I am interested in hearing from our schedulers on this board.

How many emails do you get in a day and how swamped are you?
I've sent "911" emails on occasion to a few different schedulers and only one has ever responded within a few hours. Usually, the response rate is 48 - 72 hours.

So I'm not trying to bash, but trying to understand the workload and if an email could easily get lost in the flood.

How would you want to be contacted in an urgent situation?

Shoppers: do you have your schedulers' and MSC phone numbers handy at all times? I guess I should begin this practice better than what I have been doing...

This isn't directed at you, but if a shopper has an abundance of issues that require last minute contact to the scheduler every month, chances are it is the shopper; and perhaps this line of work is not for them.


I have contacts for the people I need in the event I need to contact them immediately. They also know I won't contact them for things that are trivial and others might consider "urgent."


Any company that doesnt have the ability to have reliable communcation, I don't do work for. Plain and simple.

If they provide a number, it is in my phone. For local shops it is never big concern because rarely does anything weird come up that would require immediate contact. Routes and video are entirely different animals and I better be able to contact someone quickly or I won't take shops for that company.

Recently I completed a local shop where I needed two proofs of visit: a picture and a printout. I took the picture but the office said that they did not have the capability to give me the printout. Of course the instructions said that I must have the printout or the shop will not be accepted; no exceptions. Luckily the guidelines had the MSC phone number so that I could get in touch with the scheduler to see what I should do. She said not to worry about it and just take a second picture. I also documented this in the report. Without speaking to the scheduler I felt I ran the risk of having my shop rejected; or possibly having to fight with them to accept it.

Moral of the story: It is always better to have a phone number with you to get in touch with the scheduler just in case.

I cannot speak for all schedulers. Depending on the MSP I am scheduling for, the number of emails may vary. I have scheduled for MSP's where I have received hundreds of emails a day. It would take hours just to sort through emails.

I, too, mystery shop and I get really upset when a scheduler does not respond to my emails. Recently, I had a mystery shop that stated right in the shop info...do not cancel your shop if you need to reschedule the shop or just need a different date. I emailed the scheduler several times with no response. I ended up canceling the shop as I did not know if the shop was acceptable on the date I wanted. It is just so frustrating to email people with no response.

I do try and answer all emails as a scheduler. I might miss one here and there if the email goes into my junk mail by accident. I do put my cell phone number on all emails, so I am reachable. And I do answer the phone if I hear it or can. I do not always have my cell phone in my hand or near me.

There have been several MSP's that I have scheduled for that the person has a phone number and it goes to a central phone and you will get voicemail. Please leave a message on the voicemail. The voicemail sends the scheduler an email within seconds of the call. Sometimes it is a written text and sometimes you get the voicemail sent in the email. The scheduler then can call the shopper back if needed or email the shopper. Please give your complete name and phone number when leaving messages.

Always put your complete name, first and last name along with the type of shop and location in your emails. Schedulers do have many different accounts in a lot of cities. It saves the scheduler a lot of time if they do not have to search the database to see who you are. It could be the difference of getting an email or phone call now or maybe waiting many hours when the scheduler has to do research to find out who you are of the shop you are asking about.

June: Thanks for the info. It will be helpful in the future.

Our schedulers receive 100s of emails daily, and we train them to respond as quickly as possible, prioritizing when necessary. Most of the time they are able to reply within a few hours; however, there are a few instances where an immediate response isn’t possible. These could be (but not limited to)

1. The email matter needs to be escalated internally (the scheduler needs to speak with their supervisor to see how the client wishes to proceed) before responding.
2. The scheduler may be out of the office for the day (either sick or already worked their shift).
3. The shopper doesn’t provide full contact information in the email so we need to hunt down who needs what.

All of our shopper guidelines provide an email address to contact if you have questions (preferred method of contact). This particular email address is routed to several of our schedulers, so if #2 happens, you can still receive an answer in a timely manner.

Oh Shane, you inadvertently gave me quite a chuckle. It is nice to know you have a plan in place when "#2" happens

LOL!

I normally wake up to about 120 on any given day that have come in overnight and get an additional 200 or so during the day. Like June said, many of them don't have enough information for me to act on right away and I have to send them back. I can't tell you how many I get with, "I want to do the shop" and no name, location, project, anything. I get so many with, "I want to shop for you" and no other information that I have a macro in my computer called "tell me where" - you can guess what it says.

With that said, I go through all of my email first thing and act on any that can be acted on. If you email me at midnight, you won't get an answer until the next morning, but if you email me during business hours I respond extremely quickly - sometimes within a minute or two.

This is a personal preference of mine, but I do not prefer the telephone as a means of contact, mainly because as I'm doing ongoing triage of what I need to do, constant interruptions mean that I can't prioritize as well. I'm also frequently on the telephone with clients.

Judith

Thanks for all the feedback on this. It has helped me greatly.