Just a heads up ... these are with a NEW MS company now!! Remember the OLD MSC?? The Independent Company with lots of accent-speaking phone callers and good old Samantha?? Well, today I got an email from the NEW company about these and checked it out. Exact same compliance audit and the fee is $1.00 MORE than the old MSC!! (Old MSC $14/ New MSC $15, at least in my area). These are easy and quick, even though both companies state to allow 2 hours....they don't take anywhere near that long. I picked up 4 of them. The only difference I could tell is that instead of calling 48 hours ahead of time, they want you to call 7 days ahead of time, along with calling the day of as a reminder that you're coming in. The new MSC is a Sassie company...that's all the hints you get from me!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2021 03:20PM by guysmom.

I have seen them on the job board with the new company. The problem is, it's very difficult for me to plan so far ahead. I never really know where I'm going to be 7 days ahead of time. That's going to make it very difficult for me to work very many of these into my routes.

Yes, I can certainly see how the 7 day window could be an issue for certain types of shoppers. That's a bummer. Maybe you could reach out to the person at that MSC. If you email him/her and explain your situation, he/she may allow you to modify the 7 day window. Anyhow, it's worth a shot.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2021 03:25PM by guysmom.

I just grabbed one of these shops. I love them! They are pretty easy and I like asking the associate the questions. lol

The gentleman scheduling these has been very friendly with me. I am imagine that if there are any left towards a deadline, he could probably work something out with me.

Well, that would be great, thunder!!! Hope something works out for you in that regard!

The blue stores have a similar requirement, calling within 24 hours to announce the week out, again the day of or similar. I do not think this is as much about the MSC switch as it is the parent dictating terms of reviews with revisions as they have done over time. I think when I first did these blue ones as I got started, there was some appointment setting involved that evolved and relaxed over time.
I hope I figure out who it is....loved these and the pre-Covid routing. Worked with my time constraints. Lots of shifting around as things are gradually easing out of the pandemic shock.

I have a bunch scheduled for later this week. I'm just hoping that the second vaccine shot does not cause me any problem after Wednesday.

About how long does the visit take on site?

The pay has been increased.

Yes! They are bonusing the ones that haven't been picked up yet. Too bad, they are too far from me to consider them. Good for somebody else, though!

I have not seen them with the old MSC and I have not seen them with the new MSC. I guess I am not sign up with the right Sassie company or they are not shopped in my area

@sestrahelena wrote:

About how long does the visit take on site?

Generally you are in and out in 20 min or less. Yesterday, I did 3. In two of them, I was in and out in less than 20 minutes. In one of them, a customer came in halfway through the questions, so naturally, customers come first. It was about a 25 minute delay. So that one was about 45 minutes total time in-store. The report is easy-peasy. Got 10's on the three I did yesterday. I took enough pics of the iPod stuff to fill up all 5 photo slots.

ETA: With both my pre-calls and in-store visits, I try my best to put the associates at ease about answering the questions. I encourage them, as written in the guidelines, to use any resources they can and tell them that the whole point is to help them realize that the answers to questions that may come up with customers is easily found. When this was with the other MSC, sometimes on my pre-calls the associates would be very nervous about thinking they had to know all the "right" answers! When I told them that it was basically "open book", they relaxed. Some of these are the same associates this year, so they were not at all nervous. They basically just held the information in their hands and read off the answers to me, which is fine. The Client just wants them to know where the information is, and that is what I stress to them. No problems or issues at all with this approach, with either MSC.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2021 03:59PM by guysmom.

Thanks!

I did a total of ten of them last week and the good thing about the new MSC is that they have the questions on the webform so Just ask the questions and they gave me the answers checked them off then took the pictures and then saved them and if it came back as no opps I selected edit shop then scrolled down and submitted them. I usually got and approved by the time I had finished the next shop. Oh, and did I mention that I was able to grab ten shops instead of one or two shops with the other MSC.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/2021 02:47AM by 2stepps.

@sestrahelena wrote:

About how long does the visit take on site?

30 minutes if you arrive at the right time

You guys always inspire me to try new things! Thank you. I enjoyed these, got lucky with minimal wait times, and picked up a few more! The best part was that there was no way for an employee to fail so no one had to get a bad report or be angry with the mystery shopper. I felt more like a coach and was able to give positive reinforcement. I'll be looking for these next year!