I think it's generically true that the "compensation" for most dining shops is usually the meal you end up with. I did a shop for ACL and took home enough food to feed me for two days. I wanted to do the shop because I wanted to try that particular restaurant. Yes, the report was lengthy and detailed. I made three errors. I got the nicest hand-slap imaginable over those errors. They told me I had forgotten to do those things, quoted the instructions where it said to do them (I had already realized I had forgotten them) and said "in the future" to please remember to do them.

"In the future" told me the job I had done was good enough that they were willing to have me work for them again. The message concluded with welcoming me to their family of shoppers and thanking me for doing the shop.

I will shop for them again. There were a lot of details to remember for a first shop and I'm glad I only missed three! I guess my narratives were good enough. It took me a long time to do the report, longer than it took me to do the shop, but now I know what these shops are like and the next one will go better.

Now a year later since this thread was started. I just finished a report for a pizza place. It was upscale fast food with a reimbursement of $18 and no fee. It took me over 2 hours to do the report...One of those shops where nothing went right and I had to describe in detail all the things that went wrong. I had done one of these same shops at a different location a few weeks ago and had a wonderful lunch and a rather easy report on their scale of easy. So if you like a company I would say try another job with them before throwing it all in. If this was my first shop with ACL I would have given up on them. One personal sized pizza is not worth a 2 hour report in my book. But ACL is worth another try.

Agreed with Sandy. I have found that the assignments and reporting requirements vary greatly between clients with ACL.

While 80% of the shops offered are assignments I would never consider, the remaining 20% that pay a fee and have moderate reporting with fair reimbursements put ACL on the short list of companies that I like to work for. Interestingly, there seems to be no correlation between the ease of the shops and the value. I have had dinners with a $120 reimbursement + fee that were much easier to report than a no-feee $20 lunch.

Overall I am ok with this company. I do wish they paid more than just reimbursement, especially given the length of the reports.

ACls hotel shops are quite easy and earned me enough rewards points when I was a new shopper so that I could get the free hotel nights that I needed to get my feet wet doing multi-day routes, which really amped up my income. And, those free hotel nights are also "tax free". It's not just for "life style" shops like nice free or subsidized meals.

Oh good! I was getting kinda hungry anyway!



Mod note: This was actually in reference to someone making a post that just said "Spam!", in response to someone posting actual spam. Well, actual spam as in the online variety, not the edible variety. Although, is that stuff really edible, anyway?

PS: Just in case anyone actually sees this, there is NO need to make a post that just says "Spam" on the forum, after some dork posts spam. Just use the "report" feature to report the spam to the moderating team. When you make a post that just says "Spam" on the forum, it makes more work for us because then we have to delete two posts. And it really serves no purpose whatsoever, except to clutter things up. Thanks!

I love this company! They are so easy to work with. I am in a place right now where I can't work for reimbursement, I need cold hard cash. So, I have done a highly paid retirement home shop which was a piece of cake. I'm taking another one next month, which will enable me to visit a college with my daughter while I am there. No money out and the one farther away gets gas money..

I just started with ACL and have done 3 shops.

Although I love the schedulers, I've had a mixed experience with the editors.

Although I've done mystery shopping with other firms, I was concerned with the first report I had to do with ACL. The first editor was fine and my report was accepted.

I thought that since my first report was accepted, I could do any subsequent reports the same way. Unfortunately, not.

The second editor asked me about what kind of camera I used. I asked my friend who also does ACL shops and she said to try to take each picture with a flash and one without. That editor also reminded me that I had to be objective and observational and never use subjective words like 'felt'. I asked her if she could be more specific and apologized, saying that it was only my 2nd shop but she just said to check the sample report.

(It's funny because the friends that have come with me think of it as a restaurant review so they always tell me their opinions and want me to include it in the report! But I have to remind them that it's not like that.)

The third editor told me that I should change the date on my photos. I never put dates on my photos so I asked her what she meant by that but she has not responded. Other than that, no feedback whatsoever, so I assume that means it was okay. It would be nice if they did give me some feedback.

The allowance that they give is not that generous for the amount of food and drinks that I'm supposed to order so I'm not sure if I'll continue.

I seem to recall that they require the photos to be time and date stamped.

Thanks for your post.

Hmmm. No where in any of the instructions did I read that all photos need to be time and date stamped. I have been very careful with all of the instructions because I can't afford to have any shop rejected (for the money to come out of my pocket).

And if that were the case, why wouldn't they mention that in my first two shops?

dlkbc Wrote:
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Hmmm. No where in any of the instructions did I read that all photos need to be time and date
> stamped. I have been very careful with all of the instructions because I can't afford to have any shop rejected (for the money to come out of my pocket). And if that were the case, why wouldn't they mention that in my first two shops?

Were any of your 3 shops rejected or did you just receive editorial comments? Based on several years experience with this company - they were one of my first as a newbie in 2008 - it is *very* difficult to have rejected shop unless you simply don't follow the instructions. Even then, this company bends over backwards to help you meet the requirements. As far as photos, I use a Samsung Galaxy 2 with the flash set on auto. I do have time/date set for all my MS photos although I don't have a memory of whether ACL requires it. Not being subjective in your comments is something you will hear from many companies. Objectively describe what you see rather than make judgments on what you think or how you feel. MSCs want to know what you observe without hearing how you felt or what you thought - tell the facts and let the reader make determinations. I would say listen to the editor feedback and use it to improve your reports.

Perhaps I missed this requirement, but I have never date stamped my pictures!

walesmaven Wrote:
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> I seem to recall that they require the photos to
> be time and date stamped.

Thanks for the comments everybody!

None of my three shops were rejected. I did think it was odd that the comments or tips from the editors were not specific. If a newbie (I'm a newbie at their company, not of mystery shopping) asks for feedback so that she can write a better report, it would be nice to get a little more than to just read the sample.

I use a digital camera, a good one, a lot better than the camera most smart phones will have. And I have a photo blog so it's not like I don't know how to take a picture. So that's why I was surprised that they asked me about what I had used to take the pictures with.

After just 3 shops, I have just found the schedulers to be so nice but the editors to be less than helpful. The last editor has still yet to respond to my question about the date/time stamp and that was 5 days ago.

End-of-month craziness at any MSC is not a good time to expect prompt responses from (especially) editors.

A few months ago I did a gas station shop with another MSC. Their cash register was an hour off from the true time (probably a failure to adjust for Daylight Savings Time). The MSC checked date of my photos. It so happened that I had not set the right date on my digital camera so a 2012 date was coming up when they checked the file properties. That was interesting to explain. After that, even if the requirements don't include having the date stamp on the actual photo, I check the camera settings for the correct date/time.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2014 03:34PM by CarolinaShopper.

Thanks for the replies guys!

It didn't occur to me that they would check the date on the file properties.

I guess when you don't set the date each and every time you take out the battery for example, it will come up with an old date.

I guess if I want to continue working with ACL I'll have to check the camera settings for the correct date/time as CarolinaShopper said.

It would have been nice if the editor would reply to my email and explain that.

For those of you who may not know, there is a lot of data included as "metadata" associated with photographs. It is not just the file properties that you need to be concerned about. Metadata often includes the camera model, the date and time, the type of flash, image resolution, color depth, f-number, and other things. Even smart phones create metadata when they store photographs.

Thanks for the information.

So if the 'metadata' gives all this information, why would my editor need to ask me for it?

She asked me what type of camera I was using. Another time asked me why I had the wrong date and time even though I don't bother to set it.

Why would the date be wrong?

Because it will default to 12:01 a.m. 1/1/2000 or something like that when you change the batteries. So depending on when you last changed the batteries, the date and time could be anything.

What kind of cameras do you all have??? The one I have automatically updates to the correct time and day, even after I remove the battery to charge.

I think with mine it depends on how long the batteries are out. If i get them in fast enough it's okay. When I don't, it tells me I need to set the time and date. but if i ignored it, it would default to something.

Does it bother anyone else that you can't start filling out their hotel reports until after the shop is over? I like to get as mush done as possible while I'm at the hotel and just have to copy and paste narratives when I get home.

Yes. I hate that also.

You do NOT have to wait until after you check out. This was explained to me by a senior ACL scheduler when I was doing my very first hotel shop for them. Since then I have done tons of their hotel shops.

Here's what you do. Check in; go to room and start survey with check in date and time; enter same date and current time as check out time. Proceed to enter survey. Next AM change the check out date and time to current date and time. and continue survey. (This stops automated "overdue" emails.) When completing survey after check out, change check out time to actual time of checkout. Submit survey.

Walesmaven, thank you! I kind of figured that I would get some good advice if I threw the question out there.

I didn't think mine would even let me into the survey before day of checkout. I'll have to take a look at that on my next shop. Would LOVE to be able to do the report sections as they happen. Way more quickerer.

bgriffin,
They will all let you into the survey on the day that you check in. You just have to input a temporary check-out day that is the same as the check-in day and a check-out time on the check-in date that is later than the check-in time.

Yes. I understood that. I just remembered trying to access the report before on the day I checked in and wasn't able to. When I clicked on it it said it was before my shop date or something. Perhaps it was just something wrong with that assignment.

After you check in, you can enter the time and date of check-in and a fictional checkout time forthe same day. No problem.

It really shouldn't be that complicated.