They barely cover the cost of the meal. They do the same type of timing that was done for the Blaze Pizza shops. They want you to have the exact time you got to each stop and than do the math for the difference between each stop. It's a waste of the shopper's time to do the math and it's not necessary. Someone is just making the shopper's work harder. I'll pass on these shops.

I have not done one of these particular shops, but I have performed other fast-food shops that require times for specifics (such as the time it took the speaker to be answered, order presented, etc...). I always use the stopwatch on my phone and tap the 'Lap' button for each timing required. This eliminates doing any math for me - I take a screenshot when I leave the location and all of the timings are stored. The first 'lap' is when the speaker was answered, second 'lap' is disregarded because it was when I was placing the order, third 'lap' is when order was presented, etc... Would this help at all?

@johnb974 wrote:

They barely cover the cost of the meal. They do the same type of timing that was done for the Blaze Pizza shops. They want you to have the exact time you got to each stop and than do the math for the difference between each stop. It's a waste of the shopper's time to do the math and it's not necessary. Someone is just making the shopper's work harder. I'll pass on these shops.

Well, good, John. Leaves more of these for the rest of us.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2022 02:38AM by ceasesmith.

If someone wanted to do fast food shops, what are the best companies to mystery shop on?

If you scroll down the drop-down menu, you'll find a list of legitimate shopping companies. The first part is, I believe, "15 most talked about". If you sign up with those, you'll have major fast foods covered. Regional chains tend to be shopped by smaller MSCs.

@ceasesmith wrote:

Well, good, John. Leaves more of these for the rest of us.

Unless you live close to me, it doesn't.

@patman9760 wrote:

I have not done one of these particular shops, but I have performed other fast-food shops that require times for specifics (such as the time it took the speaker to be answered, order presented, etc...). I always use the stopwatch on my phone and tap the 'Lap' button for each timing required. This eliminates doing any math for me - I take a screenshot when I leave the location and all of the timings are stored. The first 'lap' is when the speaker was answered, second 'lap' is disregarded because it was when I was placing the order, third 'lap' is when order was presented, etc... Would this help at all?

@johnb974 wrote:

They barely cover the cost of the meal. They do the same type of timing that was done for the Blaze Pizza shops. They want you to have the exact time you got to each stop and than do the math for the difference between each stop. It's a waste of the shopper's time to do the math and it's not necessary. Someone is just making the shopper's work harder. I'll pass on these shops.

Not really. It's the fact not only do they want the time to got to each point, they want you to do the math on how long it took to get to each point.

I have done Jack in the Box shops, that pay better and don't require all the timings. They ask what time did you reach the order board, how long to reach the take out window, how long until you were served. Very easy, very simple, no math to do.

The other thing I don't understand, They want you to take a picture of the menu board and than asks you, what drinks are on the menu board? Something they can see for themselves in the picture.

I don't, but I'm sure other shoppers do.

@johnb974 wrote:

@ceasesmith wrote:

Well, good, John. Leaves more of these for the rest of us.

Unless you live close to me, it doesn't.

And "near" is pretty subjective. I drove 500+ miles today.

I'm not aware of the MSC that does CFA shops. Since the name of the MSC cannot be given out, are these NATIONWIDE or just regional for specific franchisee of CFA?

Any hints that can be given? Sassie platform? rhymes with?

@hbbigdaddy wrote:

I'm not aware of the MSC that does CFA shops. Since the name of the MSC cannot be given out, are these NATIONWIDE or just regional for specific franchisee of CFA?

Any hints that can be given? Sassie platform? rhymes with?

It's the company that's doing the drive-thru surveys. They're not necessarily targeting, just Chick-fil-A. They're targeting a bunch of drive-throughs for timing and information.

So it's not really CFA shop. It's the fast food drive-thru timing shop done for Burger King/Carls/Mcd/etc. Thank you for clarifying.

@foodluvr wrote:

@hbbigdaddy wrote:

I'm not aware of the MSC that does CFA shops. Since the name of the MSC cannot be given out, are these NATIONWIDE or just regional for specific franchisee of CFA?

Any hints that can be given? Sassie platform? rhymes with?

It's the company that's doing the drive-thru surveys. They're not necessarily targeting, just Chick-fil-A. They're targeting a bunch of drive-throughs for timing and information.

I think what Pat was trying to convey, is that the stop watch with the lap times already has the math done for you. At each lap you get the overall time and the lap time.

I know it makes work a LOT easier for me.

I have a different method because how are you supposed to take a photo and use the stopwatch at the same time without messing one up, lol?

For ones I do regularly, I use the photo of the menu board to get the time stamp for the start time. I take a random picture of my door, leg, etc. when I reach the window. I take another picture when I receive my food and then use all the time stamps to do the math.

For the QSR study that requires time in first station, time out first station, time in second station, time out of second station, etc. I use a piece a paper that has: 1 in, 1 out, 2 in, 2 out written in large letters. I take a photo of the appropriate marker. I use the time stamps and do the math. Sometimes they want the actual time which is easier.

I've also used the phones video camera and recorded the whole interaction and used the time elapsed on the video. I don't know why but my stopwatch app always gets messed up when I'm trying to be discrete.

I've gotten very good at the math. I count up rather than trying to subtract.

1:56 to 4:37
If the seconds/minutes is larger in the start time (56 / 37), I start by rounding up the first number :04 to get to 2:00.
Then just deduct the 2 minutes from 4:37-2=2:3730
you then add the :04 + 2:37 = 2:41

It the seconds are smaller to start 1:26 - 4:57
I just count on my fingers; one hand is singles, and the others is tens:
26 to 27 = 1
27 - 57 = 30
so 31 seconds.

1 min - 4 min = 3

3:31

doing all this timing of different stops is just useless. If they have the times for each stop why do they want you to do the math of the minutes and seconds? It adds nothing to the report. It just takes up the time of the shopper.

It is not my most favorite shop task. But it is do-able. Fingers, toes, gazing at a watch with minutes & seconds-- all of these might ease the math burden for shoppers. Sometimes, in our surveys at another job, we ask respondents to make small calculations. They can handle it because we do not ask for a specific math outcome. "Your best guess of an average/the number of times/the number of such-and-such is okay." Less often, we ask for something specific. It is so easy that we can calculate it in our heads. But the respondent must provide the response that we include in the survey. All this leads me to think that we shoppers are like the respondents of my other job. Our calculations are the ones that should be included in the surveys that we submit which are based upon our individual shop experiences. This is in keeping with research concepts in general. For the drive-thru shops, the client might want to find ways to explain or improve the drive-thru customer experience with information from each leg of the drive-thru customer journey through the given drive-thru experience. First, the individual data. Later, the aggregated data that someone else can utilize.

Honestly, maybe I'm weird, but I have no interest in eating at Chick-Fil-A, either for a shop or a paid-by-me meal. I don't understand the attraction. Every time I drive by our local location, there are at least 20 cars in line. I don't think the food is worth waiting that long for. Or waiting at all for! I ate there once, just to satisfy my curiosity about why people throng to them. I didn't think the food was anything special at all.

I'd much rather go to Popeye's and get one of their fabulous fried-chicken sandwiches. IMO, they beat CFA hands-down. Which reminds me, we haven't had Popeye's in awhile. Now I'm craving their chicken sandwich.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/30/2022 11:52PM by BirdyC.

@BirdyC wrote:

Honestly, maybe I'm weird, but I have no interest in eating at Chick-Fil-A, either for a shop or a paid-by-me meal. I don't understand the attraction. Every time I drive by our local location, there are at least 20 cars in line. I don't think the food is worth waiting that long for. Or waiting at all for! I ate there once, just to satisfy my curiosity about why people throng to them. I didn't think the food was anything special at all.

I'd much rather go to Popeye's and get one of their fabulous fried-chicken sandwiches. IMO, they bet CFA hands-down. Which reminds me, we haven't had Popeye's in awhile. Now I'm craving their chicken sandwich.

Just FYI, I did one of the Chick Fil A drive-thru shops recently. It had a double drive thru and about 15 cars between me and the order speaker. Even with the large number of cars, the total time from getting in line to getting the food was about 9 minutes. A burger drive-thru with only 5 cars took 10 minutes.

I can see why people do like CFA. I've tried the mac n cheese at both Popeye's and CFA. There is no comparison, the type of cheese, the portion, the amount of cheese. The cheese at Popeye's was greasy and felt like it was just microwaved. The portion was so small for $3-$4. The CFA was more like homemade. Overall, for $10, the CFA meal was pretty good. The lemonade had pulp in it...not just lemonade flavored drink. Maybe CFA has good salads?? Something I won't be finding out, lol.

Also, I don't judge a whole franchise on one experience. I've gone to one that is perfect and one that I would never return, just depends on their manager. With one of my regular shops for another company, the manager moved to a new location. I could see the quality of the old location go down before I knew they were gone. So, now I go to their new location when I want a meal I can actually eat. Similarly, there was a location that I wouldn't eat the food, moved to the top of my list when they got a new manager.

@JasperJohnson wrote:

@BirdyC wrote:

Honestly, maybe I'm weird, but I have no interest in eating at Chick-Fil-A, either for a shop or a paid-by-me meal. I don't understand the attraction. Every time I drive by our local location, there are at least 20 cars in line. I don't think the food is worth waiting that long for. Or waiting at all for! I ate there once, just to satisfy my curiosity about why people throng to them. I didn't think the food was anything special at all.

I'd much rather go to Popeye's and get one of their fabulous fried-chicken sandwiches. IMO, they bet CFA hands-down. Which reminds me, we haven't had Popeye's in awhile. Now I'm craving their chicken sandwich.

Just FYI, I did one of the Chick Fil A drive-thru shops recently. It had a double drive thru and about 15 cars between me and the order speaker. Even with the large number of cars, the total time from getting in line to getting the food was about 9 minutes. A burger drive-thru with only 5 cars took 10 minutes.

I can see why people do like CFA. I've tried the mac n cheese at both Popeye's and CFA. There is no comparison, the type of cheese, the portion, the amount of cheese. The cheese at Popeye's was greasy and felt like it was just microwaved. The portion was so small for $3-$4. The CFA was more like homemade. Overall, for $10, the CFA meal was pretty good. The lemonade had pulp in it...not just lemonade flavored drink. Maybe CFA has good salads?? Something I won't be finding out, lol.

I didn't try the mac n cheese. I had the waffle fries, which I didn't like, and a sandwich, which was just OK--not anything to rave about. Maybe I'll try them again, but I was really turned off by the food at my first visit. My son has eaten there a few times, and he's not overly impressed, either. I think he goes just because the location is really convenient.

They are paying you to do it. Why they wish to pay you to do that is irrelevant. If you don't want to do it, the beauty of being a contractor is that you don't have to accept the shop. If you do accept the shop, you need to do what they require regardless of whether you think it is value-adding.

@johnb974 wrote:

doing all this timing of different stops is just useless. If they have the times for each stop why do they want you to do the math of the minutes and seconds? It adds nothing to the report. It just takes up the time of the shopper.

comparing Popeye's to CFA, really? Popeye's uses MSG in nearly ALL of their menu items. YES, nearly all (uness they changed recently). I knew CFA used it only in their basic chicken sandwich.

Also, the employees at CFA usually are happier and more friendly. The Popeye's employees are generally miserable and it shows in their service and attitudes.

From a budget perspective with my own $, i will eat Popeyes, but if both were presented to me on a plate (no charge), I'm picking CFA.

The stopwatch function I use on my phone does not capture time, i.e. 10:36:41, 10:44:29, and lap times in one fell swoop. When I've had to report both, one way I do it is to record the required times, usually with screen shots. At home, I let Excel calculate the lapses.

Why does the MSC require it? Same as when they require comments for any No answer. Just verifying.

Jack in the Box does the same timings for drive thrus, but much easier. They get the same information without the shopper doing all the math. Blaze Pizza did the same thing and lost shoppers.

There is an app called ShopIt. Just-Shop-It.com. it's also in the play store. It records the time Every time you touch the screen. And it includes hours minutes and seconds. There is another app that looks just like it has the same icon but it's for a different website that it shows hours minutes and seconds but it only records hours and minutes. My son downloaded the wrong one the first time, so we learned the difference quickly.

myst4au posts-- If you do accept the shop, you need to do what they require regardless of whether you think it is value-adding.

Bob comments--I completely agree and compliment myst for "hitting the nail on the head."

Since the discussion has broadened into discussing the entire fast food/mystery shopping landscape... One of the things that prevents me from taking fast food shops is the reporting platform. I so much prefer the SASSIE site to all others. Unfortunately, there is one ultra-dominant MSC who does the Sonic/Five Guys shops that doesn't use SASSIE. As a result, I don't take those shops unless I am just trying to make some money on a route or something. I don't go out of my way to do a Sonic or Five Guys because of the reporting platform.

That is actually surprising to me! We all have different preferences, but the Sonic/5G reporting platform is so simple to use in my opinion. Do you use the app or the website for reporting? I strictly use the website (if you are referring to the app, I completely understand where you are coming from). It seems like I can fly through the input for these even though I don't do them all that often. Bonuses can be excellent on them at times, too (maybe that's the reason...)

@condorchristi wrote:

Since the discussion has broadened into discussing the entire fast food/mystery shopping landscape... One of the things that prevents me from taking fast food shops is the reporting platform. I so much prefer the SASSIE site to all others. Unfortunately, there is one ultra-dominant MSC who does the Sonic/Five Guys shops that doesn't use SASSIE. As a result, I don't take those shops unless I am just trying to make some money on a route or something. I don't go out of my way to do a Sonic or Five Guys because of the reporting platform.

@shopperbob wrote:

myst4au posts-- If you do accept the shop, you need to do what they require regardless of whether you think it is value-adding.

Bob comments--I completely agree and compliment myst for "hitting the nail on the head."

I have found shops where you don't see the details until AFTER you accept the shop.