Getting a clear answer from schedulers

Does anyone else ever send an email asking for clarification of the guidelines and then have trouble getting a yes or no response? Every so often, I send an email to ask about the guidelines of a Shop so that I don’t mess up and not get paid. When I send my email I always try to ask clear yes or no questions but when I get a response, a lot of the time I just get a copy and paste statement straight from the guidelines I was asking about. It’s frustrating because I am clearly unsure about the phrasing in the guidelines. Not to mention, I’m asking so that they don’t have to find another shopper if I mess up. Does anyone else have experience with not getting a yes or no response that actually answers your question?

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

More About Schedulers

Absolutely have that kind of response. MF does that to me quite a bit. Many of their answers to my questions don't make any sense at all.

Unfortunately some schedulers are not told enough about their shops to be able to answer questions. Depends on the MSC, the client and how clear/unclear the guidelines are. This is one way to discover which MSCs we are willing to work with.

Based in MD, near DC
Shopping from the Carolinas to New York
Have video cam; will travel

Poor customer service? Don't get mad; get video.

As Walesmaven stated, how MSC's respond to your questions is one way to decide whether you want to work with them or not. Just because a MSC isn't that responsive doesn't mean not to work with them. The only way to find out is to do shops with them and see how they are overall. It could be that the MSC support is lousy but as long as you don't have problems with their shops, you keep doing their shops. Just be prepared that there could be a problem here and there and you may not get paid one or two times.

In the past month, I was interested in particular shops offered by both Strategic Reflections and Customer Service Experts. I wrote to both schedulers and asked if it were possible to see the guidelines. Both schedulers responded within just a couple of hours with attachments for the guidelines. This helped me make a decision, and I applied for and was accepted for each job with each MSC. There was also another MSC scheduler who I wrote to about guidelines for a WU shop in a grocery store. Again, I was given the guidelines, and was able to decide that this was not a good fit for me, so I appreciate the scheduler sending me the guidelines. So I have had good experiences in requesting guidelines from schedulers.

Some companies don't provide me the information. They just repeat what the shop description is. But some companies do answer my questions promptly and with a specific answer.

Just as some MSCs are too cheap to engage good shoppers, some are too cheap to engage good schedulers.

I had to get "rough" with one, saying, Look, these guidelines are ambiguous, and I'm laying out a lot of money for this shop, so I need a clear answer or I'll have to cancel.

@ShopWhisperer wrote:

I had to get "rough" with one, saying, Look, these guidelines are ambiguous, and I'm laying out a lot of money for this shop, so I need a clear answer or I'll have to cancel.

I haven't taken any shops recently where I've had to lay out "a lot of money". The closest I've come to that was a pub shop where I was supposedly supposed to order an appetizer and two entrees or something like that, and we wound up ordering like three share plates. The MSC and client apparently didn't care too much about that and I still got paid.

Question? I am new and attempting to fill out question asked. WHAT IS FEATURE A????? Cannot answer with out knowing meaning. Please reply to shirleecole@sbcglobal.net what is point of scheduler if cannot contact?????

I don't understand your question, I'm sorry. You should not be putting your email address in the forum. We will answer your question here in the forum.

Feature A, the only one I know of, is in the guidelines. Usually a specific feature of the smart phone that you need to listen for and if they don't mention it you need to ask it.

Yup, gotta be the same guidelines as I saw, spicy. Plain and clearly stated in the guidelines. Schedulers have better things to do than answer questions that are clearly written in the first couple of pages of the guidelines attached to your shop unless they are NOT clear...but that one certainly is.

And yup, scole1, shopper8 is right. Not a good idea to have your email address out there for everyone and their very odd uncle to see. Asking for trouble. You do realize that this is a public forum for shoppers who work with multiple MSCs, right? Whenever you have a question about a company's guidelines it would be helpful if you would refer to the particular company (but not the client in the same post or thread).

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

Getting a clear answer from schedulers

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine