My Latest shop 3 months into the Mystery shopping gig.

Shop Grade: 10

10/10 Comments: A 10 is a superior evaluation. It was completed and submitted on time, with no additional information or clarification needed. The shop was performed correctly, with project specifications followed exactly as outlined. The evaluation was free of spelling/grammar errors, wording errors and contradictions. The information provided was complete and done in a professional manner. A "snapshot" of the visit was provided in a way that explained your "yes" and "no" responses. Thank you for your efforts.
Regardless of rating, payment for this project is contingent upon the client's acceptance of the evaluation you provided.

My Second shop
9/10 A 9 is a very good evaluation. The evaluation required some adjusting by our reviewers or there were minor errors in the way the shop was performed.
PLEASE NOTE: In order to qualify for a superior rating of 10, an evaluation must meet all of the following criteria: completed correctly as specified and submitted on time; no additional information or clarification needed; no spelling/grammar errors, wording errors or contradictions; comments were complete and accurate and provided in a professional manner; responses to all questions were explained. Thank you for your efforts.
Regardless of rating, payment for this project is contingent upon the client's acceptance of the evaluation you provided.

My First shop
8/10 An 8 is a good evaluation that required some corrections to be made or additional information to be requested or there were errors in the way the shop was performed.
PLEASE NOTE: In order to qualify for a superior rating of 10, an evaluation must meet all of the following criteria: completed correctly as specified and submitted on time; no additional information or clarification needed; no spelling/grammar errors, wording errors or contradictions; comments were complete and accurate and provided in a professional manner; responses to all questions were explained. Thank you for your efforts.
Regardless of rating, payment for this project is contingent upon the client's acceptance of the evaluation you provided.

My Worst shop
1/10 Your shop has been excluded because you used the same name/address as for another shop, so you were still in the computer system.

Congrats on the 10! Good job owning the 1 too. I'm sure that you've already learned from it. It's considerate for you to let others learn from your mistake as well.

Can you elaborate what type of shop the 1/10 was for? Did the guidelines specifically say to use a different name and address? I have an excel spreadsheet I use to try to keep track of when I am within rotation guidelines, but I'm not sure if that is what this is referring to.

New home shops require different names and contact information.

rotation usually takes care of itself; if you're out of rotation, either the job won't show itself to you, or won't let you self-schedule it.

It was a cable provider with offices in the city. Went to one then a week later went to another. Should have used my stepsons old address and a made up name.

I'm running into keeping track of name problems with car shops. I am doing some of the same places I haven't done in over two years. I do not remember what name or phone number I used back then. I do keep track, but going back to what I used two or more years ago would take me too much time to research it. I was asked the other day, "Hey are you so and so? That is who we have for the home number you gave me. OOPs, "No I am not her. I just got a new phone number." The other problem is that when I give a name that is totally not mine (I have shopped the place many times over the years and need to use a different name) and it totally does not match the name on the driver's license. Some salesmen look at the license and some just run a copy without looking at it.

I'm looking for solutions to using alternative e-mails and ways to be alerted when I get an email on them. I have two e-mails that I have and use, but I have trouble checking the one on regular basis. I am using my daughter's now and she has been really good about telling me when one comes in for me. Here is why I'm asking. When doing apartment shops some companies that own multiple complexes keep track of their visitors in a computer system (like the car shops). I have used multiple names, but alternate between the two e-mails. The phone numbers are between my home and cell too. I have to give a home or cell number, e-mail address and home address and the targets get graded down if they do not send out a thank you on one to all three ways. So I have to be able to keep up with the emails. One would think that eventually someone will realize that hey this is a different person, but same address or e-mail or phone number as such and such. The other problem I have is that both e-mails use my current last name. (I don't want to switch e-mail addresses completely as I would be afraid that I would forget to notify a company of the change.)

So does anyone have any suggestions?

Anita Koenig Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm running into keeping track of name problems
> with car shops. I am doing some of the same
> places I haven't done in over two years. I do not
> remember what name or phone number I used back
> then. I do keep track, but going back to what I
> used two or more years ago would take me too much
> time to research it. I was asked the other day,
> "Hey are you so and so? That is who we have for
> the home number you gave me. OOPs, "No I am not
> her. I just got a new phone number." The other
> problem is that when I give a name that is totally
> not mine (I have shopped the place many times over
> the years and need to use a different name) and it
> totally does not match the name on the driver's
> license. Some salesmen look at the license and
> some just run a copy without looking at it.
>
> I'm looking for solutions to using alternative
> e-mails and ways to be alerted when I get an email
> on them. I have two e-mails that I have and use,
> but I have trouble checking the one on regular
> basis. I am using my daughter's now and she has
> been really good about telling me when one comes
> in for me. Here is why I'm asking. When doing
> apartment shops some companies that own multiple
> complexes keep track of their visitors in a
> computer system (like the car shops). I have used
> multiple names, but alternate between the two
> e-mails. The phone numbers are between my home
> and cell too. I have to give a home or cell
> number, e-mail address and home address and the
> targets get graded down if they do not send out a
> thank you on one to all three ways. So I have to
> be able to keep up with the emails. One would
> think that eventually someone will realize that
> hey this is a different person, but same address
> or e-mail or phone number as such and such. The
> other problem I have is that both e-mails use my
> current last name. (I don't want to switch e-mail
> addresses completely as I would be afraid that I
> would forget to notify a company of the change.)
>
>
> So does anyone have any suggestions?

There are several ways that this can be taken care of. Will require a bit of work, but it is doable. Sign up for a GMX account at GMX.com Then use their mail collector to get all of your emails into one account. Currently I have over a dozen accounts. I use outlook and Thunderbird to get my emails if I can set them up in either one. I get all of my mail collected in one GMX account that I have Thunderbird set up for. Use Imap and the mail stays on the original server I did have several hotmail accounts but when M$ decided they were going to get rid of hotmail with no or little warning, I will have as little as anything to do with them. And my Yahoo address' I rarely use any more. You can even get temp email accounts that are good for 30 minutes and some for 30 days, then they just go to the big bit locker on the internet until someone else decides to use it. Out of 9 billion people someone else just might have the same name, Or come up with Bob 2857.

For shops where you need to show a driver's license, use a variation of your first and middle names, and change the last name. "I just got a divorce, and since I am moving I am waiting to have my new address before I switch back to my maiden name."

I march through the alphabet for last names: Albee, Byron, Cather, etc. It helps to have a "theme" for your aliases: authors and poets, anyone?

Anita Koenig Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm running into keeping track of name problems
> with car shops.

> I'm looking for solutions to using alternative
> e-mails and ways to be alerted when I get an email
> on them.

> So does anyone have any suggestions?

Yes I do. A spreadsheet, Gmail, and Google Voice are very workable solutions to your challenges.

First, a spreadsheet with past info of the names, numbers, etc. given on past shops can work wonderfully. You can enter the data on your spreadsheet that helps keep of all your shops and scroll back to them when needed (using the sorting features of a spreadsheet to make it quicker). An alternative is to create a separate spreadsheet or other type of file with just your past info to refer to for the next shop.

Next, Google emails have a wonderful forwarding option to them. I use it for all of my email accounts except my main one (I have dozens of email accounts) and have those emails forwarded into my main email account (which can be at any domain). Thus, I need to access only one email account. Furthermore I use the archive feature on the Gmail account so that it archives (saves) each email as it forwards it to my main account. Then, in my main account I can delete them as I get them, but still maintain a copy at that gmail account. Also, I use a filter at the Gmail account to direct all emails in the inbox (circumventing the spam filter there). You can set up an alternative email(s) with forwarding and get the actual emails as sent - then delete that alternative email if you like, or keep it for the next shop.

Lastly is Google Voice. This is a free phone number through Google. I love to give it out to businesses that I don't want to have my real phone number but require a phone number (sales people, mystery shops, internet forms, etc.) You can set up the account to forward the calls to either your real number or voice mail 24/7. If you choose the later, it can send you an email when someone leaves a message. The email will have a transcription of the message, but that function does not always work.

Good luck.

Just to expand a bit on what vlade said: I too use a spreadsheet exclusively for tracking all of my work. I have a different tab for each year, but I keep them all in the same spreadsheet. As needed, I place the name, phone number, email etc in a Comments column in my spreadsheet, then use Ctrl+F within any given tab to search for the client in question. So for example if I do bank shops every month for ABC MSC and need to use a different alias each time, I will search for ABC MSC in my spreadsheet to quickly peruse the aliases I have already used. You can also use the Filter feature, if you think Ctrl+F will yield too many results and will take too long to look at them all one by one. As far as the email and phone suggestion, vlade is right on.

I use the fake name generator site to get various aliases. I use Excel to keep track of every name, email, physical address, occupation and phone number I used.

Have changed from warm and fuzzy to ticked off!!


Received this the other day
You have received the following citation from R C :
Hello! We have received feedback from our clients that shops you have submitted are consistently scoring higher than the company average. You have received a small citation, however you can have this removed by emailing help@realitybasedgroup.com with an explanation that we can review as to why your shops have been high scoring. Thank you, and have a great day!

My Reply
So what does this mean? That the editors are going easy on me because, I've only been doing this for a few months, the client thinks that I am making all of it up or that I am that much better than everyone else. Out of fourteen shops I've received 10 10's, 3 9's and an 8.

2stepps,
I think that the email that you got was somewhat unclear. They probably mean that the locations that you shopped were scored according to you reports with much better scores than those locations average. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that they want you to confirm that your observations were unbiased and complete accounts of how the site/employees performed.

These is the default wording by a specific company for the edited reports based on grade. The one that does the sushi.

Kate.
I am not sure that I understand what you said.

@walesmaven:

I was just commenting that on the initial post, the editor's comment for each shop grade that the OP received is the generic one that the editors of this particular MSC sent when the shop is graded with the specific grade.

2stepps, I think they are saying you are not critical enough when you ms'ed that location. A guideline I received from a different msc stated that if the location score is higher than 86%, then the shopper is not doing their job.

cubbiecat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 2stepps, I think they are saying you are not
> critical enough when you ms'ed that location. A
> guideline I received from a different msc stated
> that if the location score is higher than 86%,
> then the shopper is not doing their job.


Have had to go back and edit critical stuff out of my report because the editor said to, or worse yet they just change the report without telling me. Or it could be that word has come down from on high at the company that I ms'ed that they had better do it the proper way from now on. Too many bad reports can get you canned. I've seen it happen in a Technical support call center that I worked for a few years ago. One of the VP's of the company called in and got really ticked at the agent's reply to her request for him to call her back that the agent and his supervisor lost their jobs. Even though it was policy to not call anyone back at that time. So things can change: Sometimes for the better and sometimes not, depends on if you're the bug or the windshield at the time.