Posting this because of a recent thread on the board, which brought to mind other problems people have shared. For the benefit of newer shoppers, I just want to point out that many companies use outside schedulers, however, sometimes it's more obvious than others. If you have a problem with scheduling or the shop itself, always try communicating with your scheduler first. That said, if the scheduler is unresponsive or unhelpful, try calling the company! As two examples, I've had to do this with Measure and Confero (both scheduled by KSS -- but don't take that to mean all their schedulers are bad).
Just to be clear, I'm not talking about contacting them to be combative because you're pissed off you're not being paid, etc. I'm referring to situations like schedulers being continually unresponsive to emails concerning scheduling/re-scheduling, questions about guidelines, or honestly feeling like you've done the shop correctly, but it wasn't accepted. To support that third example, I once did a shop completely according to guidelines, and reported a response which supposedly was impossible. In that instance, the scheduler communicated with the company on my behalf, and after several emails back and forth, the company checked with the client, only to find out that I was correct. Something new had been introduced, about which they weren't aware, and my shop was ultimately accepted.
Some schedulers are kept more in the loop than others, understand the shops and can help, and/or are very good about communicating with the company on behalf of shoppers, but others are not. Even within the same scheduling company, all schedulers are NOT created equal! If you can't determine if the person with whom you're communicating is a company employee or outside scheduler, ask. Someone here will probably be able to help.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/2013 04:29PM by nicelytwicely.