Okay this is for my video shoppers out there.

If there was an issue with your shop and you have your video but you were informed that the shop would or is rejected. Would you still give them your video. You did all the work, one issue happens and its rejected, they want the video but won't pay you for it.

What would you do? How would you feel?

If they weren't paying me for it, I wouldn't give them the video. Personally, I consider that my property until I sell it to them.

I'm with Lisa on this one. It's my video until they pay for it so no, they wouldn't get it.

OK, I'm confused - if they rejected the shop, why would they want the video?

You don't submit the video along with the shop report?

Are you comfortable naming the company here? And how did you know it was rejected before the video was submitted?

Because not all companies are honest. I'm sure some MSCs use our reports even after they have been rejected.

As much as it pains me to say this, the only reason for them to have the video when they know the shop is not going to be accepted is to give the client a freebie. Either that or the client will accept some shops not executed perfectly for a reduced payment.

They will use the video and can make a report to match. And you get nothing.... so do not give up the video. The client would never know you did not write that report but an in house auditor did....from your video.

I'm getting more and more confused. Is the video not submitted with the report? Without seeing the video, what made the company decline to accept the report?

I was hoping the OP would return and explain the specifics of her story. All I can do is relate one of mine. My only video that was ever rejected was for a storage facility. Without going into all the craziness leading up to my visit, while there I was asked to reserve a unit, drew a blank on the requirements and told them no. After rereading the guidelines at my hotel that evening I realized it was required and immediately contacted my scheduler. So in that case we were all aware the shop would be rejected before the MSC got the video.

AM,
There a lots of things that would compromise a video shop without the video ever being uploaded. For instance, the target may have id-ed the shopper and the client has already notified the MSC before the shopper ever got to upload. This actually happened to me once, when I did something quite stupid. No pay and no travel funds for that shop on a long road trip. Learned my lesson!

The video is uploaded outside of the report format, btw. It takes industrial strength beyond the abilitites of Sassie, etc, to upload a gb of video. So, I may enter the short report. Then, if I am on the road, I may have a couple of days to upload video when I get a nice fast connection using a different ftp. In many of those reports, there is a place to tell the editor anything unusual that may have happened during the shop. The shopper may have reported in that space, something that would invalidate the shop, if the guidelines were not followed (such as shopping on a weekend, or interfering with a sales agent's interactions with a real buyer in a new home model.)

There are so many scenario disasters that could invalidate a shop that there are whole courses at IMSC and on line to help shoppers understand how to craft a good scenario and support it with unique follow-up phone and email contacts. It's not the camera work hat gets the big bucks, it's the senarios that are the real hard work for video or audio recorded shops. There is no place for the shopper tohide a shopper error in his part of the business.

I too, would like to know the name of the MSC that still wants the video. However, I can visualize a couple of legiimate reasons for them to ask for it. That does not mean that I am not suspicious of the request, though.

AM, I can see that we will have a lot to chat about in NOLA. But you must promise to stop me if I spend too much time on video war stories, lol.

Why do you upload a GB of video? Why don't you zip the file
first then upload it so it is much smaller. Then they can unzip
it on their end.

Thanks for sharing - it makes more sense to me now. I'm so looking forward to NOLA in July ....... and your video presentation!

Because that has never been offered as an option techman. For whatever reason there are enough issues with video files getting corrupted between upload by us and download by the MSC. I would rather do it using a tried and true method the first time than have to just do it again.

Poor Austinmom!

I'm back!

Okay I agree about not giving them the video and I don't want to come off disrespectful and lose such a good relationship with this company.
I have a good scheduler that I work directly with that has a direct contact to the account manager and they have a direct relationship with the client. Sounds messy lol...but everyone is a simple call away.
The target has a keen eye for shoppers and she spotted me and there was this big mess about how she handled it on and off the video.
The client was asked how they would feel about it and they said no we don't want that report lets get someone else to do it. The person I work with is asking me to send them the video any way

That's all the info I can give without hurting this company, they truly are great!

but, this is one of those hiccups

Now for those asking if the if the video is attached. No it is not. When you do a video shop the video is submitted through a different source because it is so large, for example FileZilla, WeTransfer those kind of options.

You are 100% correct!

This is pretty much what happened.
I don't think they will necessarily get paid for the shop but probably just want to see visually what actually happened in the situation.

But I do feel like my video is my product and you have to pay for it.
I hope she doesn't hate me for this lol

walesmaven Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> AM,
> There a lots of things that would compromise a
> video shop without the video ever being uploaded.
> For instance, the target may have id-ed the
> shopper and the client has already notified the
> MSC before the shopper ever got to upload. This
> actually happened to me once, when I did something
> quite stupid. No pay and no travel funds for that
> shop on a long road trip. Learned my lesson!
>
> The video is uploaded outside of the report
> format, btw. It takes industrial strength beyond
> the abilitites of Sassie, etc, to upload a gb of
> video. So, I may enter the short report. Then,
> if I am on the road, I may have a couple of days
> to upload video when I get a nice fast connection
> using a different ftp. In many of those reports,
> there is a place to tell the editor anything
> unusual that may have happened during the shop.
> The shopper may have reported in that space,
> something that would invalidate the shop, if the
> guidelines were not followed (such as shopping on
> a weekend, or interfering with a sales agent's
> interactions with a real buyer in a new home
> model.)
>
> There are so many scenario disasters that could
> invalidate a shop that there are whole courses at
> IMSC and on line to help shoppers understand how
> to craft a good scenario and support it with
> unique follow-up phone and email contacts. It's
> not the camera work hat gets the big bucks, it's
> the senarios that are the real hard work for video
> or audio recorded shops. There is no place for
> the shopper tohide a shopper error in his part of
> the business.
>
> I too, would like to know the name of the MSC that
> still wants the video. However, I can visualize a
> couple of legiimate reasons for them to ask for
> it. That does not mean that I am not suspicious
> of the request, though.
>
> AM, I can see that we will have a lot to chat
> about in NOLA. But you must promise to stop me if
> I spend too much time on video war stories, lol.

Have they given any indication how they want to handle the situation? Maybe the idea is to see the video and find out what the associate is up to so they can go to the client. Some MSCs seem to be moving away from allowing associates to spot the shopper without penalty and are making it clear to the clients they will be paying.

What I don't understand is why you have to submit a written report when you are shooting video. Isn't the whole shop recorded? I believe you even have to record the date and time before entering the establishment and at the end when you are back in your car.

The days of video shops without reports seem to be in the past. I have completed the same shops for the same clients and found a report where there had previously been none. It does seem to contradict the whole idea of having video if they are only going to read reports.

zipping a file would give it a less chance of
being corrupted when uploading because
the file is sealed and isn't unsealed until
they unzip it on their end. Wouldn't cost
them anything either since you can generally
unzip and zip for free with simple programs.

I think the clients that are requiring the written report along with a video are probably relying on the written report and using the video if there I a problem or else just randomly picking videos to view. It becomes time management. Which is the more efficient use of time, spending one hour watching a video of a single shop, or reading 6-8 shop reports in the same amount of time?

If you are getting no pay then there is ZERO reason to give them a free video. There is ZERO legit reason for it. Unless they want to partial pay you.

Perhaps the MSC wants to learn from, or help the OP learn from, whatever mistake was made, or maybe even wants to check it for themselves or for the client's benefit to see if the target is scamming them.
Possible benevolent explanations aside...
Since the OP has a great relationship with the MSC, and the OP isn't going to get paid either way, there is something to be said for sending the video. If the OP is genuinely on great terms with the scheduler, I think the OP could express the OP's reservations about the client benefitting from something they're not paying for, or at least from something that the OP isn't getting paid for, and then the scheduler will have a chance to explain what is going to be done with the video, and will also recognize the significance of the OP selflessly going the extra mile.
Build some quid pro quo collateral and send it.

If you really want to give them the video still before
doing so add a scrolling watermark saying something
like not invalid shop or video not for distribution etc

tech man

How can I do that? That's a really great idea!

I'm reading every one of you all's comments. Thank you for all of the advice!

I'll give an update after I email the scheduler and see what she says.

Thanks

I second the motion to email your scheduler.

What ever happened?

Wow! I had no idea that video shoppers had to write a report as well as submit a video. They better pay a lot for that!

I think this is a tough call. You want to maintain good relations with the MS company but, they usually never give a shopper anything for free, so you have to decide if it's worth it. You are certainly within your rights to refuse and they shouldn't hold it against you if you don't give it to them. I don't know how great your relationship with the MSC really is, but they really should offer you *something* (and perhaps charge their client something reduced). Maybe you could negotiate a low price. This is business. Since when does anyone do/give something for nothing?

I also think it's unfair that a shop gets rejected when a shopper is spotted by a target. Plus the target is stupid to say anything because it just means somebody else is going to shop them. I don't understand why any employee thinks it's in their best interest to say that they know they were shopped, unless they didn't do their job well and are trying to cover their butts. It's not the shopper's fault that the employee outed the shopper. A good MSC, in my opinion, would pay the shopper for the shop, even if the shop was rejected by the client, if the shopper didn't reveal themselves or didn't conduct themselves inappropriately or make it obvious that they were a shopper. The MSC should pay, to maintain good faith relations with the shopper.

I've never done any video shops but I have done shops where reports were rejected by clients because the same employee had been previously shopped by another shopper and the client didn't want to pay the MSC for the report. The MSC has paid me anyway, because I did my job. I wasn't asked to target a certain employee though. I'm sure it was significantly less money than what a video shopper would make, but that's not the point.

I rarely read the ICAs entirely. I don't recall whether any of the ones I've seen say that if a client rejects a report, the shopper won't get paid. Is that a video shop standard?

Forgive me for asking these questions when you asked for video shoppers' feedback. I am very interested in doing video shopping at some point so I'm curious and I hope you don't mind my intrusion!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2014 03:28AM by nycrocks.