Over booked schedulers

Today I had a scheduler tell me that she had no idea what shop I emailed her about because she is scheduling for 10 companies. The city is unique and all she had to do was search the city name.
I was standing right there and could have easily dropped in and performed that quick bank job. Because this schedulers system does not allow self assign we are at the mercy of her busy schedule. 24 hours later is usually when she approves request. Its just not an efficient way to fullfill all jobs a client needs performed.
As of today I wash my hands of scheduling companies since the level of professionalism is not meeting my standards. Yes I have standards of expectations from the people I contract with. Respect goes two ways.

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More About Schedulers

Unfortunately many Mystery Shopping Companies use independent schedulers so it might be very hard to wash your hands of scheduling companies. In many cases you might not even be aware that the MSC is using an independent scheduler. The best that you can do is only take shops that you can self assign; however, this will limit the number of shops that are available to you.

I agree, but I have definatly targeted one particular person and or company who doesnt have any respect for us shoppers. Respect goes two ways in my mind.

What about the professionalism of listing the shop you would like in the email or including the text of the email you were sent for their reference?

Great idea! Referring to the assignment you want as "the shop" does not help. Just for GfK, I schedule for 5 programs and several different states, so it is impossible to know what shop is being specified.

Honestly, if your communication skills are too poor to relay which shop you would like to a scheduler, maybe you need to consider working in another industry.

@jmitw wrote:

What about the professionalism of listing the shop you would like in the email or including the text of the email you were sent for their reference?

Arguing with fools is like playing chess with a pigeon...
...No matter how good you are, the pigeon will s@^t on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Not scheduling for ANY company.

@iiCyou00 wrote:

Today I had a scheduler tell me that she had no idea what shop I emailed her about because she is scheduling for 10 companies. The city is unique and all she had to do was search the city name.
I was standing right there and could have easily dropped in and performed that quick bank job. Because this schedulers system does not allow self assign we are at the mercy of her busy schedule. 24 hours later is usually when she approves request. Its just not an efficient way to fullfill all jobs a client needs performed.
As of today I wash my hands of scheduling companies since the level of professionalism is not meeting my standards. Yes I have standards of expectations from the people I contract with. Respect goes two ways.

Respect does go both ways. When e-mailing anyone about anything, I try to reference what I am talking about, whether I am communicating with a MSC employee or whether I am communicating with someone at my day job. I do not expect the receiver of my e-mail be required to search for a key word (like the city) to figure out what I am talking about. That seems quite disrespectful to me. Should a scheduler be expected to be at the mercy of a shopper's busy schedule and drop what she is doing to search her e-mail to identify a shop the shopper is requesting when the shopper has not identified it?

Receiving an e-mail from someone who expects me to search to figure out what they are talking about before I can assist them would not meet my standards for professionalism.

Somewhere today or tonight there was probably a scheduler complaining to the other schedulers about an unprofessional shopper who has no respect for schedulers. If the OP is lucky, they aren't discussing him by name. Professional communication means you identify yourself and your need, you don't just send a command and expect someone else to jump through hoops for you and figure it out. The OP says "The city is unique and all she had to do was search the city name." ALL? Why should the scheduler have to do that? The OP snapped her fingers and the scheduler didn't jump. The OP "was standing right there and could have easily dropped in." Massively unprofessional. Entitlement.

And what's up with the complaint that "24 hours later is usually when she approves requests?" That's BAD? I can name more companies than I have fingers to count them with who take a bunch longer than 24 hours to schedule a shop. Some take so long that I regularly cancel my application for a shop. MHO is that 24 hour response from a scheduler is good. I have standards of expectations from the people I work with and the OP doesn't meet them.

The idea of including a reference to what shop you are asking for seems like excellent advice. I know that as a former dispatcher I would always appreciate any help my drivers could give me and I showed it whenever possible with extra work. Like the old saying goes, you scratch my back and will scratch yours.

Jay-

Seems like you have a good amount of respect and a firm understanding of all perspectives and angles in this business. I try to respond as fast as possible to shopper inquiries (usually under 8 hours), but schedulers have lives, just like shoppers do.

I always appreciate good shoppers.

@Jay C wrote:

Somewhere today or tonight there was probably a scheduler complaining to the other schedulers about an unprofessional shopper who has no respect for schedulers. If the OP is lucky, they aren't discussing him by name. Professional communication means you identify yourself and your need, you don't just send a command and expect someone else to jump through hoops for you and figure it out. The OP says "The city is unique and all she had to do was search the city name." ALL? Why should the scheduler have to do that? The OP snapped her fingers and the scheduler didn't jump. The OP "was standing right there and could have easily dropped in." Massively unprofessional. Entitlement.

And what's up with the complaint that "24 hours later is usually when she approves requests?" That's BAD? I can name more companies than I have fingers to count them with who take a bunch longer than 24 hours to schedule a shop. Some take so long that I regularly cancel my application for a shop. MHO is that 24 hour response from a scheduler is good. I have standards of expectations from the people I work with and the OP doesn't meet them.

Arguing with fools is like playing chess with a pigeon...
...No matter how good you are, the pigeon will s@^t on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Not scheduling for ANY company.

Sure they may have only had to search for one city, but if they are scheduling for 10 companies that's 10 systems they have to log into in order to check that one city.

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

Okay B. Now I have the song in your by-line swimming from ear to ear. It was great in concert.

One of my favorite lines from any song ever and one that people rarely seem to understand.
Did you see the real Pink Floyd or the fake David Gilmore Band version?

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

I second what AustinMom said.
Yesterday I picked up three apartment shops for the same company, owned by the same property, in the same city. I read the guidelines and the questionnaire, and still had a couple of questions that weren't addressed. I emailed the scheduler: subject line was, "Fast questions for apartment shops: Shopper ID # XXXXXX." In the body of the email, I referenced the client's name and the intended date of the assignment before going into my inquiries. (The name of the MSC wasn't necessary because I was writing to Scheduler_Name@Name_of_MSC.com.)
That was at 10:05 pm last night. When I woke up at 6:45 am this morning, there was a reply in my inbox.
I don't think I got such a fast reply because the scheduler was sitting there twiddling her thumbs with nothing to do. It's because she didn't have to wander all over every godforsaken corner of the internet trying to figure out what I was talking about.

"The future ain't what it used to be." --Yogi Berra

scheduling "companies" are a pet peeve of mine.......and i rarely work with them.

Just "dropping in" does you no good if you do not have an assignment. Schedulers are definitely busy-I get that. I can also understand the OP issue. She (he?) is not trying to bash someone, but to express frustration at the situation. This is why they did not name names. I have several shops that I would love to do, but don't even apply because I know how long certain schedulers usually take. With the company merges lately, I have had to rethink which jobs are important because of the company that now handles them. With that said, I have not completely written off any of them, I just invest less time looking at certain job pages.

I have no problem with any schedulers. I give the complete address, send them the date I will be at a certain location, sometimes a week in advance. The schedulers do know me and how I work. This is only on occasion, not on a regular schedule. I usually ask for a bonus if they can't get the shop done by the end of the month. I have always gotten a return within a short time.

It involves communication skills. We're busy and we need (want) something from someone. How do we communicate what we want in a fashion that leads to a timely response? They are busy. Help them to benefit you. Use soft words to detail the need and time.
Possible header: URGENT - Bank of OK Job / Tulsa Oklahoma/ I Can Work Today Only / Need details & Assignment

When you learn, teach, when you get, give. Maya Angelou

I can't tell you the number of times I have gotten email from a shopper that says:

Subject: Shop

Body:

I cannot do this shop today can you move it to tomorrow?

I am lucky that can search them by email address in the system I use to find out but if they have more than one shop for that day then I am out of luck because who knows which one they can't do?

As far as requests go, I personally think requests should be decisioned as soon as possible, within a few hours or less during the day but that's just me. I even check for requests at night when I'm not really "working" so I don't tie anyone up waiting, plus I need to get shops scheduled how do I do that if I'm missing last minute requests?

I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten replies to emails about available shops with the following:

"I can do that shop"

No name, no shop name, no shop date. A reply like that goes to the bottom of the replies and I will address it when I have finished responding to all of the other emails where the shoppers have provided critical details like THEIR NAME and which shop it is that they are applying for.

Judy Davis
Independent Scheduler
judyschedules@gmail.com

My experience has been that most (if not all) shops have some sort of ID number in the description. When I inquire about a shop I always include the "shop number" and that generally does the trick.

Use the ID number that goes with the shop when emailing schedulers about any particular shop.

"Evolve thyself and lose all hate...." Orphaned Land

Judyschedules, if the shopper's email is a reply to your email, is not all the pertinent information in your email? Or, are they emailing you from the blue sky without a decent subject line?

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

I was thinking the same thing as I have replied to a request by email with similar simple response. I did just learn a valuable lesson being cretain not to waste my or the schedulers time though with this post. I will be certain all per tenant info is easily right there in my reply email without further search.

@MDavisnowell wrote:

Judyschedules, if the shopper's email is a reply to your email, is not all the pertinent information in your email? Or, are they emailing you from the blue sky without a decent subject line?

Me, too. I always assumed if I replied to an email with the reply button that all the pertinent info was already there in the original email.

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

@bgriffin wrote:

One of my favorite lines from any song ever and one that people rarely seem to understand.
Did you see the real Pink Floyd or the fake David Gilmore Band version?

It was the real deal at one of our large venues here in LA. I remember that the acoustic guitar at the beginning and end of that song was great. At that time, my now husband was working at Fender guitars in the production line and explained the meaning of the lyrics to me as was explained to him. When I saw your by-line it reminded me of that time. Thanks for that.

I am kind of surprised to hear this.

Generally if they are "replying" to your original email then the Client - Location - Date information are already present in the message and the subject, unless of course they are not using the "quote original message" feature of their email.

Granted if there are many cities / states listed in the email they definitely would need to be specific.

I would also be surprised by professional shoppers not also having a sig line with their name in it at the bottom of the email. I do kind of assume that I am identified more by my email address than name, but both are always included.

================================================

@judyschedules wrote:

I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten replies to emails about available shops with the following:

"I can do that shop"

No name, no shop name, no shop date. A reply like that goes to the bottom of the replies and I will address it when I have finished responding to all of the other emails where the shoppers have provided critical details like THEIR NAME and which shop it is that they are applying for.

I wouldn't have a scheduler's job! From a personal perspective, before retirement I worked in an industry where I was on call 24/7/365. I don't think it is realistic for us to expect schedulers to do that. They have lives, too.

I will say that I have applied for shops and when the day arrived and I had heard nothing, I finally realized that I wasn't going to hear back. Not professional. But, thank goodness it is rare.

I do love self assigns. It allows me to get a shop at the last minute, when I am heading into a major urban area. Gets the shop off the scheduler's shoulders and me a shop I might not otherwise have a shot at. Just sayin'.

What's crazy about this is some companies do not pay schedulers if a shop is "self-assigned". Luckily, those companies are ones I would never work for.

@TxB17Lady wrote:

I wouldn't have a scheduler's job! From a personal perspective, before retirement I worked in an industry where I was on call 24/7/365. I don't think it is realistic for us to expect schedulers to do that. They have lives, too.

I will say that I have applied for shops and when the day arrived and I had heard nothing, I finally realized that I wasn't going to hear back. Not professional. But, thank goodness it is rare.

I do love self assigns. It allows me to get a shop at the last minute, when I am heading into a major urban area. Gets the shop off the scheduler's shoulders and me a shop I might not otherwise have a shot at. Just sayin'.

Arguing with fools is like playing chess with a pigeon...
...No matter how good you are, the pigeon will s@^t on the board and strut around like it won anyway.

Not scheduling for ANY company.

I can't wait to see the reply to this post, because it is what I have always assumed as well.

@MDavisnowell wrote:

Judyschedules, if the shopper's email is a reply to your email, is not all the pertinent information in your email? Or, are they emailing you from the blue sky without a decent subject line?

@Karen IL wrote:

I can't wait to see the reply to this post, because it is what I have always assumed as well.

@MDavisnowell wrote:

Judyschedules, if the shopper's email is a reply to your email, is not all the pertinent information in your email? Or, are they emailing you from the blue sky without a decent subject line?

Lol, I think we can guess the answer to that question.

"The future ain't what it used to be." --Yogi Berra

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