I Guess this Company is Toast!

I did a shop yesterday which was not bad until I got to the debriefing. The MSC seems to want the shopper to lie and say positive things about the shop even if all were negative. I received a note from an editor in the wee hours of the morning asking me to comment on what the associate recommended on both product and services. He recommended NOTHING even after I prompted him. I could not get the report to go through because I said the cashier did not thank me. I finally had to check, "yes" so that the report would go through. I am going to contact the MSC company tomorrow and tell them I will not lie on the report so they don't lose a client. I am sure they will lose me as a shopper.

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Wow...that's weird.

I had a very similar situation on the last MS I did. I was told to stress the positive. No name tags, missing uniforms. A worker tossing the buns to the sandwich maker without gloves on. A few of the soda dispensers out of order. No clean tables in the dining area. Torn posters in the windows. Parking lot with carry out wrappers and bags all over. Make this pigs ear into a silk purse? I did what I was told and got paid. I never have accepted another job from this MSC. What is the point of a honest evaluation if your are just told to lie? How does this help the client improve the location?

@cindy55 wrote:

I had a very similar situation on the last MS I did. I was told to stress the positive. No name tags, missing uniforms. A worker tossing the buns to the sandwich maker without gloves on. A few of the soda dispensers out of order. No clean tables in the dining area. Torn posters in the windows. Parking lot with carry out wrappers and bags all over. Make this pigs ear into a silk purse? I did what I was told and got paid. I never have accepted another job from this MSC. What is the point of a honest evaluation if your are just told to lie? How does this help the client improve the location?

I believe the MSC's do not want to lose their clients with negative reports. Clients want to know the truth and that is why they hire MSC's.

Being totally objective is hard to do in some situations. Sometimes it requires blocking out everything negative around you to notice the positives. What about the situation do others see as their reasons for patronizing the place. Outside of an earlier response affecting future responses, I do agree that being forced to answer "Yes" when the answer is otherwise does not make me comfortable. It's like if a place is a mess, being forced to say it is clean just because someone is in the middle of cleaning when you left. If I sat in a dirty environment for 20 minutes my report needs to reflect this. Narratives at least help offset check boxes.

I do know that my most negative reports used to be challenged more often as the MSC requires better proof of negatives than positives.

My posts are solely based on my opinions and for my entertainment, contact a professional if you need real advice.

When you get in debt you become a slave. - Andrew Jackson

My experience has been they want both negative and positive reports, even negative reports have some good about them. I have never been able to say nothing was good. Where are you shopping? The clients are hiring us to improve service, cleanliness, food quality and need to know, however, the report has to be written to include all, negative everything seems biased. They would be out of business...just my opinion. I will add
in your defense, L.A. being so competitive, standards are very high. I also never had a report not go through
due to their manipulating the answers.....it happened, find honest companies to work for.

Cindy....a worker tossing the buns without gloves really needs to be reported and I'm sure you did.....wow!

Live consciously....

That's a great strategy.

@isaiah58 wrote:

Being totally objective is hard to do in some situations. Sometimes it requires blocking out everything negative around you to notice the positives.

"I told myself to quit you; but I don't listen to drunks." -Chris Stapleton

Quite the contrary bubba. When emotionally your response to a situation is negative, you are blinded by your emotions from seeing the positives. There exists no store that is 100% negative and no store that is 100% positive. Our role as shoppers is to report BOTH the negatives and positives. To do so, a shopper frequently needs to step aside and specifically look for that which moderates their emotional enthusiasm or disgust in order to be objective. Art or fashion terms are completely irrelevant.

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

My experience has been they want both negative and positive reports, even negative reports have some good about them. I have never been able to say nothing was good. Where are you shopping? The clients are hiring us to improve service, cleanliness, food quality and need to know, however, the report has to be written to include all, negative everything seems biased. They would be out of business...just my opinion. I will add
in your defense, L.A. being so competitive, standards are very high. I also never had a report not go through
due to their manipulating the answers.....it happened, find honest companies to work for.

Cindy....a worker tossing the buns without gloves really needs to be reported and I'm sure you did.....wow!

I can't say where I'm shopping, for I've mentioned the store in another post. The only positives I could say is that the associate smiled and used good eye contact. However, they were not evaluating the associate, but his service. The editor wanted to know both product and service options of which he did not recommend. If my report is returned again, I will tell the MSC not to pay me the twelve dollars and I will not shop for them again. Perhaps they will fire me and that is fine with me.

When asked to rate pizza 1-10 I responded "4" to a burnt pizza that had scant amount of sauce and was just awful. I had to include picture so the editor saw for themselves. The MSC came back and said if it was "edible" it was a 9. Seriously?

You took my comment out of context. I did not advise to only report the positives. I advised how to find the positives one is overlooking when surrounded by negatives. Are you an editor?

@Bubbabubba wrote:

"Sometimes it requires blocking out everything negative around you to notice the positives."

This is the EXACT opposite of the definition of "objective".
See Postmodernism and equivocation.
Its also the exact opposite of the purpose of half of this industry.
The other half of the task is to recognize the positive.

@isaiah58 wrote:

Being totally objective is hard to do in some situations. Sometimes it requires blocking out everything negative around you to notice the positives. What about the situation do others see as their reasons for patronizing the place. Outside of an earlier response affecting future responses, I do agree that being forced to answer "Yes" when the answer is otherwise does not make me comfortable. It's like if a place is a mess, being forced to say it is clean just because someone is in the middle of cleaning when you left. If I sat in a dirty environment for 20 minutes my report needs to reflect this. Narratives at least help offset check boxes.

I do know that my most negative reports used to be challenged more often as the MSC requires better proof of negatives than positives.

My posts are solely based on my opinions and for my entertainment, contact a professional if you need real advice.

When you get in debt you become a slave. - Andrew Jackson

I submitted a report a couple of days ago and am surprised I have not gotten an email. I had to report the employee discouraged me from buying the product I asked about and recommended a very cheap alternative that I could not purchase in the store. I did not state it in the report but I happened to have my audio recorder running during the interaction so I am covered if they question it. I don't often use my recorder but this company likes exact quotes so I turned in on. Just for general info, I use a small recorder that looks like a flash drive. I hang it on a chain and wear it like a necklace. Nowadays people commonly have these flash drives on them so no one has ever questioned it. I bought it on Amazon for less than $10. I don't have a smart phone so it is a cheap alternative. I have even dangled it from my visor in my car during oil changes/car washes and managed to catch what the employee is saying. I'm glad I live in a single party state!

I did a dinner shop at a restaurant that I really enjoy eating at and was looking forward to the event.

So many things went wrong that the report took me 2x the normal reporting time and it was difficult to find positive things to put next to all the negative things that were observed. I had many numbers on a scale of 1-10 that were a 2. I even had one section that I had to knock it all the way down to a 1 rating. I never had to go below a 5 and never in multiple areas. This was in the heart of the tourist zone and employee burnout was observed all around. I think the servers eyes were glazed over from lack of tips and grumpy sun burned tourists that were walking around a theme park all day.

I was checking my inbox the next day every hour waiting for the editor to reply as I was worried that I was too harsh in my deductions even though I enumerated each in the narrative.

When the email came from the editor and I opened it, all she wanted was one of the many extra problem photos that I took as I forgot to attach one of a badly bent fork!

The ACL editor summed it up best:

@ wrote:

I don't think you were too harsh. You witnessed several problems and were just doing your job by reporting them. Our clients are looking for constructive criticism, and they certainly got that in your report!

Thanks for your great report. It was a pleasure to review.

If your working for a good company, you can report accurately when everything goes wrong. Sooner or later it will happen to you too.

I visited a store that had a motorcycle rally and car show going on. The employees were understaffed. I saw 4 employees in a building with 100+ customers inside and 150+ cars and bikes outside. They were all pitiful looking but still being nice and smiling and such. I saw one cashier taking an order on the headset who I heard being really nice and polite and after she finished, she told the next customer she would be with them in a moment, I watched her suck in a deep breathe of air, closer her eyes in thought, breathe again, and then apologize for their wait. These folks were slammoed, the store looked rough, and they were sucking it up and being super nice.

MegglesKat

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