Don't be cross with me because you wrote your instructions poorly (rant inc)
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HELLO? That was sarcasm knockin' at your door but U didn't answer.@bgriffin wrote:
Uggg. I hate when I forget to use the sarcasm font!@MSNinja wrote:
bgriffin is asskisser,
Yes. This is sarcasm knockin' again. With girl scout cookies!
@Robin2 wrote:
@SteveSoCal, if italics are for sarcasm, then why is the editing note at the bottom of your post in italics?
Hmm...good point. Sarcasm usually gets italics by default since bold and underline seem too strong. I blame Jacob for poor font usage!
font usage sounds sexual. Maybe you'll be moderated.
I did a shop for ACL that was a local one of a kind shop. The person who wrote the shop instructions asked for a photo that is physically impossible to obtain if doing a take out shop. I tried to explain this over the phone before the shop to the scheduler as I knew the location well as a non shopping customer.
That was last year when the guidelines were still new and not well tested. Now the guidelines state:
I don't know if I caused the change or the other shoppers behind me that also could not get this shot as it's just not possible if they are busy. I feel somewhat vindicated. The people that write the guidelines are likely 1000 miles away from the restaurant and don't know the lay of the land. Only until it's been tried a few times and the best shoppers fail will these things become really obvious.
That was last year when the guidelines were still new and not well tested. Now the guidelines state:
@ wrote:
For Take-Out shops ONLY, please do your best to obtain the (impossible to get) photos. If you are unable to unobtrusively take all of the (impossible to get) photos during a Take Out shop, your shop will still be accepted, but you must make an effort to get the required photos if possible.
I don't know if I caused the change or the other shoppers behind me that also could not get this shot as it's just not possible if they are busy. I feel somewhat vindicated. The people that write the guidelines are likely 1000 miles away from the restaurant and don't know the lay of the land. Only until it's been tried a few times and the best shoppers fail will these things become really obvious.
Yeah, it does try the patience when one has to explain the instructions to the editor. How about when the same question gets asked twice? Recently, this happened to me not once but twice.
In each instance the source of the difficulty was poorly designed instructions or survey questions. One answer was in the report and they other had no good place to explain. However, I had to explain it twice more in emails. Makes you feel like you are banging your head against the wall. But you have to get paid, so you suck it up and respond.
Like the OP, I'm not going to reveal the MSPs at this point because these MSPs are already known as rigid in their practices and not very shopper friendly. If that were different, or I had a great relationship with a scheduler there, I would send off an email explaining the difficulty and how to fix it.
Life isn't perfect. Sometimes you just have to deal with it.
In each instance the source of the difficulty was poorly designed instructions or survey questions. One answer was in the report and they other had no good place to explain. However, I had to explain it twice more in emails. Makes you feel like you are banging your head against the wall. But you have to get paid, so you suck it up and respond.
Like the OP, I'm not going to reveal the MSPs at this point because these MSPs are already known as rigid in their practices and not very shopper friendly. If that were different, or I had a great relationship with a scheduler there, I would send off an email explaining the difficulty and how to fix it.
Life isn't perfect. Sometimes you just have to deal with it.
Happily shopping Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut
Hey OP, thank you for this thread. I don't do hotels (at this point) and don't plan too, but if I ever do, I will take pictures of all issues AND overall photos, if possible. I have no problem with you not naming the MSC and I think we can learn valuable information from posts like yours, even in the MSC is not named.
Hi Linda, who is 5D? I have never heard of them.
@LindaM wrote:
For my two cents, I think it's either Mercantile or 5D. The instructions for their hotels say to take a picture of the overall area if no problems are seen... And, based on how it's written, I totally agree with the OP.
I just did a hotel shop and got a 9 because they said I only asked for the minimum. I spent 8 hours doing that report writing down verbatim what happened from my audio recorder.. They don't want opinions so what else did they want...this company never wants to give 10s
OP, may I empathize with your rant by haring a similar experience? I did a shop that required using valet parking if it was free. If there was a charge, the guidelines were clear that valet was optional. We arrived at the restaurant, and the valet stand had a large sign on the front with a price, so we opted not to use it. As we were finalizing our bill, the server asked if we used valet. We said we did not, and he said we should next time, since the restaurant validates. I double-checked the valet stand sign on the way out, and there was no indication that it was free for restaurant customers. I explained this in the shop report , but the editor's comments still included that the guidelines clearly state that I should have used valet, since it was free. I replied, repeating my explanation from the shop, but to no avail. The negative feedback comments remain. Arghhhhh!
He stated a problem he had and asked for opinions where does he disparage the MSC? he is annoyed and that shows but then again he has a right to be annoyed, he followed the guidelines that they set, it's not our job to guess or anticipate what they may want so he has every right to expect to be paid, just sayin.
I had another call with the MSC, after having done two hotels (apparently, even when cross with me, they like my work) for them. For both hotels, I have to arrive via car, or since I'm a New Yorker who doesn't drive, arrive via cab.
I'm a strapping young man who travels light (if you're only paying me to stay one day in a hotel, I'm only going to pack what I need). Both times I was ignored by the valets after getting out of my car.
Now earlier, this same coordinator at the MSC chewed me out for "prompting" an associate at the hotel (the menu for room service clearly said "ask about the special of the day!" and apparently I'm NOT supposed to ask about the special, since they want to see if they automatically talk about it). So after my second hotel report where I wasn't helped by a valet... I was told that I should ask for their help and prompt them, because it makes the hotel look bad if I check in unassisted.
When I was talking to him about my first ever hotel shop, I explicitly asked him what to do if no one offers me baggage assistance, since I'm not supposed to prompt anyone. His response? I would definitely get assistance, and not to worry about it.
It's pretty infuriating to have all of these double standard rules that are told to me verbally and aren't reflected on the sheet. I get the feeling this MSC or their client(s) is less concerned with improving service than they are making the hotel look good, maybe so managers can claim to corporate that they're doing a good job.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2015 07:44PM by Misanthrope.
I'm a strapping young man who travels light (if you're only paying me to stay one day in a hotel, I'm only going to pack what I need). Both times I was ignored by the valets after getting out of my car.
Now earlier, this same coordinator at the MSC chewed me out for "prompting" an associate at the hotel (the menu for room service clearly said "ask about the special of the day!" and apparently I'm NOT supposed to ask about the special, since they want to see if they automatically talk about it). So after my second hotel report where I wasn't helped by a valet... I was told that I should ask for their help and prompt them, because it makes the hotel look bad if I check in unassisted.
When I was talking to him about my first ever hotel shop, I explicitly asked him what to do if no one offers me baggage assistance, since I'm not supposed to prompt anyone. His response? I would definitely get assistance, and not to worry about it.
It's pretty infuriating to have all of these double standard rules that are told to me verbally and aren't reflected on the sheet. I get the feeling this MSC or their client(s) is less concerned with improving service than they are making the hotel look good, maybe so managers can claim to corporate that they're doing a good job.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2015 07:44PM by Misanthrope.
Yes, from time to time one wonders what the REAL purposes of shops are.
When I was recently back into shopping about a decade ago, there was a shop at a store known for being a place where you kind of rooted around for what bargains you might find. A new CEO had recently taken over the helm of the brand and his top priority was to improve profits by improving the shopping environment. So the first shop we did was ridiculous. The store was marked down for every item you found out of place, shelves that were not fully stocked and properly faced, items that were not priced, how long it took to get assistance (like never), the cash register experience etc. It would have been difficult for a well run store to get a decent score on the shop so it seemed to us totally inappropriate for the chain of stores in question.
After a couple of months the form remained the same but the INSTRUCTIONS changed. We were to mark down for every 10 items found out of place, shelves that were not 75% stocked, 5 or more items where none of the items were priced on the shelf, etc. A couple more months and the INSTRUCTIONS changed again so you almost couldn't find enough items out of place to mark down, shelves had to be only 50% full and items could be shelf priced or priced on the item. Now these may not be the exact numbers, but a store that had miserably failed on the early surveys after a year was earning high scores with no visible change in what was happening in the store.
Then came the end of the CEO's first year and he proudly proclaimed in the annual report that their 'market research showed an 85% improvement' in the 'in store experience'. With that he claimed a substantial bonus for leadership in this 'overall store improvement' and I promptly sold the stock I held in the company.
When I was recently back into shopping about a decade ago, there was a shop at a store known for being a place where you kind of rooted around for what bargains you might find. A new CEO had recently taken over the helm of the brand and his top priority was to improve profits by improving the shopping environment. So the first shop we did was ridiculous. The store was marked down for every item you found out of place, shelves that were not fully stocked and properly faced, items that were not priced, how long it took to get assistance (like never), the cash register experience etc. It would have been difficult for a well run store to get a decent score on the shop so it seemed to us totally inappropriate for the chain of stores in question.
After a couple of months the form remained the same but the INSTRUCTIONS changed. We were to mark down for every 10 items found out of place, shelves that were not 75% stocked, 5 or more items where none of the items were priced on the shelf, etc. A couple more months and the INSTRUCTIONS changed again so you almost couldn't find enough items out of place to mark down, shelves had to be only 50% full and items could be shelf priced or priced on the item. Now these may not be the exact numbers, but a store that had miserably failed on the early surveys after a year was earning high scores with no visible change in what was happening in the store.
Then came the end of the CEO's first year and he proudly proclaimed in the annual report that their 'market research showed an 85% improvement' in the 'in store experience'. With that he claimed a substantial bonus for leadership in this 'overall store improvement' and I promptly sold the stock I held in the company.
At this time...I'm waiting for a shoe to fall, maybe, on a matter close to the topic.
I had an over-the-weekend shop that was pretty complex -- a mix of bowling, dining, and a bar visit -- and as I did my final review on Saturday I realized that there were contradictions within the instructions. For example, a "flow narrative" said to visit the elements in the order dinner-bowling-bar, but the section instructions gave the order as bar-dinner-bowling. Another example: The narrative said order one appetizer; the list of acceptable dishes to order said get two.
And of course, being Labor Day Weekend...no one was at the MSC to answer questions.
I sent an email detailing the problem and told them I went with the narrative versions of the instructions. We'll see how it goes...
I had an over-the-weekend shop that was pretty complex -- a mix of bowling, dining, and a bar visit -- and as I did my final review on Saturday I realized that there were contradictions within the instructions. For example, a "flow narrative" said to visit the elements in the order dinner-bowling-bar, but the section instructions gave the order as bar-dinner-bowling. Another example: The narrative said order one appetizer; the list of acceptable dishes to order said get two.
And of course, being Labor Day Weekend...no one was at the MSC to answer questions.
I sent an email detailing the problem and told them I went with the narrative versions of the instructions. We'll see how it goes...
In some instances I think we must restate the same answer multiple times in a form to demonstrate that we did the shop as requested and are not just filling in the blocks Looking at it this way helps minimize my frustration at answering the same question over and over. BUT there have been circumstances where I received instructions that were incomplete. For those I try to clarify beforehand. This request for clarification is not always well received. It could be completely avoided altogether if the shop forms/instructions went through the same editing process that our reports do. How fantastic it would be if this was done before a shopper saw them. Fantastic but unfortunately not very likely.
I agree with the OP frustration in being told "other shoppers" don't have an issue with this. It confirms to me anyway that this MSC views its shoppers as a commodity.
I agree with the OP frustration in being told "other shoppers" don't have an issue with this. It confirms to me anyway that this MSC views its shoppers as a commodity.
@scanman1 wrote:
I did a shop for ACL that was a local one of a kind shop. The person who wrote the shop instructions asked for a photo that is physically impossible to obtain if doing a take out shop. I tried to explain this over the phone before the shop to the scheduler as I knew the location well as a non shopping customer.
That was last year when the guidelines were still new and not well tested. Now the guidelines state:
@ wrote:
For Take-Out shops ONLY, please do your best to obtain the (impossible to get) photos. If you are unable to unobtrusively take all of the (impossible to get) photos during a Take Out shop, your shop will still be accepted, but you must make an effort to get the required photos if possible.
I don't know if I caused the change or the other shoppers behind me that also could not get this shot as it's just not possible if they are busy. I feel somewhat vindicated. The people that write the guidelines are likely 1000 miles away from the restaurant and don't know the lay of the land. Only until it's been tried a few times and the best shoppers fail will these things become really obvious.
Lol there's a small chain I shopped for a take-out assignment. The wording was almost similar from the one you quoted. Additionally, the guideline detailed the Photos Required as "For Dine-In assignments..."
Anyways, just in case, I took all the photos (at least, I attempted to) anyways because there were more required photos mentioned were all over the place in the guidelines outside of the "Photos Required" and "Take-Out" sections. I mentioned this in the disclosure that just in case, I attempted to take all the photos, even though I was confident that I took way more than needed for the Take-Out version of the shop.
When I submitted my report, I was dinged for missing one of the photos that were listed under "Photos Required," even though the section spoke only about "For Dine-In assignments," or something similar to that.
In the end, I was just given comments about not missing photo requirements, but come on...
Shopping the Greater Denver Area, Colorado Springs and in-between in Colorado. 33 year old male and willing to travel!
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