IPSOS 2022 Shops

I cannot conceive of a universe where I would want my spouse with me on a shop where a couple is not required, and I can confidently say that she wouldn't want me around, either!

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More Discussions About Ipsos Mystery Shopping (All Companies)

They have bonused somewhat more aggressively this quarter. Two of the gas brands are now at $20 a location. This would be a somewhat okay amount if no significant travel was involved. My guess is that they will stay at $20 for a long time to see how many of them get picked off.

My husband and I have one reward card. I use it for one shop a day period. But If I buy gas at the same type of station outside of an assignment I will use it up to twice in one day. My husband and I both do gas stations with one car. But one person does the entire assignment by themselves mystery shop, reveal, the audit is all the same person the one who is assigned the shop. I pull off the lot when my husband does his shop. Sometimes I pull next door sometimes I drive down the street depending on what there is to see and do I might go get something to eat or look at the metal shop stuff like that. Once I drove to the park and went for a walk.

How are they?

I do the blue stations that have 2 different names . I like them. They are very easy.

I also like the blue station that has an audit and separate mystery shop. They are not too bad.

To be honest, I don't think the pay is enough for the length of work. It depends what the pay is in your area. I did 2 this week with a bigger bonus than regular pay and it still was not enough for me to want to do them. Maybe there is a trick I do not know, but to me it just hasnt been worth it.

I do the yellow and red gas station and I will happily do them with a nice bonus. I have two this weekend for over 30 bucks a piece and it shouldn't take me more than about a half an hour each.

They were my bread-and-butter for last year, and probably will be this year as well.

The blue/reds where you only reveal if there's a uniform issue are quick and easy, and well worth the pay IMNSHO. Depending on density you can knock out 3 an hour including submitting reports.

The more involved blue/reds and the yellow/reds are definitely not worth the base pay, especially yellow/red as they are the most involved. I sit back and wait for bonuses on remote locations to go way up, then plan loops with the simpler blue/reds to fill in the gaps.

Combined with the quick pay turnaround, these are always the first shops I look for when it's time to book some work.

Have synthesizers, will travel...

I have found their YouTube videos to be quite informative @French Farmer. I am afraid the editor will ding me for placing a link.

@French Farmer wrote:

I'm curious - has anyone heard what type of new guidelines IPSOS will mandate for their gas stations shops?

Speaking as a long-ago technical writer, I think that IPSOS has some of the best training material out there. They’re well-written and a good resource if I need to double check a small detail. I screenshot them, even the ones that are 70+ pages long, and then put them in an album on my iPhone.

They have one due on 1/31 that's been bonused up to $35, but it's about an hour round-trip for me, and honestly, I can't do these quickly enough to make $$ on them. Granted, I've only done one and I'm sure they'd go more quickly the more I do, but I'm not sure I'm up to that much of a learning curve. I could tack on one that's on the way to the other one, but it's at base of $12.50. Nope, nope, and nope.

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

@K.calonge1215 wrote:

To be honest, I don't think the pay is enough for the length of work. It depends what the pay is in your area. I did 2 this week with a bigger bonus than regular pay and it still was not enough for me to want to do them. Maybe there is a trick I do not know, but to me it just hasnt been worth it.

Experience..... that is the trick. I have yet to do any station for any company that takes me more than 40 minutes. MOST take me less than 30, with some taking less than 10. When you have done thousands, you can drive by and just start seeing the infractions LOL!

@ColoKate63 wrote:

I screenshot them, even the ones that are 70+ pages long, and then put them in an album on my iPhone.

I find it quicker to just download PDF versions of the IPSOS docs. I use Dropbox so I can access things across all my devices. I'll usually carry my iPad with me so I have a larger screen for reading the docs while keeping the camera open on my phone.

Having the iPad is also handy for the inevitable fast food drive through shops on my gas station loops that require timings and menu board photos. I can keep Exact Time open on my phone while I get the pictures I need with iPad's camera.

Have synthesizers, will travel...

@ColoKate63 wrote:

Speaking as a long-ago technical writer, I think that IPSOS has some of the best training material out there. They’re well-written and a good resource if I need to double check a small detail. I screenshot them, even the ones that are 70+ pages long, and then put them in an album on my iPhone.

I can't speak to their training materials, but their guidelines vs. their surveys have the most contradictions and ambiguities of any MSC I deal with! Lots of other MSCs' materials have the usual grammar, spelling, and usage errors, but IPSOS is the one I've had to contact the most before shops to ask for clarifications and the one that I've had the most follow-up questions asked of me. And in most of those cases, I followed the guidelines, and the editors didn't understand until I explained the issues. Or I added explanatory notes within the survey, which weren't read until after the questions were asked.

Maybe different people write the training guides. As a copywriter myself, I'd love to get my hands on the guidelines and surveys!

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

@BirdyC wrote:

IPSOS is the one I've had to contact the most before shops to ask for clarifications and the one that I've had the most follow-up questions asked of me. And in most of those cases, I followed the guidelines, and the editors didn't understand until I explained the issues. Or I added explanatory notes within the survey, which weren't read until after the questions were asked.

I was normally a video route shopper. However, I just started doing gas stations in 2021, because I am being very careful about Covid exposures - and gas station work is 75% (ish) outside. I feel fairly safe performing them while wearing a N95 mask. I don’t feel safe doing most of my old video shop interactions, because the time spent with the salespeople is too long and their mask wearing and social distancing is pretty inconsistent. :-(

In 2021, I performed well over 1,000 gas stations across nine states. Not once did I get a question from an IPSOS editor. A few times I forgot the “safety vest” photo and got a 9/10, but my overall IPSOS average is 10/10. I find the IPSOS reports very straightforward and the weekly pay is appreciated.

Gas stations aren’t fun-filled and there’s certainly some unhinged folks hanging around them, but until this pandemic settles down, I’ll be doing them - and IPSOS will be my first choice. I guess that “YMMV” applies here.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2022 08:56PM by ColoKate63.

I think the new year has brought a lot of changes this time. Many of the guidelines have been revamped and cleaned up, some of the certification tests too. There are fewer contradictions between the guidelines and the certifications. And fewer contradictions between the guidelines and the actual shop surveys.

The payments have not gone up, but they seem to be, at least in January, adding bonus' earlier and the shops are flying off the boards sooner. I've missed out on some good routes because I'm afraid of driving when the roads are frozen.

I think I got most of the shops that were close to home once they had $10 or higher bonus' and now that the bonus' are already $17.50 (making the total pay $30) the easy to get to shops are going fast. As usual, someone did all of the shops that are close together in the city just north of me for base pay, I'll never understand that. They also seem to only be allowing 3 - 4 days scheduling windows where they used to do it by the week, which is messing with me because of the weird weather we're having, 2 or 3 frozen days, 1 or maybe 2 days above freezing IF we're lucky. And the NWS can't seem to get anything right more than 3 days ahead, after the 3rd day it goes back to the predictive models that haven't been right in years.

I like doing gas station shops, I do most brands with several different MSC's. I have a simple way to do the shops, I drive up, take a picture of the time on my dash, do the mystery shop portion of the shop, then I introduce myself and give them the LOA and leave behind forms (almost all of the stations have something they want left behind), then I take all of the pictures inside (some don't have any pictures to take inside). I do all of the outside pictures and I try to make a trip around the gas islands that gets me back to my vehicle when I'm done taking all of the pictures. When I'm done taking pictures I sit in my vehicle either right there or in an adjoining parking lot, and fill out the survey and upload the pictures. If I miss a picture, or see something that I missed, I'm still close enough that I can snap another picture easily, either on foot or from my car. And when I leave, I'm done, no more work to do at home except to put the pics on my desktop computer for storage for the next 6 months.

I think I am getting it down now! I do the same thing! The problem I have is they have the same pay listed for 2 pumps or 24. I have a lot of truck stops along my route and they have soooo many pumps!

@ColoKate63 wrote:

In 2021, I performed well over 1,000 gas stations across nine states. Not once did I get a question from an IPSOS editor. A few times I forgot the “safety vest” photo and got a 9/10, but my overall IPSOS average is 10/10. I find the IPSOS reports very straightforward and the weekly pay is appreciated.

I haven't gotten one 10 from them. All 9's with one 8 after 5 shops. I don't get what the deal is and the editors don't give you what you need to do to get the 10. It's dragging my IPSOS average down. Grr!

@French Farmer wrote:

I note that the amount for the latest shops in 2022 are still at the pay amount as 2021. As for Darkness shops, until they advise in writing that they pay an additional amount for doing a Darkness shop, I would never agree.

I did a ton of gas station shops in 2009. From what I see, they pay the same, or even less, in 2022. That is beyond absurd and I won't touch them now.

@gsfreeman2 wrote:

@ColoKate63 wrote:

In 2021, I performed well over 1,000 gas stations across nine states. Not once did I get a question from an IPSOS editor. A few times I forgot the “safety vest” photo and got a 9/10, but my overall IPSOS average is 10/10. I find the IPSOS reports very straightforward and the weekly pay is appreciated.

I haven't gotten one 10 from them. All 9's with one 8 after 5 shops. I don't get what the deal is and the editors don't give you what you need to do to get the 10. It's dragging my IPSOS average down. Grr!

What kind of smartphone do you use? I invested in an iPhone 12 ProMax with triple camera lenses, and I’ve consistently received 10/10 on my reports since then. The picture quality is absolutely incredible, and I think that they’re so good now that they’re boosting my scores.

@F and L TeleComm wrote:

But one person does the entire assignment by themselves mystery shop, reveal, the audit is all the same person the one who is assigned the shop. I pull off the lot when my husband does his shop. Sometimes I pull next door sometimes I drive down the street depending on what there is to see and do I might go get something to eat or look at the metal shop stuff like that. Once I drove to the park and went for a walk.

Me and my son have done something similar, he goes dashing while I shop a station. After i get all the pictures taken I find a place to sit and do the survey. And he comes back in 45 minutes.

You can save pdf’s to iBooks on an iPhone. No need to spend all that time screenshooting. Then they’re searchable too. If I can save a pdf of my report I also save it to iBooks. They won’t have a title if you do it on your phone or iPad straight from the guidelines. If I save a pdf and name it on my Mac and email it to myself, then I can save it with that name on my iPhone.

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