Mystery Shopping Top Tips

Only go to places very convenient to your location - I live in a big city so I have lots of choices, but if I did not, I would not go out of my way to do this.
The stores and restaurants you will mystery shop reset every month or two. So one day, every Torchy's Tacos location will be available, but as people sign up for available slots, there will come a time when there are none left for that round. You snooze you lose.
The reimbursement will not always cover your entire meal. 90% of the time it does but today my party of 5 went $60 over and we just split it.
Most surveys take me 15 minutes to fill out, but some of them where it's a long sit down dinner with 4+ courses takes about 40.

my Favorite Sites

Coyle: Best for high end / upmarket restaurants.
GigSpot (App): Huge number of restaurants and how I get free lunch 3x per week
IntelliShop: Free oil changes and free lunches and dinners at fast casual chains
Marketforce: Mostly fast casual restaurants, and some nice ramen places
Bestmark: Fast casual restaurants and occasionally Costco
iShopForIpsos (Sassie): Many retail chains and some restaurants

Last month I did 20 mystery shops, mostly for lunch. I frequently mystery shop a popular salad place with many locations near me. I get reimbursed $20 for my lunch, and then I get paid $15 for filling out the survey. Here's how it goes:

Set my phone to audio record as I enter the restaurant
Order my salad and make note of the names of the employees who are helping me
Pay for my lunch
Take a picture of my food and my receipt
Observe the restaurant and use the restroom
Fill out the survey, using the audio transcript to note the times (like when I entered the restaurant, how long it took to for someone to greet me, how long from when I first ordered to when I got my food)
Upload my pictures
The company sends me $35 via PayPal

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