. That would be a nightmare to lose all that info. I haven’t done those yet but the form is much longer than the BP one.

Stars shops you have to check all the promotional signage and hot food offering. They usually take me 1/2 hour.