Hi Coyote,
You ask an excellent question. It is one I have asked for myself over the years. I've been a shopper for over 12 years and still get overlooked for shops by some MSPs. Schedulers are people. People like to work with other people they have established relationships with. Several shoppers have offered excellent suggestions:
1) Reach out to the scheduler personally and kindly.
2) Offer to help with some shops they may be having difficulty assigning. (Even if you are unaware of any open shops, making the statement will make you memorable.)
3) Do as many shops for them as you are able. Call the scheduler with a question, as a way of making an introduction.
When you send an email to anyone in the company (especially the scheduler) triple check your email for grammar, punctuation, etc. This is an interview and they will make the easy assumption that if you cannot write an email with care, you will probably not be good at report writing either.
And from the FAQs from the CI website, which incidentally has some other great articles designed to make us all better shoppers: (Note positive shopping experience for CI is a big deal)
Question: How does CI determine which shoppers to schedule?
Factors include:
Must meet the profile of the client
Ability to complete reports as instructed
Ability to produce a concise, complete report
Ability to complete reports on time
Ability to be objective
Location
MSPA certification
Prior experience with our company
About your Shopper Profile: You are much less likely to be chosen for an assignment if your profile contains ALL CAPS or all lowercase letters, Please use proper capitalization.
About Required Questions: Some shop applications may require you to answer a mandatory question. When answering this question, it would benefit you to use proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.
Those who follow the guidelines and make our job easier will receive the majority of assignments. Shoppers who submit their reports at the last minute, or late, will not be likely to be rescheduled. If we have to make long distance calls every month to clarify your reports, that indicates that the shops are not being performed effectively. This affects our ability to serve our clients efficiently.
I do almost exclusively restaurant shops now. I am friendly with the schedulers and never refuse an assignment when they call me and ask. Just like I work to make them happy, they also want me to be happy, because I submit my reports early that require little to no editing.
Good luck to you. It will open up. Sooner if they get caught in a bind. This happens when they have a shopper cancel on them before their deadline. You can be their white knight.