Flaking percentages

In have commented on this subject before, but I do not recall the year.

This week, I spoke with one of the few schedulers I knew would be accurate on the subject of flaking. According to her, she runs approx. 40% true flakes; that, of course, excludes shoppers who reschedule. This brings the average, from four schedulers, to 42.5%. Each work/worked for a different MSC, all of whom paid, what I consider, acceptable fees. As I do not have any relationships were any bottom payers, I have no way to ascertain their percentages. Does anyone reading this post have such information?

As an added comment on the above, the top rate of 50% was experienced by a national company that created a division for shopping and shutdown after five years. The executive in charge shared with me the prime reason was flaking. To illustrate their pay, I completed dozens of eateries paying $15 + a $65 reimbursement, no required guest and a week to complete. Initially, they did not even require a POV, but that changed in the second year.

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That seems extremely high to me. I have scheduled in the past, for two different companies, and each time the flake rate was much less than 10%. It is my understanding that the flake rate is significantly higher for self assigned shops than for shops that are assigned by a scheduler who can take a look at the prospective shopper's profile and history before assigning a shop, but even then, the rate is nowhere near 40-50%. I have always been amazed that some ms companies don't require anything more than having a shopper fill out their name and address before being able to self assign shops. Those companies must suffer a lot of flaking!

My flake rate was less than 10% when I scheduled, but every job that I scheduled was manually assigned.
The bigger companies that allow self-assigning and have more fraudulent accounts actually do have a flake rate around 40-50% for new shoppers.

The number sounds extraordinarily high to me as well, though I have no basis beyond gut reaction on which to base my opinion. My gut reaction is that flakes are most frequently from new shoppers who perhaps feel this is all a scam because they haven't been paid yet for a job they did two weeks ago or who had a shop rejected and decided to throw in the towel or who perhaps accepted a job not knowing what all was involved and decided to back out but didn't know or care about the etiquette of cancelling a shop.

My gut reaction is that it is 99% about communication between shoppers and MSCs and in my 12 years with this forum, that has been an ongoing shopper complaint. "HELP!! I have been emailing my scheduler about the shop I have to do today for three days with no response. Does anyone know whether they want ________ or __________?" "Does anyone know when XYZ MSC pays?" "My shop was rejected for no photos and yet I saw them attach to the report, but neither the scheduler nor editor is responding to emails!!!" "Does anyone have a phone number for XYZ MSP?"

It depends on the type of shop, and even the area they are in. I just took over some bank shops where it is definitely close to 50% of the shoppers flaking. My burger shops, it's much lower. I have some small accounts where it is near 0%.

Hi Pete! Good to see you in the forum! I will be sending you an email about those banking shops. Not sure if they are in my area; but it will be good to touch base again. Hope all is going great with you

Thanks to all who mentioned the deference between self and scheduler assignment. I have occasionally seen Sassie job offers where a.shopper score of 8 or above permits self assignment, but all others need apply. I would think that would alleviate the problem. Am I correct?

@shopperbob wrote:

Thanks to all who mentioned the deference between self and scheduler assignment. I have occasionally seen Sassie job offers where a.shopper score of 8 or above permits self assignment, but all others need apply. I would think that would alleviate the problem. Am I correct?

Possibly. The issue would be if the shopper had only done one or two shops that were easy and convenient. Even one shop with a score o 10 would allow self scheduling. I would guess the MSC might want to require at least 10 shops with an average of 8 or higher before allowing self-assigning. And at first, only allow the shopper to self assign a few shops, then when they show they are dependable, allow that number to self-assign to go up.

Would be nice to be able to self-assign shops when you have a score of 10 over, say, 100 shops. Or even 50. That, instead of having to wait for a scheduler who seems to take forever which makes it nearly impossible to schedule a route.

"Let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then tell me how much of what I earn belongs to you - and why?” ~Walter Williams

@FrostyBubbles wrote:

Hi Pete! Good to see you in the forum! I will be sending you an email about those banking shops. Not sure if they are in my area; but it will be good to touch base again. Hope all is going great with you

That will be great if they are in your area! It will be fantastic to have another shopper I can trust for these ones. All is going just great with me, and hope it is for you as well!

You texted me last week about these... I simply have not responded (sorry). I haven't been shopping much the last several months...

@KSSPete wrote:

@FrostyBubbles wrote:

Hi Pete! Good to see you in the forum! I will be sending you an email about those banking shops. Not sure if they are in my area; but it will be good to touch base again. Hope all is going great with you

That will be great if they are in your area! It will be fantastic to have another shopper I can trust for these ones. All is going just great with me, and hope it is for you as well!

Hard work builds character and homework is good for your soul.

It's always good to remember the MSC's perspective.

A flake can certainly be the bane of their existence! My parents ran a small business for 18 years successfully (sold to someone else, who maintained it for almost a decade more) and unreliable workers were certainly a big headache.

................I do wonder, though, how often MSCs cannot keep in business, due to not attracting workers for pay reasons. As in: they low-ball so much that no one wants to do shops and it gets close to deadline time and they might miss?

@MFJohnston wrote:

You texted me last week about these... I simply have not responded (sorry). I haven't been shopping much the last several months...

@KSSPete wrote:

@FrostyBubbles wrote:

Hi Pete! Good to see you in the forum! I will be sending you an email about those banking shops. Not sure if they are in my area; but it will be good to touch base again. Hope all is going great with you

That will be great if they are in your area! It will be fantastic to have another shopper I can trust for these ones. All is going just great with me, and hope it is for you as well!

No worries at all! If any do fit in your schedule in the future, I'll be more than happy to get them assigned. Thank you!

@shoptastic wrote:

................I do wonder, though, how often MSCs cannot keep in business, due to not attracting workers for pay reasons. As in: they low-ball so much that no one wants to do shops and it gets close to deadline time and they might miss?

Does canceling after reading guidelines that are nowhere near the fun&easy shop promised count as a flake? If so, I can see why some shops have such a high "flake" rate. I'm betting well compensated jobs with clear instructions and responsive schedulers have very low rates.

@iShop123 wrote:

@shoptastic wrote:

................I do wonder, though, how often MSCs cannot keep in business, due to not attracting workers for pay reasons. As in: they low-ball so much that no one wants to do shops and it gets close to deadline time and they might miss?
Does canceling after reading guidelines that are nowhere near the fun&easy shop promised count as a flake? If so, I can see why some shops have such a high "flake" rate. I'm betting well compensated jobs with clear instructions and responsive schedulers have very low rates.

I count those as cancellations (which hits the rating differently than a flake), but only if it is cancelled on the day the shop is due (or after). Flakes, to me, are just the shoppers that take a shop and then go AWOL to all forms of contact.

KSSPete shares--Flakes, to me, are just the shoppers that take a shop and then go AWOL to all forms of contact.

Bob agrees--That is the definition I used when querying each of the schedulers who shared the numbers.

I have never flaked, rescheduled only, usually based on bad weather, 13 plus years.

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