This post concerns the cell phone shop audits. I was scheduled for 30 shops. I completed 22.

When I am doing the same shop multiple times, I always hurry and get the first 2 shops completed and submitted. I want feedback to see if they were done correctly before I do the others. I did the first 2 and got a score of 10 on both.

Feeling confident with my 10 scores on not 1 but 2 of the shops, I proceeded to do another 20 shops within the next few days. Everything was fine. Getting scores of 10 on all. Then SUDDENLY, they started getting rejected. After further inquiry, I discovered they were being edited by FOUR (4) different editors.

Some of the editors liked my work & some did not. 2 of the editors were fine with my work. The third editor asked for a few minor changes. I complied.

However, the 4th editor wanted me to go back to the cell phone store and redo the work!! I just got straight 10 scores on over 15 of the very same shops with the other 3 editors.

I contacted the editor supervisor but she was no help - very defensive in fact. Bottom line - I contacted the scheduler and gave back the last 8 shops. I completed 22 of them and was paid.

Here's where things got unethical ------>>> AFTER I started complaining, on my shop log, the very first completed shop (scored 10) disappeared. It was replaced with a shop scored ZERO and located at an address that I did not visit. It was a shop that I did not perform. WOW !! Removing a shop scored 10 that I completed & replacing it with a shop scored 0 at a location that I NEVER visited.

That was unnecessary GFK. You could have punished me for complaining about the editing by just giving me a 0 to drop my shopper rating - but switching out the shops was unethical. Also, I noticed on my shopper log that all the editors original notes had been removed. GFK outsourced their editing function - maybe you should do a background check before hiring anyone else.

PLEASE NOTE: I did not say WHO made the switch on my shopper log. After I complained to Donna, the editing supervisor wrote me a nasty email denying that it was her. Well, you doth protest to much !!! because I never said it was you !!

Their Filipino editors could not be more clueless. I'm confused at what they could have found so much fault with if it is an announced audit? You answer some questions and take some pictures.

@LisaSTL It was the pictures. I have an iPhone 5 so how bad could the pictures really be. They were fine for the first 3 editors but the 4th editor claimed the pictures were too small and she could not see what was required (not fuzzy - just small).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2014 07:11PM by AnonymousNYC.

I deactivated myself from them way last year. I won't say why, but they got on my nerves.

I would pursue it with Donna. I have gotten the craziest crap back from them and it really keeps me from taking much at all. A reduced fee on a closed location that was supposed to be open on Easter and was when I called them an hour before and another closed location which got me a score of an 8 or 9. Really? What the hell is there to mark down on a closed location? Their editors are just ridiculous and you cannot communicate with them.

This post has come at an interesting point in time. I just got an e-mail from them asking
me to do a survey to about why I haven't done shops for them. (I signed up a long with them
time ago, and may have done 1 or 2 shops under my old e-mail address, but all I seem to be offered is wings restaurants these days.) Anyway, I also mentioned that I've seen a lot of negative comments that have made me leary to take any work for them. I had been thinking about it again, too, but no.....

They need to standardize their editing guidelines! I've done several shops for them, and get 10 on most. The ones I've gotten 9 on I've been able to figure out why (e.g., I missed an exterior light being out when I was at the location, but there it was in the photo) or there was a comment in the comments section. Once I just got an 8 or 9, with no comment. I went over the shop and couldn't spot any issues. I e-mailed the scheduler, and she basically said that they have some editors that simply won't give 10's, no matter what. They figure nothing's perfect, so a report can't be, even if they don't spot any actual errors. What?

That is just stupid (like when your boss gives reviews and never gives good marks across the board 'cuz he figures that will reduce your incentive).

But what happened in the OP's case is reprehensible! It's unprofessional and unethical. Any editor who would retaliate (in any way, but especially by altering the record) should be fired.

I would have taken 5 shops, see how difficult they were and proceeded forward..

I would not have taken '30" of them, unless I had done them "before" and to find out how much of a pain in the ass the shops (editing) were going to be....

LisaSTL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Their Filipino editors could not be more clueless.
> I'm confused at what they could have found so much
> fault with if it is an announced audit? You answer
> some questions and take some pictures.


Filipino Editors??? Really come on now... Majority of the company itself is a joke and I don't care what their race is.

Anyway OP, that is awful! iPhone and cell phone pics can be pretty crappy quality, really depends on a few factors. The editor sounds like a douche and should be fired (along with another crappy scheduler). Not that I think talking to Donna will help cause GfK has never garnered a positive review from me but its worth a shot. GL

I wasn't aware Filipinos were a distinct race and the comment was because communication is virtually impossible. I have also had requests for more information and tried to respond only to find the message bounced back because mailboxes were full.

I am finding it hard to see the relevance of mentioning "Filipino" period but whatever. Maybe it's an American thing or some crazy saying I've never heard of.

I agree communication between the editors and shoppers is lacking at best. I still haven't heard from an editor about two cell shops I did two months ago. GfK can shove it.

dixiewhiskey.... They are located in the Philippines.

It matters because they are editing our reports for grammar and cohesiveness, but many of the points they make, make no sense to us. It becomes clear after a few "clarification requests" that the lack of understanding is NOT due to your report content or the way it was written, but due to THEIR lack of even a tenuous grasp on the English language.

GfK is in the Philippines? I thought they were in NY.. Or do you mean the editing company? If so, it makes more sense now.. Initially, the original just sounded really wrong. I probably would have avoided the comment altogether.

I was trying to understand how Lisa knew they were Filipino. When the editors have communicated with me, the English is perfect. The email handle does not* look like something out of North America either.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2014 12:36AM by dixiewhiskey.

BBird hit the nail on the head.

The first indication I had was not from their incoming emails, it was the one that bounced back. I was able to see the real email address. While they do have some U.S. based schedulers and possibly editors, I also see nothing wrong with making shoppers aware many of the positions have been outsourced. In addition to communication problems there is also the time difference. Assuming you even get a response, it is likely you will not see it until about 24 hours later. What should be simple emails back and forth can easily stretch into days. To me it is not a wise business decision to outsource editing and scheduling to people who cannot communicate with your shoppers.

I will say the outsourced schedulers I have dealt with have been more than friendly, professional and accommodating, even if they were difficult to understand.

I was kicked out by them for unknown reasons a long time ago. This never happens to me. And I know I did not make any mistake. One of the shoppers I referred made a mistake and they deactivated them alongside me

The curiosity kills me to date. How unprofessional?? I need to know what happened!
I have stopped referring people!

@SunnyDays2 the shops were not difficult. The only thing difficult was Editor #4 !! Plus, I was doing the scheduler a favor. I had a good relationship with that scheduler.

Hmmm...I recently had an issue with them and did not get paid for a shop. I went to do a cell phone shop at a big box store. There was nobody working the cellphone area so I left and stated it in my report. They told me I did not meet the shop guidelines because I shopped before the store had been open for 30 minutes (not true). They asked me to re-shop. I did but they never fixed the link so I could enter the report. I emailed them and did not get a response. They just deleted the job and I did not receive payment. I will be careful about accepting jobs from them again.

once again....outsourced "employees"....WE get what they pay for. enough said

I had one two months ago, where I was contacted for clarification.

The email was "Hello, (my name), please find in this section a sentence which needs to become clearer. This part is being nonsense, please become clearer and return within 12 hours. Thank you."

"Being nonsense?" I interpreted that as "This part doesn't make sense."

The part that was "being nonsense?" "I entered the location at (time) An associate greeted me within 10 seconds, welcoming me to (Store Name) and introducing himself as (Name.)

I didn't know how to state it any more plainly or clearer than that, so I rewrote the exact same thing, adding the exact seconds I was greeted after entering the store... This went back and forth for three days, before I got an email from a different editor, saying "Don't worry about it, the report has been finalized. Thanks."

One of mine was asking me to upload the "correct" business card. In the narrative I had explained it was correct and the reason for the address discrepancy. Naturally they dinged me for the contact. That was also the only one I ever contacted Donna over and it was changed to a 10. The whole 12 hours things can be frustrating because it's night while they are reviewing shops. If yours is one of the first the 12 hours may be expiring at 9 or 10 am.

OMG!

Dear Sir or Madam,

Your entire email is being nonsense.

LOL, they're very nice and professional though, so I didn't want to be snarky, but... communication is definitely difficult when I don't know exactly what they're saying, and they don't know exactly what I'm saying.

Ishmael Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dear Sir or Madam,
>
> Your entire email is being nonsense.

I know. I'd never actually say that. It's not their fault. But as I see it, the fault lies with a company who seems, presumably to save some money, to have hired people who are not qualified for the job.

The best explanation that I could come up with was that she was maybe translating in her head without realizing it, and that the employee's name (Dan) meant something in Tagalog, like pineapple or washbucket.

All,

Hello all! Someone was kind enough to forward this chain to me so I could follow up! Thanks everyone when you do this, because while I try to keep up with the forums it can be challenging.

1. I do not think the proofing supervisor that is referred to and is named Donna... is me. I have been out of the country from Aug 15-26 and I do not think I sent 10 emails during that time because I could not login most of the time I was gone. However, having said that, I would like to better understand the interaction with that "Donna".

2. We have outsourced out of the country in the past. The company that we used in the Phillipines though was a GfK company and those were GfK employees. We also outsourced some of our scheduling to India for awhile. As we all know, outsourcing causes it's own set of issues but all companies try it from time to time to see if it's successful. Any more it's rarely, if ever, a cost savings, it has more to do with volume fluctuations and the ability to handle those fluctuations which honestly is a little challenging for a lot of US companies to do. And unfortunately in the mystery shopping world you can go from 100 shops to 10,000 shops in 48 hours so fluctuations are quite common.

3. All of our schedulers and proofers live here in the US as far as I know. I know the schedulers do as that's the team I manage. We outsource our proofing to a US based company in the northeast who also proofs for 3-4 other well known mystery shopping companies. I would have to read the forums to see if those companies get the same complaints but from what I had understood this company has a good reputation and these proofers are editing for a lot of companies. I would hope that would mean a better level of service and more consistent service across those multiple companies.

OK, having said all that, I am quite shocked that you were told your information was "nonsense". I would like to follow up on this and get it to the person who surpervises proofing (It's not me, sorry, or I would handle right away).

AnonymousNYC, I think the people on this forum will tell you that I am fair and really will follow up on the issue you are experiencing. It is going to be challenging because I have to travel twice more in the next week, but I will make sure your issue gets seriously looked into. Would you mind PM-ing me more specific details?

Thanks and I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!
Donna


Donna Goodwin
Operations Manager
GfK Mystery Shopping
GfK | 200 Liberty Street | 4th Fl | New York | NY | 10281 | United States
donna.goodwin@gfk.com


PS. Below are the standards our proofing team is supposed to follow. Just for your info, any report score of "7 and up", we consider to be "good" and you have access to self-assign shops on all programs.


Report Scores – what do they mean?

This report rating system below is used by our editing team to determine the rating for each submitted report. The rating can be found on your shop log page after your report has been fully submitted and edited.
• 10 – This is a perfect report and does not require any editing at all. It contains excellent detail, full complete sentences in all narrative questions, and no errors.
• 9 – This is a great report. 1-3 errors found
• 8 – This is a very good report. 4-6 errors found
• 7 – This is a good report. 7-10 errors found
• 6 – Shopper should review shop guidelines for next shop. 11-15 errors found
• 5 – Shopper should review shop guidelines for next shop. 15+ errors found
• 1 – This is an excluded shop due to a shopper not following the shop guidelines. (revisit and/or non-payment)

Additional Information
• All ratings are final and are non-negotiable. You should not challenge the editing team or your scheduler for any rating given. No score(s) will be modified.

• If you have an overall rating of 7 or above you are considered a “GfK top tier shopper” and would never be disqualified from conducting any particular shop. Your overall rating can be found on the top right section of your shopper log.

• An “error” is defined as any edit the proofer has to make to correct a report. Examples of errors are: a spelling mistake, grammar mistake, inconsistency, or any other necessary update. No Score should be provided for any shop that goes into “excluded” because a location was closed.

• 1 point will be deducted from your report’s overall score if you receive an email from an editor because something in your report needs to be clarified. (report clarification).
o For example, if your report had 4 grammar mistakes and the shop was put back to the “incomplete” status for you to upload a better picture of a receipt or store front photo, you would receive an overall score of 7. (Minus 2 points because of the 4 grammar mistakes and minus 1extra point for the report clarification)

Donna,

I've contacted you directly in the past with scheduling issues, and I found you to be great to work with. You're even noted on my spreadsheet as "Shopper Advocate."...

That being said, your post (though maybe not intentionally) pretty much just underlined the frustration and inconsistency we deal with. The right hand doesn't always know what the left is doing... and should, being as they're part of the same body. The right hand doesn't know for sure where all of the fingers of the left hand even ARE.

Your chart of scoring guidelines is nice, but what'd be even nicer is if your editors followed it. Consistently.

BBird0701 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Donna,
>
> I've contacted you directly in the past with
> scheduling issues, and I found you to be great to
> work with. You're even noted on my spreadsheet as
> "Shopper Advocate."...
>
> That being said, your post (though maybe not
> intentionally) pretty much just underlined the
> frustration and inconsistency we deal with. The
> right hand doesn't always know what the left is
> doing... and should, being as they're part of the
> same body. The right hand doesn't know for sure
> where all of the fingers of the left hand even
> ARE.
>
> Your chart of scoring guidelines is nice, but
> what'd be even nicer is if your editors followed
> it. Consistently.


BBird0701,

I can understand why this would seem confusing. Why would you separate two departments this much? The simple reason is good business ethics. From a business perspective, I would argue that proofing and scheduling should ALWAYS be two separate entities and they should never have power over each other. If you are a proofer and a scheduler for a shop, you have too much incentive to "make a shop good". Now I understand why a smaller company would do it this way and why this seems counter-intuitive, but for me personally, I would never again work for a company that had these two departments under one umbrella. Sorry, I guess that is a bit strong, but it is really how I personally feel about this particular issue. Thankfully so does GfK, so I am in the right place. I am definitely not knocking the companies who do it this way as I am sure they have a lot of safe guards in place to prevent ethics violations so please do not take this as an attack on companies who are not set up that way. This really is just my own strong feelings on the issue.

Now as for how this works out practically for the shoppers, well you still have me. You are still my shoppers and if you are having issues with the proofers, even if I am not the one to fix that issue, I am still the one who has a vested interest in getting it fixed (happy shoppers take my shops!). So, maybe I was too careful in spelling out the delineation of tasks, but please know that it does not mean I will not give the same effort over to seeing the issue gets some resolution. Also, while I may be the only one from GfK that posts here, I REGULARLY send posts to all of my co-workers to let them know about issues and feedback from shoppers.

Thanks for contributing that helpful piece of feedback. I am sure it probably helped others too. I know it helped me to see how this might appear from your perspective.

Thanks,
Donna


Donna Goodwin
Operations Manager
GfK Mystery Shopping
GfK | 200 Liberty Street | 4th Fl | New York | NY | 10281 | United States
donna.goodwin@gfk.com

BBird0701,

By the way, you wouldn't still happen to have this email where your report was "nonsense" would you? I would really like to see this person in particular receive a one-on-one discussion about this email.

Thanks,
Donna



BBird0701 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I had one two months ago, where I was contacted
> for clarification.
>
> The email was "Hello, (my name), please find in
> this section a sentence which needs to become
> clearer. This part is being nonsense, please
> become clearer and return within 12 hours. Thank
> you."
>
> "Being nonsense?" I interpreted that as "This
> part doesn't make sense."
>
> The part that was "being nonsense?" "I entered the
> location at (time) An associate greeted me within
> 10 seconds, welcoming me to (Store Name) and
> introducing himself as (Name.)
>
> I didn't know how to state it any more plainly or
> clearer than that, so I rewrote the exact same
> thing, adding the exact seconds I was greeted
> after entering the store... This went back and
> forth for three days, before I got an email from a
> different editor, saying "Don't worry about it,
> the report has been finalized. Thanks."