I'm writing this to answer a question in another thread. I am speaking from my own experience and not for all companies.

Schedulers know life happens. Things do prevent people from doing shops. Also, some shoppers just don't take msing seriously. But I'm not going to get into that here. This thread is for what we schedulers do and not to complain about flaking.

When shops are released, some ms companies have automated emails that go out to shoppers daily.

Shoppers accept some shops. That is awesome! I have to recruit shoppers for the locations that are not accepted. I post here, in yahoo groups, volition, mspa, and other places I can find.

I email databases of shoppers and I also text and call shoppers.

I need to fill my shops as earlier as I can in the month because shoppers will flake. When a shopper flakes, I have to fill that shop again.

Shops are generally released a week before the new month starts. Not always, but usually.

Some locations are shopped once per month, some once per week. The shops have to be so many days apart. When all 4 shops are scheduled and someone flakes or needs to reschedule we sometimes have to ask another shopper to reschedule their shop so we can fit this rescheduled shop into the time restrictions.

This is why sometimes shoppers are asked if you can shop on a specific day only.

After we reschedule the shops that were flaked on or canceled, some of those shops will have flakers as well. Now we are into the latter part of the month and have to work to fill the open shops. This is why when shops are released, you only have the first week or so to pick a day for your shop. If shoppers had the entire month someone would pick day the 3rd week into the month. If they flake, we are really pressed and hurting for time to fill the shop.

If you get a notice on a shop and can't pick a day within that specified time period it is because someone else has accepted a shop at the location during that time period. Email your scheduler and they will extend the dates. Don't give up and ignore the shop. We limit the days for the reasons above and extend them as time goes on.

If a shopper accepts a shop for the 10th then flakes, they've had that shop tied up for about 3 weeks and someone else could have completed it already. (Oops, sorry, I said I wasn't going to complain.)


I get angry emails about how we need to fix our crappy system, or we are scammers advertising a shop that doesn't exist because they can't pick a day within the time frame in the email. Do we want this shop done or not?

If you don't understand something, ask.

We do get emails from shoppers saying that they want to do the shop but they can't pick a day within the time period, can you help?

Yes! yes we can and we'll be glad to.

We also recruit. We send out recruiting posts for new shoppers to sign up with our companies. Our shops have rotation restrictions that we must adhere to so we must have a new pool of shoppers.

When I call shoppers I usually am received very warmly and they are glad I called.

Sometimes I'm told not to call them. They accept shops by emails only so I respect that and I mark that in their profile to not call them. They will later miss out on shops that were canceled or flaked because those shops don't always have information emailed about them. They will miss out on bonused shops as well. But that is okay with them. If they are a seasoned shopper they know this and don't mind.

If I'm hard pressed to fill a shop I don't have time to wait for people to answer emails.

If I text someone and they ask not to receive texts I mark them do not text and I will call them.

Other times I call and people say, I'm usually only called when there is a bonus. If you don't have a bonus to offer don't call me, I don't want the shop. So I mark in their profile to only call when shops are bonused.

I have to fill my shops and I have to fill my shops early. I'm going to call shoppers to do my job and I won't always have bonuses to offer.

Some companies can offer bonuses a bit more freely then others. I have no control over that. In some cases the client has already agreed to a bonus pool that they will pay out. That can't be changed by the ms company or scheduler.

Please don't complain here about low paying shops. I have no control over the shop pay. There are plenty of other treads about that.

Please don't be rude to schedulers. If you are rude to them, they will question your character and may not want you doing a shop for them.

If you email me and tell me that you can't do a shop before the shop is due, I'll be glad to help you reschedule.

If you email me to reschedule the shop, then reschedule again, then again a third time, I'll remove you from the shop and try to find someone else. I will tell you that if you find that you do have a day that you can do the shop, log in and see if the shop is available and accept the shop to complete it.

If you flake because you dropped your ipad into a puddle and couldn't enter the results of the shop, jeez, that's frustrating. When you flake the next month because you dropped your ipad into a puddle (true story) you might not get any shops from that company again.

I get paid per completed shop. I do not work 24/7.

Have I missed anything?

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2014 02:02PM by Sallyctcss.

This sounds like it would be a good addition to the "sticky" topics in the New Mystery Shoppers area of the forums.

I found that extremely interesting! I learned something new! Was surprised that so many shoppers flake though. How do these shoppers manage to stay in the business? I flaked twice in my entire mystery shopping career (full-time now for 6 years) and once was because the snow and ice was so bad my car started to drive sideways so I just went home! The second time I had probably 20 shops to do for the same company over a period of 2 weeks and one of the shops I thought I had until the 8th and I actually only had until the 7th. When I got my overdue email at 6am the next mail I got straight out of bed and went and did it. I called the MSC as soon as they opened and apologized profusely.

jpgilham...I think that is the difference of shoppers who are shopping for a living and shoppers who do it because they can, for the "fun". We who do it for a living, do everything in our power to make our deadlines.

You are so right. I've never flaked once. I'll reschedule but when I say I'm going to do a job, I do it.

I have a good reputation and intend to keep it.

I can tell you by experience (not as a flake) but I did extremely part time secret shopping for 5 years before my eyes were open to the wide world of ms. I probably did about 1 shop a month for those five years and had no idea just how many places were actually shopped. I only worked for one company and I only picked up shops that looked fun (bowling etc.). I never knew people did this as a business or that there were so many companies out there.

So I can see how people don't think about flaking. They were just naive like me...

Thanks for the great information and expectations of schedulers. I found your post interesting and informative.

Oh Sally. I came to this forum to post a thread about "flaking". Your timing could not be better in my particular case. I had to take my 90 year old dad to the ER today. I knew that he would be admitted to the hospital, but for how long? So I cancelled an assignment for tomorrow. I opted not to re-schedule because I could not predict the seriousness/duration of his stay and did not want the MS Company to be penalized. This has happened a few times over the past year. I would love to re-schedule, but how can I when I cannot honestly commit to a date that I might not be able to honor? This particular company is on the Prophet System whereas I have to simply cancel or re-schedule with no direct contact with schedulers.

Sally- thank you for posting this. It explains a lot! This is a pretty transient business so I guess it would stand to reason that you would get a lot of flakes. Curious, What would you say is the % of your scheduled shops that get flaked on?

It really depends on the shoppers and the shop. I had a sandwich shop for a while that took care of itself. The shop was so popular I had maybe 2% flake. Some people would cancel but someone else would pick up the shop right away. It was in large cities and it was either take out or dine in so people could grab lunch and be on their way.

I have a lunch shop in a casual dining restaurant where people have to buy a drink. That's hard to fill because it has to be done only 1 day a week and people can't go out to lunch and have a drink when they have to go back to work.

I have another shop that people grab quickly and the flake rate is about 50% then those flaked shops get reassigned and 50% of those people flake and so on.

I had a late night dinner shop that had to be done Friday and Saturday only. This shop was in 5 different states. Each location was shopped twice. It was hard to fill and I had a lot of flakers. Many because friends would agree to go then decide not to at the last minute and leave the shopper stranded.

The third weekend of the month I had 4 flakes. The second shop of 2 of these locations were scheduled that last weekend of the month because of previous flakes on earlier weekends in the month. That last weekend of the month I had 2 flakes. So some locations were not shopped at all that month because of the snowball effect of flakers.

To me, that meant that I could not fill my shops 100 percent so my managers were upset because my shops were not filled and they had to tell the client that not all their shops were filled.

There is a big difference between shoppers who realize this is an industry and shoppers who think it might be fun.

Scheduling is a dream job but it can be stressful because my success depends on other people.

I think scheduling is extremely stressful. I don't know how you can do it without 'cracking up'

Canuck Wrote:
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> I think scheduling is extremely stressful. I don't
> know how you can do it without 'cracking up'
>
>


Yeah, the dream job thing surprised me. Id want to throttle so many people if I had the job.

Maybe by dream she means nightmare

There is much more good then bad.

Sally, I still don't understand. How in the world could "the good" outweigh "the bad", since "the good" is a static "good", but "the bad" can quickly become "very bad", with multiple flakers, and results in your managers being upset? Your job sounds, oh, so stressful and the opposite of my version of fun. What am I missing?

(heart)

PS
Kudo to you, BTW!!!

I looked into working as a scheduler with a popular MSC and when I saw it averaged $10 / hr I decided that it wasn't worth anywhere near that.

I'm just speculating, but I can think of a variety of circumstances where a work-from-home job that may not pay big money, but pays solidly above the minimum wage, would be a dream job.

Dream job? Ishmael, did you factor in the last minute flakes? Like Hoju, I would want to throttle people.

(heart)

Just because it's not work it for me, doesn't mean it's not worth it for everyone. I certainly wouldn't do it, but I don't begrudge anyone that finds the income reasonable.

The last minute flakes would drive me crazy. The whole idea of being completely at the mercy of a bunch of strangers who seemed to be competing for the best variant on: 'the dog ate my report....and my photos' would drive me crazy. You and Hoju and I would have to compete for who was the most stressed out.

But, what I was thinking was: what if something kept me at home? My medical condition, or a medical condition of a family member, perhaps, or a lot of other reasons. There's a reason that scam artists promote work-at-home jobs; the demand greatly outweighs the supply.

I love the that I can work my own hours.

I clearly do not have the personality to be a scheduler, which makes me admire and appreciate those of you who are. Thank you for your informative posts, Sally!

(heart)

Sally, thank you providing some insight as to what schedulers have to go through every day!

I think the reason there are so many flakes in the Mystery Shopping industry is that certain companies lure shoppers with the idea that "You are going to eat anyway, make it a mystery shop!" or "You need gas anyway, just make it a mystery shop!" (unless I am misinterpreting the marketing message).

The reality is that not all reports are easy and there is definitely a learning curve. If you aren't "in the business" so to say, what's to stop these new shoppers from walking away and never looking back?

I was actually going to post about one of the topics you touched on here.
Can you provide more detail about the "Please pick a day between today [let's say 2/9] and 2/16/2014 except 2/9, 2/10, 2/11, 2/12, 2/13, 2/14, 2/15, or 2/16."
Is it because someone flaked the previous week and the current week is all filled?

Very interesting and informative, and many valid points!

quiettime Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was actually going to post about one of the
> topics you touched on here.
> Can you provide more detail about the "Please pick
> a day between today and 2/16/2014 except 2/9,
> 2/10, 2/11, 2/12, 2/13, 2/14, 2/15, or 2/16."
> Is it because someone flaked the previous week and
> the current week is all filled?


That means that location you are applying to is shopped more then once. There needs to be so many days between shops. Someone else has already accepted a shop at that location, hence tying up all the dates and now you can't choose one of those dates.

The shop dates have not yet been extended so the second shop at that location can't be self assigned.

Keep in mind, thousands of shops were just rolled out across the country. The dates are updated manually by each scheduler.

So if you see this, just email your scheduler and tell them you want to do this shop and they will assign it to you.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2014 10:27AM by Sallyctcss.

Thank you Sally! Great information. I flaked on my first job yesterday. If I had a dog bed to crawl in I would.

You make a great point in that your success is dependent on others. I too am diligent with my commitments as I would not want to have a great MSC or scheduler lose a contract due to not meeting the SLA because of people minimize the importance of completing an assignment.

Great post, Sally!

Very good post!!

I am very open to rescheduling with my shoppers, but in many cases, the shop gets flaked AFTER the extension!

One thing I think this post missed... Our pay is based off of shoppers doing their part. We get a salary, which is not high, and the rest is on performance based bonuses.

Just last month, I had a shopper that had my last two shops for the month. She asked for an extension 2 days before the deadline, to be done on the deadline. I granted that extension, and STRESSED to her the importance of having her shops submitted by midnight that night.

Well, those two $25 shops she flaked on cost me $200 in my pocket, because I was not 100% completed for the month because of her. She then asked me to do them the next day, and apologized for missing them again. Sorry, but that apology does not put that $200 in my pay check, nor does it pay the bills. Needless to say, she did not get the chance to complete those shops the next day, because I found someone else, and she can most likely forget about asking to do any when the bonuses roll out this month.

So please... If you cannot do the shop, are not taking it seriously, cannot understand that your actions affect the scheduler in many ways, or understand that you do need to read the instructions and understand them, then don't take the shop.