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Shopper confession

August 26, 2021 01:21PM
Hi, my name is mystery shopper and I hate writing narratives.
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August 26, 2021 01:27PM
I like narratives. The words come easy to me. Always have. What I don't like is revealed shops. Have run into several issues with those. I won't accept revealed shops anymore.
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August 26, 2021 01:50PM
I like narratives, but I sometimes wish I didn't have to answer in a narrative the same questions I just answered via a bunch of checkboxes. (This message brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.)
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August 26, 2021 01:51PM
@Maryanne J wrote:

I like narratives. The words come easy to me. Always have. What I don't like is revealed shops. Have run into several issues with those. I won't accept revealed shops anymore.

I won't do fast food reveal shops anymore. I only did about three, and none of them passed. One time the manager looked like she was going to cry, and another time the manager looked terrified of me.
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August 26, 2021 02:12PM
I don't mind narratives, its the short dialog boxes that don't allow you to tell the whole story that I do not like. Sometimes, depending on what has occurred I can waste a lot of time trying to give as much info as I can in very little words/characters. I also have decided if I have to do more than two narrative heavy reports in a day, I will need a few days off before I can enjoy, or at least not hate, doing reports once again. Lol.

Lady Marius
Canadian Mystery Shopper


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2021 02:13PM by Lady Marius.
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August 26, 2021 03:17PM
I like narratives. One problem I have is spending way too much time on them sometimes. Spending so much time to paint a vivid and highly detailed picture of what happened during a shop makes a shop much less profitable. Sometimes, I end up earning less than minimum wage for a shop due to the amount of time I spend writing narratives, and I am able to do fewer shops afterward because I am tired.

On the plus side, I have gotten surprise bonuses after the fact due to the quality of my reports, and it is easy to get shops I want.
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August 26, 2021 03:34PM
August 26, 2021 03:34PM
EXACTLY!! I think that’s why the narratives are such a dread. The questions ask for “sentence” replies, then the narrative ask you to summarize the entire shop. I’m like “hello!!” If you read all the answers in order, BAM there’s your narrative.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2021 03:35PM by Logansmom04.
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August 26, 2021 03:46PM
For me, considerable narrative means money. This due to some shoppers avoiding assignments of which they are aware of the requirements. What I do very much dislike is repetition. Many years ago, I has a double shop of the client and a competitor. After I submitted the second report, a third, of which there had never been any notice, appeared. It contained two questions: Which store rated the highest and why. I answered the second PRICE. A pop-up informed me the requirement was a minimum of 800 characters. It took me in excess of an hour to spin six into 800. For the next round, I informed the scheduler I needed twice the fee; she declined and we were finished.
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August 26, 2021 11:49PM
Too funny! Love it!

@Logansmom04 wrote:

Hi, my name is mystery shopper and I hate writing narratives.

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.
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August 27, 2021 01:49AM
I like narratives IF the pay is commensurate with the work involved! I just did a bank inquiry shop that was bonused--and there's no way in hell I'd ever do another one for this MSC. Tons of narrative, much of it just repeating what you already covered in the checkboxes with minimal narrative. One of those "touch on every point above" reports--with several sections.

And then there are the $25 bank shops I do that require short-form narratives for just a few questions and one longer one at the end. In total, those shops take me 45 minutes to one hour for everything. Sure, I'll write narratives for that.

(I'm a copywriter by trade, so narratives come pretty easily for me--but I'm not going to write narrative for $10/hour! LOL.)

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.
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August 27, 2021 03:22AM
I have a new thing about narratives. The other day, when I was writing narrative on my phone, some oddball thing popped up in the narrative box. Among the programming gibberish and string of characters was a reference to ebay. I am not doing ebay. How the #$#$%^%^ could that insert itself into my phone and, more specifically, into a shop report? Why did this happen? It terrified me, actually. It also made me wonder if the universe is telling me 'enough with the blah-blah, already!' But it scared me more. I felt as if the phone were hacked or some strange thing. Ew!

Mind you, this shop had to be submitted right away because the client wanted the report immediately. I could not set it aside for future reference. If that were the case, I would not have been writing a narrative on my phone at all. I would have stopped with Geoverify, dates, times, and radio buttons and left the narrative for the computer at home.

My garden in England is full of eating-out places, for heat waves, warm September evenings, or lunch on a chilly Christmas morning. (Mary Quant)


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2021 02:26AM by Shop-et-al.
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August 27, 2021 03:27AM
I don't write I dictate, plus copy and paste. Just reiterate the question as a statement. Was the parking lot clean. . . The parking was clean and free of debris.

A Dad shopping the Ark-LA-Tex and beyond.


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2021 03:33AM by ShoppingDad.
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August 27, 2021 05:42PM
Writing narratives has trained me to write succinctly and accurately, with good story flow and chronology--one time and fast. It helps my regular writing of research reports. After a first draft, the report is ready for editing.

In the past I would struggle to get things perfect, redoing reports over and over, 5 or 6 drafts. Writing MS narratives, where I had one chance to get it right, cured me of that perfectionist habit.
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August 27, 2021 09:01PM
I confess that I like phone shops where I reveal myself as a shopper. I guess I do get some amount of pleasure when the person on the other end gets a shock. One time, I had a guy asking me how he did. I had to say that I wasn't supposed to tell him that but it just makes me smile every time.
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August 27, 2021 09:09PM
I'm a mystery shopper and hate having to answer no when the form asks if the cashier smiled. Many groups of people do not smile routinely. They are still courteous and make eye contact, etc. It feels exclusionary to say somebody didn't smile when it is a cultural thing that they don't usually smile.
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August 29, 2021 01:58AM
@Candy Kane wrote:

I'm a mystery shopper and hate having to answer no when the form asks if the cashier smiled. Many groups of people do not smile routinely. They are still courteous and make eye contact, etc. It feels exclusionary to say somebody didn't smile when it is a cultural thing that they don't usually smile.

I agree. I often give them credit based on their overall demeanor, including body language, tone of voice and what they say. But sometimes people just don't give that friendly vibe.
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August 30, 2021 12:37PM
That is exactly what I do. I talk on my phone to Google docs and paste it in. I don't dislike narratives anymore.
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August 31, 2021 01:12AM
@jdoj wrote:

That is exactly what I do. I talk on my phone to Google docs and paste it in. I don't dislike narratives anymore.

Don't you find, though, that your voice-to-text function makes a lot of mistakes? It's/its, to/too, their/they're/there, your/you're, plural vs. possessive forms, etc.? I worry I'd miss some things, even with a careful proofread. I don't trust that function, nor do I trust myself to catch its mistakes. LOL. For me, it's less stressful to write "from scratch."

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.
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August 31, 2021 03:15AM
@BirdyC wrote:

I like narratives IF the pay is commensurate with the work involved! I just did a bank inquiry shop that was bonused--and there's no way in hell I'd ever do another one for this MSC. Tons of narrative, much of it just repeating what you already covered in the checkboxes with minimal narrative. One of those "touch on every point above" reports--with several sections.

And then there are the $25 bank shops I do that require short-form narratives for just a few questions and one longer one at the end. In total, those shops take me 45 minutes to one hour for everything. Sure, I'll write narratives for that.

(I'm a copywriter by trade, so narratives come pretty easily for me--but I'm not going to write narrative for $10/hour! LOL.)

Sinclair?
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August 31, 2021 06:23AM
I prefer shops with real narratives, particularly from those few MSCs/Clients which specifically ask for subjective comments and recommendations. Sure, I'll do objective reports (Market Force, IPSOS, & etc) for quick money but they bore me.
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August 31, 2021 06:36PM
Hahaha..such different perspectives..I like quick cash and detest narratives, although I'll do them for the right price, but it better be good and worth my while, ie fine steak dinner

*****************************************************************************
The more I learn about people...the more I like my dog..

Mark Twain
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