I live in the middle of several of the locations for this particular shop. I asked the managers how long the previous shopper spent doing the "audit". I was told about 15-20 minutes. It is not possible to do this in less than 40 minutes in the store if you follow the guidelines and have it memorized. The managers attempt to be very "chummy" with you, as they have a bonus on the line.
I foolishly made some very light small talk with the different managers and stated some positive things like "This store is very well organized", and another store that was in worse shape complained and I was accused of "comparing one store against another" when I found expired product at two locations and turned it in to the managers. I was then told that it was an automatic fail for them and they were not happy to loose a bonus.
I actually took the time to do the audit properly and took a photo of every single no answer. There was absolutly no question of my integrity of what I reported. The simple fact that I took the time to do the audit for the $10 fee and upload close to 25+ photos for some locations and less than 15 for others and report the true state of each store was enough to have the managers collude to find a reason to have me removed from this shop.
I don't hold this against Maritz as they are there to please the customer, and the customer was snowed by the store managers to get rid of me for taking the time to accuratly do the job.
I have learned much from this experience.
I did a single shop for another company that took me an hour time to write a difficult narrative and less than an hour on site and made the same financial gains with an up front outlay of over $100 and it was a return product shop than I would have made from going to four locations all about 5 miles away from me.
50 miles of driving, hours of clicking through the reports, and this is not counting the time doing the actual work.
I am going to strive to do the more difficult shops than to eat fast food and fill out mindless reports from now on.
I was loosing money and doing the shop more for the needed exercise than for the positive income statement on my spreadsheet. The gas and printing alone would negate the small $10 fee. The managers want another shopper that will not check dates on product and snap a few photos and leave with a false high scored audit.
I'm actually glad that I was removed from this shop, as my integrity is worth more to me than any shop fee is. I was foolish to even take such a low paying assignment for what was asked at the base pay.
I imagine they will get the old shopper and all the stores will score really good again, instead of the stores that were in worse condition getting a bad score and the stores that were in good shape getting a good score. When all the stores were getting a good score, everything is fine. When someone does the job properly and the stores that had more faults were evenly graded on the facts, they found a way to remove me from the project.
Thank You.
It's a PHOTO audit. A picture is worth 1000 words.
If you are inclined to do this assignment, my advise to you is to not speak a word to anyone working there, no matter how harmless it may seem at the time.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2014 01:01AM by scanman1.