Let me start with the question. Context to follow.

Do the more basic Coyle hotel shops tend to take 8 hours to complete a report? The ones that I am looking at are local hotels with a restaurant. No bar, spa, or other services on site. I am a decent report writer. Also, is there any way to see the guidelines before applying?

I have been a lurking member for awhile. I mainly complete reimbursement with pay shops for items, experiences, or food that my family enjoys. I have completed some very simple hotel shops and then a few more complicated boutique hotel shop that required lots of interactions with the bell hop, concierge, front desk, restaurant, etc. I have only completed a couple of bar or restaurant shops for Coyle.

I've always been curious in how long it takes other shoppers to complete these type of reports. I'd be interested in SteveSoCal and others chiming in.

To me, eight hours or less seems like an acceptable budgeted amount of time.

When SteveSoCal shared his process with the reports, it helped me approach it better and gave me some assurance. Based on other posts shoppers have shared about how long their entire narrative is in a Word doc and their structure, I think my narratives may be on the shorter side though.

One night stay with a single restaurant would be in the 8 hour range for sure...but I don't see as many of those as I used to. I am seeing a trend to move to dining-intensive assignments where you have almost no time on property to do any work. In the past I used to do two night stays where you would get a single room service meal and a breakfast one morning. I could always knock those out with one day of work when I got back home.

The thing is, they have been changing up the standards in recent years, and adding more sections to the reports. You cannot see the requirements in advance of being assigned a shop, but I usually have some expectation based on prior shops for the same client of what will be required.

My most recent shop decimated all of my expectations for reporting time. I had done hotels for the client in the past, but they had changed so many things, it was like a brand new client. Constant eating. Numerous complaints. Multiple bars. Retail section. Pool section. Gym section. STEAM ROOM section. Honestly! There were separate sections for valet from bellman, but it was the same employee doing all of it, so I had to come up with a narrative that separated it out. The dining components had new sections with standards that have not been present for other hotels or restaurants in the past, so that took extra time to format. The bars had bar + lounge requirements, with even more food. There were multiple calls required outside of the reservation call, and all of this was for a hotel outside of the US where the staff were not native English speakers, which made collecting names difficult, and transcribing the phone calls even more so. The requirements were so absurd that it made it obvious I was the shopper, and that brought even more interactions with management constantly checking on me.

In the end, I had to put in three full days of work to get the report submitted. I have learned and will pass on anything moving forward that requires that much work. It was not worth it.

My recommendation is to apply and then don't feel bad about declining a shop once you see the requirements. If they are not going to disclose them up front, then they need to be understanding about shoppers cancelling after the shops have ben assigned. A more recent thing I have noticed is there being no mention of valet parking being required in the description, but then being required to park a car at the hotel, so it means extra car rental fees if you are flying in.

Thanks for all the information. I had decided not to complete shops for Coyle based on similar information years ago. I am willing to spend a few hours completing a report but i cant imagine 8 hours. It isn't necessarily the report writing time that turns me off as much as what I imagine I need to observe that could take 8 hours to the write out.if i cant enjoy the experience , it probably isnt worth it.

I'm with Steve on this one. I can't even enjoy the visit with that many interactions. My companion doesn't enjoy the visit because I am always busy and rechecking that I did not miss anything. 8 hours post-visit sounds right, but you are going to burn MANY hours on-site keeping track of all of the interactions.

I had one last weekend. I would say about 8 hours but like Steve said things are changing. First off, it was about $1200 for about a 3 star hotel. It was in a cruise port, so I get the upcharge, but the hotel was incredibly dated. I had so many things go wrong. It was so frustrating. First of all, I had an integrity shop at a bar, but the resort was cashless. The bar of that name no longer existed, but it was still billed as such on my folio. I was supposed to have luggage brought to my room and the staff seemed perplexed by this.... and never brought it. I was supposed to have staff retrieve my luggage from the room, and they quote a 10 minute wait.... and never showed. The other bars were closed when they were supposed to be open. It was literally one nightmare situation after another that required extensive reporting. I was disappointed and exhausted. And like Steve said, multiple complaints which were listed by month and a little awkward to complete because they just feel so elaborate sometimes. But overall, it was fine. Just don't expect every trip to be a dream (some are).

@nolimitem wrote:

It was literally one nightmare situation after another that required extensive reporting.

Anything too good or too bad is problematic for reporting. They clearly were not suspecting you, at least.

I had a room service breakfast on the last shop that had 5 phone calls included in it. My original order. The call from them to make sure they included the right spreads for the toast. Another call to tell me they couldn't supply the dessert that THEY RECOMMENDED! Yet another call to tell me they were on the way, but late. And a final call to tell me they wanted to pick up the dishes, and that they had managed to make the dessert they originally denied me...and it was on the house.

I set the tray in the hallway so that they could collect it and the restaurant manager came for it. She knocked on my door & wanted to make sure I enjoyed the meal. The server shows up with the free dessert while I am talking to the manager. Now I need a picture of that, and it even more interactions to write up! But the manager won't leave and it insisting I try the dessert.

I had also done everything but the retail shop around the time I was leaving the hotel after check out. The bellman took my valet ticket, looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Perhaps you want to browse the gift shop while we get your car."

I felt like I had to put extra attention into getting every detail perfect on the report because they were expecting it, and they were trying so hard to hit every single standard.

@SteveSoCal wrote:

I had also done everything but the retail shop around the time I was leaving the hotel after check out. The bellman took my valet ticket, looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Perhaps you want to browse the gift shop while we get your car."

OMG dying ....

I wonder if any of you have ever seen the movie "A Five Star Life"?. It's about 10 years old. It's an Italian movie about a woman who's a professional luxury hotel evaluator....some of the scenes are outrageously gorgeous....I first saw it before I ever did a shop. It ruined me. Our shops here are not even close to that level of glamour...I believe she's a full time employee though. Still worth viewing IMO.
I've always wondered how the raters at AAA do it....I believe they are employees, not sure.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2024 06:20PM by BarefootBliss.

I did see the movie! How often do we get to see our "jobs" portrayed on a screen in a way that is not misleading and actually fairly accurate.

Some of the questions shown on the screens for the forms the main protagonist is filling out seem to be taken directly from the forms we actually deal with.

As always there''s not much I can add to a Coyle thread that @SteveSoCal hasn't already explained. But it's worth mentioning that the chain Coyle shops where you can bring your pet is a whole other ballgame. One restaurant meal, a few interactions, and the happy hour and self-serve coffee station are about it beyond the obvious like check-in and check-out. Morning housekeeping but not turndown service (which outside of cruise ships I'd never even heard of before I started shopping for Coyle!).

The report is more interested in the "vibes" than anything else. So a much faster report -- and, on the flip side, you'll be paying for all of your breakfasts and lunches and one of your dinners, which may or may not be a plus depending on where you're staying and if you're in a situation where you can bring some of your own food and utensils to the room (which has a fridge but not a microwave).

By the way, when it comes to those long reports, the "complaint by month" guidelines reminds me that I recently shopped a really nice resort in the middle of the woods. Every guest gets their own beautifully appointed cabin. Nothing else within walking or probably even driving distance and it was freezing and snowing so I didn't mind that we had to eat LOTS of meals there, go to the spa, etc.

As it happens the "complaint" for that month was to complain about noise from the street, hallways, other guests or HVAC. So unless someone was really throwing a rager (not likely with the demographic that we encountered) you'd almost certainly never hear another guest, there are no loud hallways/elevators/ice machines, and imagine how silly it would have been if I had complained about the noise coming from the woods (not that there was anything as all the animals were hibernating). And the HVAC was silent and worked great. Thankfully there was a minor issue with their TVs I could invent a complaint out of!

I've been lucky in that respect: My prior Coyle resort shop required some other equally dubious complaint for that month, but when I went to test the water pressure the shower knob came right off, going me a great excuse for an actual complaint.

I believe I saw the movie Five Star Life. For some reason, I had a picture of Meryl Streep in my mind. But when I saw the IMDb and picture of the main character, it rejogged my memory.

As it pertains to mystery shopping, I recently had this thought of some videos with Gordon Ramsay when he talked about his experience with Michelin food inspectors/critics. He said something along the lines of restaurants trying to identify the person, having the picture of the suspected person in the back, and ensuring the whole experience was perfect. He talked about how that one person could make/break a restaurant. On a smaller, cuter, and light-hearted scale, I'm reminded of the animated movie Ratatouille.

Thinking about some of the Coyle reports, one comfortable element for me was requesting turndown service. Sometimes, the room service meal was from the same restaurant that was to be evaluated later as a dining experience. The interactions, I tried to group together and get out the way. If I did the hotel shops outside of where I live and weren't resorts, I can better picture the frustrations now.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2024 10:46PM by Okie.

There was a time in the last century when Phyllis Richman (restaurant critic for the Washington Post) who often dined in disguise, was considered the most powerful person in Washington DC. LOL.....the ultimate mystery shopper.

I can’t possibly say it better than Steve but I will echo his most salient point. If you are assigned a shop and you read the guidelines and look at the standards and decide it won’t work for you then a polite cancellation (obviously asap) is appropriate. If they don’t want to show guidelines before you are assigned then they have to know this is going to happen.

As always - I have to credit Coyle with some of my most memorable and wonderful shops. Without Coyle I would never had experienced the Maldives (three times) or stayed in an overwater villa in the South Pacific or been introduced to some of my favorite hospitality brands that I am a loyal customer to this very day. Heck one of the brands I have spent over $100k of my own money with and I wouldn’t even have known they existed without Coyle. And I wouldn’t know Steve and his lovely wife (or another poster here and her wonderful husband) - people I consider some of my best friends in “real life”.

In some, I credit Coyle as a huge part of why my life is so blessed…. So I love them…. But some of their assignments are just not worth it by any stretch of the imagination and the problem is, you can’t know that until it’s assigned.

@MickeyB wrote:

As always - I have to credit Coyle with some of my most memorable and wonderful shops.

Don't get me wrong; Same for me with everything you said above...though you have been to the Maldives one more time than me and the current Coyle route there is the hotel brand that I complained about about above, and just swore off.

The hotel that's part of the private membership club is also super easy and I would take that one again in a heartbeat. One just has to be more selective in what assignments they agree to under the current structure.

Adding to things I credit Coyle for (in Coyle formatting):
--- We held my wedding at an outlet from said brand above that we learned of through Coyle!
--- I have maintained Platinum status with my preferred airline for over a decade thanks to Coyle!
--- Without me taking the year off to work for Coyle 20-something years ago, I don't think my career would have reached the point where it's at. It gave me needed perspective.
--- The trip through India based on Coyle shops that MickeyB and I shared years ago cemented our friendship for life, through gastronomic distress!
--- Lastly; Back when the company was really cooking and functioning well, the opportunities were awesome. We rented a private frikin' island! I took both of my parents to a private steakhouse with views of the city that they would never have seen otherwise! I learned to golf. I discovered Asia. I sent a $100+ bottle of wine back at dinner. I ate ant eggs!

If it all ended now, there would be few regrets and mainly just amazing memories.

When I get a chance, I'm going to dig for some of SteveSoCal's old trip reports for inspiration. As a bad joke, when I read old threads, out of sheer ignorance, I thought that SoCalMama might have been SteveSoCal's wife. I was sadly mistaken after further reading.

@Okie wrote:

As a bad joke, when I read old threads, out of sheer ignorance, I thought that SoCalMama might have been SteveSoCal's wife.

LOL...my wife is definitely not on the forum. And SoCalMama was taken already!

They do airlines?!?

I am an inveterate traveler and known for stretching boundaries for the right opportunities, but I haven't jumped deeply into MS travel because of the concerns I have with long reports marring the experience for me. It's a personal issue, I realize.
On the other hand, travel hacking, via miles, points, loopholes and promotions has given me experiences I would not otherwise have afforded....and no reports and I relax and go on my own schedule.
To each his/her/their/our own lol.
I can say this...I travel manyt times per year and I haven't paid for a hotel room since 2013. I only fly first or business. I did fly coach on business travel only because my employer wouldn't pay for an upgrade and it was a short flight so I didn't pay the extra.

One of my most memorable experiences was staying at a Hyatt in DC as a digital nomad during the beginning of the pandemic. Many hotels started shutting down. The one I was staying at, went on "pause". They allowed me to stay because I agreed to forego maid service, restaurants, pool, all that. So the place was mostly dark except for my wing...I would sit and chit chat with the manager whenever I picked up towels. It was only the two of us there for weeks. Weird, but memorable. That was a cheap stay, but not a vacation, I was working.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/29/2024 12:30PM by BarefootBliss.

A side question related to the subject: I have been accepted by Coyle for a midlevel cruise out of Miami. I have extensive restaurant experience with them and have my system for completing the report to their satisfaction. This will be my first cruise for them. If anyone else on the board has experience and suggestions for how to organize myself I appreciate all input. Thanks.

@Msilk wrote:

This will be my first cruise for them. If anyone else on the board has experience and suggestions for how to organize myself I appreciate all input.

I would say that all advice I have given for Coyle shops applies here, especially what I said above. It's really just an extended hotel shop, but you need to have a great system I place for organizing and uploading the pics, because the housekeeping part can be overwhelming on the cruises. I can't recall if the Miami one was 3, 4 or 7 days, but it's more work for the 7 day cruise, obviously.

The additional advice I have for cruise shops is 1 day + 1 day off. Repeat. If you spend the entire cruise working on the report, it will be no fun, but if you save too much for the end, it will also be a problem because it's DAYS of work. For every day I spent enjoying myself and taking notes, I locked myself in the room for another day and worked. I did this for a 2-week cruise and was pretty caught up when we docked in the end, and mostly spent the last day uploading photos. I also save the subjective components for the end. I proof the narrative and then add the subjective lines after that. You will have much better perspective on it all at the end of the cruise.

Book the massage early on a sea day if possible, and do the bars those days. Pick a shorter shore excursion as well. Less work reporting.

MickeyB gave me the best cruise advice ever before I evaluated the 2-week cruise. Avoid the bread! I ate everything else I wanted on that cruise and lost a pound...but I was also biking through Vietnam in the heat on a shore excursion.

Also...don't apply my $100/hour rule for this assignment. You will never make it fit.

Thanks Steve. I use ShopIt for my restaurant shops that are generally an hour or two of experience before creating a report. Should I divide those reports into discrete days or discreet assignments? Are you able to access the Coyle reports and save them for later additions or do you need to keep the entire report on a separate Word document that you upload at the end? This is a 7 day cruise so your advice is already appreciated. (The 3-4 day cruises are generally booze cruises and are not our style.). Do they require multiple housekeeping reports? Thanks.

@Msilk wrote:

Do they require multiple housekeeping reports?

Download the instructions in Shometrics and make sure you are OK with what's required.

I am not privy to the current requirements since I swore off cruises a few years back, but they used to do 3 days of housekeeping on the 7 night cruises. They also almost always made me take an inside cabin, which may have ultimately been the thing that spoiled it the most for me.

I catalog each restaurant like it's a separate shop, but put everything into a single word doc, edit from there and just paste into Shopmetrics when I proof against the checklists.

You can return to the report as needed for scoring, but accessing the reports from the ship may be problematic with limited internet access, so you might just want to print it all into a giant PDF for reference and then do the scoring/checklists when you are back home. Your time is better spend on narrative and photos editing on the cruise, since that will not require Internet access. It's both expensive and slow on the ship.

And just because I won't do the cruises anymore doesn't mean others should avoid them. I did plenty in the past and just found that it was a better value for me to travel to a location and shop a resort property instead. When you book this cruise, you will see the value you are getting for the work. Include the additional food, spa and tips, and it's generally a lot less reimbursement that you get for a 2-night high end resort. But go through the instructions and just be sure you are okay with the level of work required.

I was hesitant before my last shop and thought about cancelling, but didn't want to leave them hanging. In the end, I would have been better to decline the shop after it was assigned, because the amount of complaining from me and turning the report in late probably left a worse impression that just declining it when they had plenty of time to reschedule.

Provided you have the time to do the reporting, the cruise shops can be fun. At one point in time, cruises were the holy grail of the MS world. For me, I am always juggling my career against the shops reports these days, so when I got called in ahead of schedule for a work project in the middle of my last shop and told them my career took precedence over the getting the shop in on time, it didn't go over well. But that's reality, and they should understand it. One job is kinda fun and the other pays my mortgage!

Does coyle still have shops for the kind of trips you all mentioned above? I got the email for the cruise today, do they have hotel and vacations often?

hopefully it’s an end of year thing but they now only have 100 shops