Hello everyone -

I am in a pickle here and do not know what to do or who to call at Maritz. I recently completed a route of gas stations and have been told by the scheduler on the team for this client that Maritz did not receive three reports. Well, I completed the reports and submitted them with the receipts. That said, when I hit the submit button on the last three reports (the ones Maritz claims they did not receive), it took forever for them to go through and I am not exactly sure they indeed went through. On the first of the three, I had to redo the report twice. I finally got it to go through, at least I thought so, and submitted the invoice. I then completed the second and third report. When it was time to submit the receipts for each, their server shut down and I was booted out of the site. Since it was Sunday when I did these reports, I knew there was probably no one at Maritz to answer the phone, so I sent an email through their website. I have not received a reply to my emails. First thing Monday morning, I called Maritz and was told that there was no one on the team available, so I left a message. A couple of days later, I realized that I had not submitted an invoice for the last two reports. That is when I realized that the last two shops had been removed. I called Maritz again and spoke to the scheduler. She told me they had been removed because I had not submitted the reports. I explained the situation to her, told her that I sent emails, that I called on Monday, left a message and had not received a call back. She was no help whatsoever and quite snarky. I offered to send the receipts to her, but she rejected the offer saying it was not necessary at this point. I told her that it was absolutely necessary because it was proof that I did the shops.

She suggested that I speak with a supervisor, so I asked her to please leave a message for a supervisor to call me. I have yet to receive a call back from a supervisor. I also asked to speak to someone in IT - she did not know what "IT" meant. I asked if they had someone or a help desk who oversaw their network department. She told me there was not such person and that a supervisor would be the best person to talk to. Well, if so, why have I not heard from a supervisor?

At this point, I am at a loss as to what to do about this and I am frustrated as h*ll. So much so that I am seriously considering not making myself available to so anymore gas station shops. If I have to deal with this scheduler every time I do these shops, then I will not do them. I can't deal with her anymore. She told me that she returned my call, but I find that hard to believe because there is no such call listed on my cell phone or my home phone. I told her that I can easily see who has called me on my cell phone and my home phone. I asked her which number she called. She told me that she did not remember and went on to say that she makes a lot of calls. I asked her if she left a message. She told me that she did not remember. I asked her for the date of the call back. She told me it was Wednesday. I told her that I have no record of receiving any calls from Maritz on Wednesday. She was adamant that she called me back. I do not believe she did.

Does anyone know the name and phone number of a supervisor at Maritz? I just want to get this cleared up. Someone at Maritz has removed me from self-assigning shops and I am absolutely livid. It seems that they are not interested in resolving this issue. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thank you ...

I can offer tea and sympathy but not much help.

Emails will get you nowhere; this must be done by phone. What time of day have you been calling? If in the morning, call in the afternoon. If in the afternoon, call in the morning. Ask for the team and when you get someone on the line, tell them you need to talk to the supervisor. Try not to leave a message. Ask when you should call to get to talk to a supervisor.

That's all I can suggest. I've never had a problem with Maritz personally, but I know "hiccups" are not generally dealt with very well.

I would call and ask for an editor. I find that a productive way to resolve Maritz problems. (They seem to know whats going on).

I've done over 600 shops for them over the past year, and have called with questions a dozen or so times, but never by my request have I spoken to a supervisor. Once it was so bad that for 20 minutes I could hear the supervisor in the background tell the scheduler what to say to me, after which I would respond to the scheduler, who then had to relay my words to the supervisor. It was ludicrous.
I wouldn't hold out much hope for getting through to the supervisor, but perhaps you could go through a back door. I'll PM you with suggestions.
You may have a greater opportunity for success with a different scheduler. Start calling twice per day, once during the morning shift and once during the evening shift. There's pretty much a complete turnover of schedulers and usually a different supervisor as well. Try just pressing the Team number extension until you get someone besides your nemesis to answer. If you know another scheduler for that Team, ask for that person by name. The scheduler you've worked with so far is in a defensive mode and won't/can't be helpful. Share your details with another scheduler and let them know that they'll have those two shops done immediately if they'll just put them back on your board. Two less they'll have to schedule.
If you can't get satisfaction with anyone on the Team for this GS client, speak to a scheduler on another Team with whom you have worked. Simply ask that scheduler to check your file for phone calls placed to you last Wednesday. Every call is to be documented. The defensive scheduler may have been off by a digit when she entered your auditor ID and placed the calls to someone else (it's happened to me.) She may have dialed the wrong number. She may be blowing smoke. You'll need to know if you hope to get anywhere with this.
You'll want to watch to see if your two shops have gone back on the board. Once they've assigned them again to someone else, it will make it pretty hard to get anything more from this than an apology (and your bonus, if you were due one for the route).
The vast majority of Maritz schedulers are capable and conscientious, but Maritz had to expand their scheduler pool significantly this year due to a reduction in the number of hours each scheduler is allowed to work and several new contracts with massive clients. I think a few of the newjoins still aren't up to speed, and a very few don't share the ethic of the vets.

This is the only hiccup I have not been able to resolve with Maritz since working with them for the past year. It seems that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. I started keeping a phone log of my calls to them, documenting what was discussed since I cannot send an email confirming my phone call. It has been interesting to find out that most schedulers do not document my calls in my file. This particular scheduler told me that she did not document her call to me in my file.

As suggested by Mr. C., I will call tomorrow and ask for an editor. Hopefully, I will get somewhere.

I'm thinking about posting something on their Facebook page. I was looking at it the other day and it seems that someone at Maritz is maintaining it - at least somewhat. They posted on their page that they are upgrading their website and asked for suggestions on what to change, add, etc. Their are quite a few suggestions.

Good luck friend.

A struggle with Maritz is it can be difficult to get ahold of a flesh and blood person. Email is often hit or miss (usually miss), and sometimes they are busy on the phone.

Like dealing with government, start calling twice a day. Be polite, but persevere.

One thing I like about Maritz is while some of the intricacies of the shops can be a bit confusing and communicating can be difficult at times, they are very consistent. Once you learn a shop, you're set. And their Accounts Payable is like clockwork.

It took me several shops to get comfortable with them, but the last two years have been great.

I have learnt that one must be civil and gracious with all persons. That is not to say you were not. I am simply saying that no matter how frustrated you become, do not ever, become snarky or uncivil.

I have had a few issues with this MSC and have been able to work them out quite easily. During those times, I have had to send E-mails as well as chat with schedulers, editors and payroll. I have always kept my tongue in check and offered humour as well as apologised when it was clear I was at fault. As I have stated, everything did work out and never a snarky comment was made.

For your particular situation, my suggestion would be to have continued to attempt to log in. Once you do that, then click on the link that says: "View Completed Shops". It is at the top of your "My Current Shops" page. It is there where you shall find the shops you most recently completed. If you do not find those shops, then re-submit with an explanation in the private comment area of why they were late in being submitted.

Lastly, follow the advice given by the others: Call and call and call. Do not E-mail. You must be the one to show your grace and conscientiousness. You must be the professional.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2014 01:21PM by Tatjana.

I've worked with Maritz for a long time and on the whole I find them to be a great company. However, if you have a serious issue to resolve it can be incredibly difficult working through their bureaucracy. I was never able to resolve a particular incident as no-one would listen to me.

I have been working for them for only six months, but I concur with what most people say here. Calling is the only way - email tends to be ignored. Also I agree that if you hit a bump, sometimes it is difficult to work things out.

One thing is it depends on which gas station brand this is. I have found that the team that handles one station is hopeless to work with. But the team that handles several other brands of gas stations and also handles a hardware company has a completely different attitude.

Just an FYI - Maritz told me that the save shop for later button is intended for you to get up and get a cup of coffee, not to save the shop for hours on end. He explained that it does something that could cause it to freeze up or corrupt (my words) in some fashion. I don't know if you did that, but I wanted to put this out there.