Any comments on how detailed and/or time-consuming the reports are for the Coyle high-end assignments are?

Would you do another? Or, are you doing more of them? Or, are you done with them?

I'm thinking of doing one but I'm unsure.

Thanks,

Brian

They currently have a number of new home buyer shops which pays $35 and should not take longer than 15 min.

@wiseshopper wrote:

They currently have a number of new home buyer shops which pays $35 and should not take longer than 15 min.

Thanks for the reply but I am thinking about a "high-end" hotel assignment requiring a 2 night stay.

Nobody here is biting. Keep moving.

Coyle's assignments pay fairly for the work required. If you are familiar with hotel shops then you should find the reports are fair.

Thanks for the input, isaiah58

I did a restaurant shop for them and I found their reports unbelievably complex. every single item in the shop, the food, the service, the wait time had to be documented 3 or 4 different ways. Each item had to be written in a very specific format with very specific grammar and structure rules. if you don't turn in your report written exactly as they specified, they will reject it. I am a writer and I don't mind reports but these were booby-trapped. there were so many points that you could fail on, I never finish the report for the restaurant shop I did for them. they also note that they can check with a video as to whether the times you're reporting are accurate, etcetera. I would never do one of these shops where I had to spend my own money and then they pay me back, especially a restaurant shop where you are spending 50- 100$. there are so many places they could disallow your information and end up not reimbursing you. I can't imagine what the hotel shops would be like. other shoppers report spending at least 12 hours on the restaurant shop reports.

I agree wholeheartedly. I have done 2 restaurant shops with them and have been rejected twice. I have probably spent about 10 hours w riting those 2 surveys! I think it is quite ridiculous the way they require you to respond. I enjoy writing and dont mind detail, but their expectations are unreasonable. I was hoping to do some hotel shops for them as well, but I would probably have to spend a week doing the narratives to meet their standards. It' just not worth it and very frustrating.

safeweb310 & tcwatley, thanks for your comments and based upon those...I'm done.

@safeweb310 wrote:

I did a restaurant shop for them and I found their reports unbelievably complex. every single item in the shop, the food, the service, the wait time had to be documented 3 or 4 different ways. Each item had to be written in a very specific format with very specific grammar and structure rules. if you don't turn in your report written exactly as they specified, they will reject it. I am a writer and I don't mind reports but these were booby-trapped. there were so many points that you could fail on, I never finish the report for the restaurant shop I did for them. they also note that they can check with a video as to whether the times you're reporting are accurate, etcetera. I would never do one of these shops where I had to spend my own money and then they pay me back, especially a restaurant shop where you are spending 50- 100$. there are so many places they could disallow your information and end up not reimbursing you. I can't imagine what the hotel shops would be like. other shoppers report spending at least 12 hours on the restaurant shop reports

What?! I can do a restaurant shop for them in less than 2 hours, completely hung over in my Vegas hotel room on 5 hours sleep. Got a 19 on the last one. Print out the format and follow along like a sheep. They don't want creative writing. They want a specific, standard format. Pretty easy.

I have done three restaurants on their main (old) site. They took at least three hours. One place we had five busboys, and I had to keep track of which one did what and when, along with everything else. I have received an 18, 19, and 20. It is frustrating to write a great report and have a point taken off because you wrote more than three to five words on one question in the summary section or for saying the soup was served at the correct temperature instead of saying it was hot. However, they do have some very nice restaurants, and the reimbursements are usually adequate to pay the bill, so the three or four hour report is well worth it to me. I'm still afraid to try a hotel.

@Roxie wrote:

I have done three restaurants on their main (old) site. They took at least three hours. One place we had five busboys, and I had to keep track of which one did what and when, along with everything else. I have received an 18, 19, and 20. It is frustrating to write a great report and have a point taken off because you wrote more than three to five words on one question in the summary section or for saying the soup was served at the correct temperature instead of saying it was hot. However, they do have some very nice restaurants, and the reimbursements are usually adequate to pay the bill, so the three or four hour report is well worth it to me. I'm still afraid to try a hotel.

That's where I missed my point. I used six words.

The hotel reports are a beast, especially now that it's on Shopmetric. I feel like it's taking me 25% longer to do. In all, I spend easily 15 hours to complete a hotel report.

I work primarily for Coyle and I love the high end restaurants and hotels I get from them, but I'm not going to lie and say they're not a lot of work. With the restaurants, which usually have a 48 hour turn-around time, I can maybe write one in about the span of four or five hours- they're about the length of an involved college essay.

The hotels can be a doozy and you should clear the majority of your day after checking out of the hotel to write them- unfortunately they're due in 36 hours so I'm often submitting them right up against the deadline. Worth it, but stressful. This depends on the hotel you go to and what you're assigned to do; I find that any restaurant or hotel that involves a bar evaluation takes a really long time to write, and not having to do a bar as part of the hotel can probably cut an hour or two out of the time it takes to write one. For hotels, too, one of the biggest issues I have is resizing, labeling and organizing all of the photos I'm required to take; I wish they'd just let me submit them from the resolution they came as.

I have been hesitant to take Coyle assignments because of the time it takes to write the report. If you breakdown all those hours into an hourly wage you would be making about $2.00/hour. On top of that if your report is rejected you are out quite a bit of money. No thanks.

Thanks everyone...the overwhelming consensus is...........NOPE (too much downside).

@teriraia wrote:

If you breakdown all those hours into an hourly wage you would be making about $2.00/hour.

There are very few Coyle shops that don't offer a reimbursement and I don't know of any that would only you net you only $2 per hour. These are shops that you generally do for the experience, so breaking into an hourly wage does not make sense.

If you choose to see it as an hourly commitment, then you really have to consider the reimbursement as the payment, since most of the fee will go into things like travel, parking, etc. on a dining shop. That said, there's not a Coyle shop I have done that netted me less than $25/hour in reimbursement for the time I put into it. Some were upwards of $500/hour.

How does Coyle's report compare to A Closer Look's?

In my opinion, a lot harder. After doing a couple of Coyle's, ACL's seem like a piece of cake. But the reimbursements from Coyle are better, too.

I have done 6 restaurants for Coyle's. Three were done at each site. The Shop Metrics is a little easier than the old site but they still take a long time to do. The checklist seems longer on the Shopmetrics site. I have gotten conflicting remarks from the editors about what they require from you. I have never had a shop rejected but have been denied reimbursement on a few of the shops because did not follow client's guidelines in ordering. I accepted responsibility for that. But what gets me is that the editors do not read what you write. They come back at me with questions on stuff that I know was already in the narratives.
When they switched to Shopmetrics, I thought i had to make a comment in each statement of the checklist. I was told it was not necessary for yes responses. On the next survey, they wanted a comment for each yes in the Facility section.
And I don't believe we are writing for the client-we are writing for the editors. They do not know what the restaurant looks like. So they want descriptions. Why would the client need it since they created their restaurants. They know what they looked like. I think Coyle wants too much detail. And they are very strict that you stay within their format. I had a survey returned because I did not put it in their format. I had to change some things so it was formatted right.
It is nice to go to these restaurants that you may not go on their own but the reimbursement and fee does not cover the amount of time and hours put into the report. I feel like I made nothing by the time I am done. I just got a free meal with a friend. I am considering stopping to work for them. They do not appreciate the time or effort that goes into the reports. And they discount points if they have to resubmit to you to clarify for them. I don't have the time to fool with them.

Coyle demands narratives for each scenario and I have no problem with that. They definitely expect a well-written report and their editors will keep sending it back for correction.

My only complaint is when it's returned repeatedly over a course of a few days for further editing on misc. parts of the narrative. It seems this can be consolidated into one return rather than dragging it out.

Ther than that, I have been very happy with Coyle. They expect quality and they pay accordingly.

@SS4U wrote:

Coyle demands narratives for each scenario and I have no problem with that. They definitely expect a well-written report and their editors will keep sending it back for correction.

My only complaint is when it's returned repeatedly over a course of a few days for further editing on misc. parts of the narrative. It seems this can be consolidated into one return rather than dragging it out.

Ther than that, I have been very happy with Coyle. They expect quality and they pay accordingly.

I disagree about the pay. I don't think that their pay matches the number of hours you spend on a report. I have a handful of companies for whom I do fine dining and bar audits that routinely pay me $50 fees on top of extremely generous reimbursements. Sometimes, I will pull $75 each if it is the end of the month. Coyle has great locations. You can't argue that, but the reimbursements are pretty close to what you will spend if you are careful. If you order something more expensive that you prefer, instead of a lower end item, prepare to be out of pocket. It's hard to chose Coyle sometimes, when I have other offers with significantly more money. I know that they have shops much better than their dining shops. Shops full of unicorns and rainbows, LOL.

I've only had one report come back for clarification. It took a week. Something regarding the color and shape of a plate. I eat every day, so by then, I had eaten twenty more meals. Luckily for me, I usually snap of photo of everything that I eat. I do find that the reports take longer if you don't shop for them frequently. You MUST have a copy of their instructions and formats right next to you when you are typing the reports. Don't try to do it from memory.

I performed four new home shops. Out of four - two were no longer offices and were now private homes. I asked one neighbor who informed me the office had not been there in a year. Of course Coyle does not want to pay for a full shop because the shop not there. I questioned why they did not have some idea as to what is opened and what is not? I would strongly advise any shopper to check out the onsite listings before heading to a shop. If the address is not listed there is a good chance the office is no longer in existence.

Hey! Ive done several of their high end jobs. Are you doing a resort or just a hotel?

This is due to different editors being in charge of different sections of the report more than anything else afaik.

@Roxie wrote:

I have done three restaurants on their main (old) site. They took at least three hours. One place we had five busboys, and I had to keep track of which one did what and when, along with everything else. I have received an 18, 19, and 20. It is frustrating to write a great report and have a point taken off because you wrote more than three to five words on one question in the summary section or for saying the soup was served at the correct temperature instead of saying it was hot. However, they do have some very nice restaurants, and the reimbursements are usually adequate to pay the bill, so the three or four hour report is well worth it to me. I'm still afraid to try a hotel.

These are things they explcitly tell you to NOT do. YOu dont know if it's the correct temperature, you made an assumption. Our job is to be objective, not to make things up. Perhaps that soup should havle been served room temperature, or perhaps cold.

For example, I was at a job and was given two free drinks. We didn't report it as the employee gave away two free drinks. It was reported that two of our drinks were complimentary with no assertion as to why. We assumed he was stealing, but turns out not only was it rang in, but that company allows up to $50 a night on comps and we got $20 of them and he had done nothing wrong at all.

My first resort for them took me the better part of 5 days. The second one, closer to 3, now a restaurant job can be knocked out in an hour or three, and the hotel/resorts can be done primarily on site with some time leftover to do touristy stuff or relax.

Coyle is not for the faint of heart or the disorganized.

@teriraia wrote:

I have been hesitant to take Coyle assignments because of the time it takes to write the report. If you breakdown all those hours into an hourly wage you would be making about $2.00/hour. On top of that if your report is rejected you are out quite a bit of money. No thanks.

You're making stuff up. The last 4 jobs I have done for coyle, including travel time, amounted to 25-50 per hour in reimbursement/payment. All were upscale restaurants in Chicago.

Thank you. I figured that out when the editor asked about the temperature. It was my first report, and they said to comment on the temperature, so that is what I did. I have not made that mistake since.

@jrossetti wrote:

@Roxie wrote:

I have done three restaurants on their main (old) site. They took at least three hours. One place we had five busboys, and I had to keep track of which one did what and when, along with everything else. I have received an 18, 19, and 20. It is frustrating to write a great report and have a point taken off because you wrote more than three to five words on one question in the summary section or for saying the soup was served at the correct temperature instead of saying it was hot. However, they do have some very nice restaurants, and the reimbursements are usually adequate to pay the bill, so the three or four hour report is well worth it to me. I'm still afraid to try a hotel.

These are things they explcitly tell you to NOT do. YOu dont know if it's the correct temperature, you made an assumption. Our job is to be objective, not to make things up. Perhaps that soup should havle been served room temperature, or perhaps cold.

For example, I was at a job and was given two free drinks. We didn't report it as the employee gave away two free drinks. It was reported that two of our drinks were complimentary with no assertion as to why. We assumed he was stealing, but turns out not only was it rang in, but that company allows up to $50 a night on comps and we got $20 of them and he had done nothing wrong at all.

My first resort for them took me the better part of 5 days. The second one, closer to 3, now a restaurant job can be knocked out in an hour or three, and the hotel/resorts can be done primarily on site with some time leftover to do touristy stuff or relax.

Coyle is not for the faint of heart or the disorganized.

@SteveSoCal wrote:

That said, there's not a Coyle shop I have done that netted me less than $25/hour in reimbursement for the time I put into it.

This I can agree with.

@SteveSoCal wrote:

Some were upwards of $500/hour.

But this just isn't fair! Best I can come up with is $100/hr and that's if I include only the flight & transfer travel time and time spent working directly on assignments. But if I added in downtime at the hotel or total time spent away from home, the number drops a good bit.

As far a figuring time goes; I'm talking about time spent working on the report. Since the meal, hotel stay or vacation that I am getting is compensation-in-kind as far as I'm concerned, then the vacation should not be counted as working time. That's the enjoyable part!

Im averaging around $1,000-$2000/day in compensation on my recent travel assignments, so it's dropping below the $100 mark if I need to count in the time spent sleeping at the resort.