I was catching up and saw in the middle of the thread about qualities of MSing was a lot of discussion about timing issues. Instead or changing the flow of that thread back to timing, I decided to start it anew.

I had a first shop for a new MSP last night. Okay, being a "seasoned" shopper, no big deal. But BOY was I able to screw it up. The instructions said to start the shop before hour before closing. Okay, I check the Internet, I call and hear there recorded message, both state that the hours are from ??? to 8:00 PM. Great that works for me. I get to the location at 6:52 (8 minutes ahead of hour before closing, right?) I notice a sign on the door and read it as I enter. Upps 3/4 of the way in before it registers it say something to the effect of closing at 7:00 PM. So I'm in the store, I should count my losses and turn around and leave, right? So? do I? No they ask what I want and I start into my spiel about "my scenarioo" Well, they want to go home so they only half@$$ (or less) do their job and I leave.

This is the MSP that only gives you shop and you have to CALL in the results. The shop was Friday night, they are not open on the weekend. I have screwed up too much to offer to re-shop the location. I will DEFINATELY be recognized. So here I am Saturday afternoon, beating myself up for not doing something right. The problem is, I'm not sure WHAT it is that I did not do right. Unless it was to say, "Oh I see you are closing soon, I'll come back"

Any comment?

Ouch on it being a first shop. There is no way the shop done could be considered a fair evaluation of them or of you. You did what you were supposed to do by calling ahead for hours and of course the bonus is that you checked the internet as well. So you really did what YOU needed to do. That the store hours are not as advertised on the internet and by phone is not your fault.

Noticing that the hours on the door were different and continuing is a problem and would indeed exclude you from a reshop UNLESS there is a different crew there on Sunday afternoon for instance. Is it a large enough store that that might happen? Is it close enough to drop by and stick your head in to see?

Assuming it is the same folks there will be nothing to do with it but call and have them assign it to someone else after explaining what steps you took to do it right to start with and then to see if a second chance was possible.

And take heart, I did two shops today that there are issues with. One has no time requirement and because the place was empty I sailed in, got done what I needed to do and sailed out. Total time 11 minutes. They are questioning because it "needs" to take at least 15 minutes. Duh, when I am the only customer and there are 4 associates jumping to take care of me they can get it done fast. The second shop I did not realize until I returned home and uploaded the report that a page didn't print out so I didn't get a required signature. I was just too tired to note it and am too tired now to really care much.

Barbage--It depends on the scheduler. I went to a bank Thursday that had changed its closing hour, and I missed it. I explained to the scheduler that in this case it WAS my fault, because I hadn't called. She let me do it the next day, with just a warning. But I have history of many shops with her. It will really depend on how liberal your scheduler is.

I do work for the MSP you're speaking of Barbage, (can I leave off the -age next time ?). I've HAD to do many unorthodox things with their reports, b/c of the huge time difference between us.
I've faxed them my reports and comments (typed on Word) b/c by the time I was ready to call them in, they were closed and it was Friday. I emailed one of my reports to my scheduler once, b/c I wasn't sure how to answer one of the questions and the person taking my report call said she couldn't help me with that. She told me to call my scheduler, who, of course, wasn't there. I left a message, emailed her the report with 2 answers for the question I was unsure of and told her to use whichever answer she thought was best,
I also had to cancel a shop with them, because they never sent me 1 single drop of info, in spite of my phone calls for 3 days in a row. At 6 AM on the day I was supposed to do the job I got the email w/the info in it and the hours to do the shop were 6-9 AM! I called and left a message that I couldn't work that way. I said I needed to study the instructions, so I felt confident that I could do a good job for them and I had other jobs scheduled between 6-12 AM. That left me no time to even look at the guidelines, much less study them.
After all this jabbering, my point is that they have never been angry or upset with me. All of the people that I've come in contact with (7) have been so nice and very understanding. They've accepted the situation with grace and there's never been a problem. And, BTW they pay on time, too. I think you'll really like this company!

Thanks everyone for your comments. I did a ff shop for them last night(Sunday) and that one went very well, so maybe when I call today I won't appear as a complete idiot.

And yes, you can leave off the age.

Barb

Just wanted to let you know that when I called with my sob story, the scheduler was super nice. She said that since I did what I was supposed to do to verify the hours that my report would count, so I had to call back later with my report. But again, she was super nice.

The MSP starts with a D, right?

Glad that it worked out Barb. There is only so much we can do and when we can do all we can it is nice to have an understanding ear rather than an abrasive shrew on the other end of the phone line,

Yes Sneakers, a D.