For the most part, we either love them or hate them.

For me it’s a mixed bag.

I enjoy actually performing the shops. For the 3.5 years that I recently lived in an apartment it was a great way to gauge the value of my own place. After numerous shops over that time period, I was glad to find that my apartment was one of the best values out there. I’ve maybe seen a couple of places that were a better deal, but they were in income-restricted communities that I could not have qualified for in the real world.

As we all know, there are two players in the game: the C company and the E company.

FWIS, they both have their pluses and minuses.

Everyone complains about the lengthy pay period for the C company, but it’s not like they don’t make you aware of it. Don’t want to wait that long to be paid? Don’t work for them! For me, mystery shopping is all about generating additional income that appears each and every month. As such, the longest payout period in the industry is not that big a deal for me.

What was a big deal was that, for the longest time, I had to chase them for my money, often having to send 2 or 3 requests for payment. Thankfully, that seems to have been cleaned up as payments are now received within a few days of the quoted payout period.

Another minus is that awhile back they added their Executive Summary section, requiring even more work for the same old pay. As a result, I no longer do shops for the C company unless there are bonuses involved. This year has been particularly good, as I have racked up $2200+ with them so far, thanks to some hefty bonuses, one of which was $55, making for an $85 shop. Not bad for a little over an hour’s work, including the invoice preparation (probably my biggest peeve as they are the only SASSIE site I'm aware of that does not automatically invoice).

That the C company uses SASSIE is a plus in my book. While their online forms are not perfect, they are a damned sight better than the E company’s online forms which are a freaking hot mess. As the holder of an M. Ed., specializing in distance learning, I’ve been trained in best practices when it comes to online communication and presentation/collection of information. The E company fails miserably in this area.

All kinds of response boxes indicate that they need to be used if the answer is “No”, yet they still require input if the answer to the related question is a yes. Lame!

One thing that really peeves me is that they ask the same question in two different places in the report, and require that the information be input in two different ways (time in normal format for one question, in military format for the other is the most egregious).

In a recent report I completed, the form indicated that my response needed to match the response in a particular question in another part of the report. No problem, until I realized the question referred to did not exist in the other part of the report! REALLY lame!

Another problem area is that their forms NEVER print out with all the information required to complete the online report. Whole sections regarding descriptions of the leasing agent, the leasing office and the apartment viewed do not show up in the print reports. Having done enough work for them, I know that the information is required, and there’s plenty of blank space on the printouts to log the information, especially the all-important location of the bathroom <massive eyeroll>.

Their online communication processes are almost as problematic as their online forms. Despite receiving updates and/or requests via email, if you don’t also respond via their online form they tend not to get the response. And often, their auto email reminders/inquiries are not effectively synced with actual shop parameters. Every time I get an opportunity to answer a survey about a shop I point out all the incongruities (citing my cred so hopefully I don’t come across as whiner), but so far any comments submitted would appear to have fallen on deaf ears, or blind eyes as it were.

On the E company’s plus side, their pre-bonus pay is a little bit better, and the reports, despite the issues mentioned above, generally can be completed much more quickly than the C company’s reports. And, obviously, they pay much faster.

To sum up, there are indeed a bunch of hassles involved with doing apartment shops, but seeing as they represent almost 60% of my mystery shopping income so far this year, for me, the hassles are worth it.

As with all things mystery shopping, YMMV!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2017 04:46AM by CoolMusic.

Thank You CoolMusic

But from the title, I thought you will be talking about the dynamics of apartment shops, and your post is about Company C and Company E. I do not disagree with you when dealing with MSCs/MSPs I do not think we are respected and involved as we should be.

Imagine if ALL Independent Contractos (IC) should quit one day. What will happen to the industry? It will collapse never to come back.

So if we are so important to this industry, why are we treated that way? By the way to attach our payments to the client paying the MSCs/MSPs and to have that stipulated in the contract is abhorring.

My contract with the MSCs/MSPs is separate and distinct from the contract between the MSCs/MSPs and the client. I do the work and you pay me. But the quality of work is at issue here.

Thus we get back to the IC. If we can clean up the "gene pool" and have competent ICs everyone will be better off. And yes it takes more than a pulse and breathing to do this kind of work.

Thanks

CoolMusic,
I have only performed one apartment shop. It was for company E. I agree with the quick payment. I would love any tips on how you are able to do an apartment shop in about an hour. Thanks!

Neither pays enough for a non-video, targeted apartment shop, as far as I am concerned.

Why are we being coy about the MSC names? No client was mentioned.

I love apartment shops! However, I don't do any for Cirrus (didn't even know they had any) or Ellis (I don't do targeted shops, and it seems that's all that Ellis offers). Remington requires too much narrative, so I avoid those shops, too. If anyone is looking to improve their writing skills, Remington is a great company to work with, but you need to be okay with rewriting parts of your report after initial submission.

The apartment shops I do take about 15 minutes onsite, and the report takes me about 45 minutes. Just one upload of a business card, and tada! you're done. I try to line up 3 shops for the same day, and that's all I do that day. It's rewarding to see changes made to the apartment based on my comments (at least it seems like more than a coincidence). For one apartment, I commented twice that the decorating style looked like a nursing home. (Harsh, I know, but so true.) The third time I visited, the model had been completely redecorated and was appealing, especially to potential, young residents.

I'm also intrigued by the psychology of how the model apartment is staged. There was one model that had mismatched furniture in the living room. Everything was in good repair, but the colors, patterns, and styles were random. Then I realized that the apartments were geared to students or recent grads, so the style was similar to what the residents actually used.

So, I love apartment shops, but am picky about which ones I do.

ChrisCooper, Are you willing to share the name of the MSC for which you do apartment shops?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/23/2017 01:35PM by AnneAshley.

Nicely written, Cool. And I say that because I know people with the same "creds" as you have who cannot write a paragraph -- nay, a SENTENCE -- that makes any sense whatsoever. Good grief, I know people with doctorates in Literature or Education who cannot write a simple declarative sentence!

Anne: Reality Based Group (RBG), Bestmark, and one other..maybe Jancyn. But my favorite is RBG. The base fee is $25 and they rarely bonus, but there are no targeted shops, no phone calls. Just straight-forward onsite visit and report.

Not sure what Ellis' base fee is now, but they used to offer $30 and that extra $5 doesn't begin to compensate for the number of phone calls that have to be placed to reach the target. Plus, the target might slip out and not do the tour with the shopper. There was a post about a year ago where the target quit while the shopper was in the leasing office. Totally not worth it--for the target or the shopper.

Ellis has different base rates depending on the area. Here they start at $35 with good bonuses if you wait them out. I'm not sure the problem with the target passing off the shopper to another agent. That does not invalidate a shop. I have had it happen twice in the last year and been paid in full for both.

Ellis and Cirrus are far from the only companies with apartment shops.

When I was shopping full time in 2016, I did shops for Remington and Ellis. Cirrus didn't have apartment shops in this area. The shops that I did do for them, I was paid for months later after chasing my payment. NO THANKS!

Ellis was very easy to work with, but they are disorganized. They once had me shop a maintenance worker who was not happy to hear from me. They are easy to work with though. I've never had a report rejected.

Remington, on the other hand, is a nightmare. No matter how much detail you give, it's not enough. They rewrite your narratives. They like flowery narratives, and I don't write like that.

I've done a lot of shops for RBG but never an apartment shop, they don't have any in my area. Intelli have apartment shops in my area but their base pay is way too low for me to consider them.

I hate the redundancy of epms reports but they are my favorite so far.

Once @walesmaven retires, I'll be glad to start shopping for Shadow Agency as I don't own video equipment.

eyelove,
Don't hold you breath about me ever retiring. You will have to pry my PV-500 from my cold, dead hands.

@AnneAshley wrote:

CoolMusic,
I have only performed one apartment shop. It was for company E. I agree with the quick payment. I would love any tips on how you are able to do an apartment shop in about an hour. Thanks!

Company E definitely takes less time to report because they don't require the "play-by-play" of the phone call and the time spent with the leasing agent. Another reason I like them, despite their unique issues.

On average, I would say the phone portion of an apartment shop runs between 3 and 4 minutes. Some are less if the agent is missing most of the marks they are supposed to hit. Fortunately I've only run into a couple of long-winded agents, with my longest call running over 10 minutes. OY!

The onsite portion of a shop rarely runs more than 20 minutes in my experience, and I can knock out my notes (to be translated into the play-by-play) and do the check boxes on the form in about 5 minutes. Filling out the online form rarely runs over 30 minutes.

I hit all the check boxes first, then I write the visit narrative, saving the phone call transcription for last. So a C company shop is 4 minutes phone + 20 minutes onsite + 5 minutes with the form immediately after the shop + 30 minutes doing the online report. As alluded to above, an E company shop should take considerably less time. If their online deployment was better, it would take even less time.

@ceasesmith wrote:

Nicely written, Cool. And I say that because I know people with the same "creds" as you have who cannot write a paragraph -- nay, a SENTENCE -- that makes any sense whatsoever. Good grief, I know people with doctorates in Literature or Education who cannot write a simple declarative sentence!

Much obliged. Your last sentence reminds me of one of my English teachers who forced me to file a formal complaint. She was a PhD, teaching English Composition 1. The instructor expectations made it clear that forum posts and responses should be devoid of grammatical and spelling errors.

During a discussion on editing (gotta love the irony) she posted a sentence fragment in response to a fellow student. I called her on it (yeah, that's how I roll), ending my comment with, "I know what you meant to say, but I'm pretty sure that's not how you meant to say it."

She replied via email (from a non-private email account shared with her husband, another factor in my filing the complaint) that her response was "exactly" how she meant to say it.

OK...

:-D

@ChrisCooper wrote:

Anne: Reality Based Group (RBG), Bestmark, and one other..maybe Jancyn. But my favorite is RBG. The base fee is $25 and they rarely bonus, but there are no targeted shops, no phone calls. Just straight-forward onsite visit and report.

Not sure what Ellis' base fee is now, but they used to offer $30 and that extra $5 doesn't begin to compensate for the number of phone calls that have to be placed to reach the target. Plus, the target might slip out and not do the tour with the shopper. There was a post about a year ago where the target quit while the shopper was in the leasing office. Totally not worth it--for the target or the shopper.

Targeted calls for EPMS can definitely be a time suck, so I only do them with a double-digit bonus involved. At $40+ they still average out to over $25 an hour with the extra telephone calls factored in. Still better than flipping burgers!

I hate doing the reports for Ellis. Every Time I am writing up the narratives, I silently curse myself. It takes me a little under two hours if I do one start to finish. I've been working on this since 4pm off and on. I'm exhausted.