E-mail your scheduler. This is one of the things about mystery shopping that makes me crazy--poorly worded and/or ambiguous instructions. I'm assuming, as many are, that what they REALLY mean is to not START the shop until at least one hour after opening.
However, if you e-mail for clarification, you do two things:
1. You get a written communication of your instructions, and if you follow those, the issue of confusion is eliminated. You're covering your butt.
2. You alert the MSC to the fact that its instructions are not clear! "Completing" a shop is not the same as "starting" it.
I ran into a situation the other day where a portion of the shop instructions were so badly mangled, they said the opposite of what was meant! (And there was a key word missing in a sentence in that portion, too.) I e-mailed for clarification. Even though I knew what was meant, I wanted to be 100% certain. The MSC e-mailed back, clarifying the instructions and saying they were going to fix the mistake.
Why have more shoppers scratching their heads over unclear instructions? It simply amazes me that in a field in which writing skills and clarity are so important, we shoppers receive the most ambiguous, conflicting, and downright horribly written guidelines.
I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2015 12:45PM by BirdyC.