Anyone else noticing the change in shop instructions?

Scheduler is defending the editor. I told him I don't think I'll be doing any more clown shops.

He BEGS me every month to do some of these. Let's see how valuable that extra point is to him NOW.

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I pray it does not occur that the last thing I did before I died was vacuum the house or eat broccoli.

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That's a bummer, ItsASecret. And so senseless on their part. Especially when the guidelines were so clear about having latitude about this aspect of the assignment. If it were so critical to the overall effectiveness of the visit that it warranted a deduction, that should have been specified in the instructions.

_____________________________________________________________________________
"Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
~Viktor Frankl

itsasecret, I know you're ticked they docked you two points on the curly fries, and that you don't plan to do any more of the shops as a result.

May I suggest another approach? Every time they call you to do one of these, please tell them you need $2.00 more than the fee that would make you happy. Every time you sign one of the shops, you'll know you're getting a little extra. This will allow you to slightly improve your income from these shops by attaching a $2.00 penalty for their two point dock, and will still allow them to get the shops done by a qualified shopper at a reasonable fee. Win Win Fun Fun.

Mary Davis Nowell. Based close to Fort Worth. Shopping Interstate 20 east and west, Interstate 35 north and south.

s2n warning office supply now no reimbursement for required purchase

Good idea, Mary.

I was actually sick of these clown shops anyway but perhaps extracting a couple more pounds of flesh from them will assuage my bruised ego.....

I've never cared about their ratings. If they hadn't specified they were taking two points for one minor mistake I probably never would have paid attention to the shop rating. But to finally praise me for a report (all prior evaluations have been criticized for spelling, grammar, or long sentences) and then take off two points for this just frosted me.

I think I'll start deliberately misspelling a few words just to make sure that editor is earning HER pay.....

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I pray it does not occur that the last thing I did before I died was vacuum the house or eat broccoli.

Now you're talking a game plan. Play ball!

Mary Davis Nowell. Based close to Fort Worth. Shopping Interstate 20 east and west, Interstate 35 north and south.

Bay Wrote:
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> If the MSC's just put a revision date on all of
> their instructions, there would be no need to send
> out emails. We could just check the date against
> when we had last done the shop.

Great idea! I have seen so many shops where the instructions do not line up with the shop notes that I have always been convinced that some of the shoppers are the only one re reading the instructions. Those making changes in job specs, instructions or where ever need to re read as well and make sure the info is the same everywhere. This kind of stuff just wastes a lot of time for each and every shopper having to double check to see which of the conflicting information is true. At the small reimbursement for each shop the extra time to re read every time really cuts into profit per hour.

itsasecret Wrote:
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> I've never cared about their ratings.

It's best not to. I've done a lot of these assignments, many identical. And yet the ratings and feedback are so widely different from one another that I can't help but think that they just randomly choose a canned answer to respond to each one. There's no consistency.

I actually received an email from an Informa scheduler recently with regard to a change that had been made to one of their bank assignments. This was a mass email sent to any and all who had completed this assignment, and unfortunately I have since deleted it so I can't quote verbatim, but basically the message was this: "Changes were made to these guidelines. We specifically did NOT inform shoppers because we wanted to see if you would catch them on your own." For the life of me I cannot understand why a MSC would jeopardize reports and in doing so, waste time and money, for the sake of seeing who's paying the most attention.

>
> Stand on the toilet bowl and take the picture over
> the door. Aim your camera at the mirror or stand
> inside the stall with only your arm extended to
> take the picture of the sink and mirror. If they
> really don't want US in the picture.

Except, guess who tried that once and who's foot slipped off the seat? Good thing that sucker was flushed first.

Her Serene Majesty, Cettie - Goat Queen of Zoltar, Sublime Empress of Her Caprine Domain

Grrrrosss!

pcs Wrote:
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> Grrrrosss!

Not really it was "fresh" water.

Lots of shops require photos. Smartphones are great. I don't mind taking the pictures. It gives me a time stamp of when the food was served, or when you were in the restroom.

Have you noticed how many people are texting, emailing and taking pictures in restaurants? I see it all the time.

I did a five star hotel - two night shop a few weekes ago. From my balcony looking down over the pool, there were about 15 guests in the pool area - 14 were on some sort of electronic device - iPad, phone, laptop or the like. One guest had a towel over her face and appeared to be asleep.

In the bar later that evening, a group of six guests were drinking and enjoying their evening, and appeared to be posting to the internet and taking pictures.

If you are not on your phone or taking pictures, you might now be spotted as a mystery shopper!

sethd85 Wrote:
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> There is one particular MSC that when it makes
> changes to the shop does not send out a memo or
> APB telling shoppers that changes have been made.
> They just assume that we need to read the
> instructions every time even though they haven't
> changed in two years.That must cause a slew of
> rejections once the new changes come out.

If they can get the information from you, ligitimately reject your work product because you are not observant and edit your work product and submit it they get your work product for free because they tell you it is a game. You have to know the rules and if you do not play by the rules they do not have to tell you in BIG LETTERS and COLORS that the rules have changed. The ligitimate MSC's will not only tell you there are changes, they will tell you in BIG LETTERS and COLORS what the changes are.

You should pick your clients accordingly and do not service clients that want your work product for free.

The big changes I see is the compensation. Supermarket shops have been offering $10.50 since cereal was a dollar a box and chop meat was $1.50 a pound. Both items are up over $3.50 in this neck of the woods which means your pay was cut in half.

CANADAMOMMY Wrote:
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> s2n warning office supply now no reimbursement for
> required purchase

I just found that out today. Grrr....
However, I think it works out the same.
It used to be $7 with $1 reimb. and now it's $8.
The whole timing thang just screams out mystery shopper.

Not my circus - Not my monkeys @(*.*)@

~Polish Proverb~

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