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Outback shops and the 250 Character limit with the new MSC

May 07, 2024 12:30AM
I've done 2 of the Outback shops since they moved to the new MSC and I've struggled with staying under the 250 character limit on the narrative, especially in the "Dining experience" and the "Dinner (Entree) comments: (including: portion, taste, value for the money" sections. Part of the problem has been that the service there has just been terrible, but even if it was great and i wanted to give the server a glowing report, there's not enough room. How have you all been handling this? Do you assume Outback really doesn't want much feed back due to the limit? Do you write in sentence fragments to eliminate unnecessary words? Or do you just write a few sentences and not worry about it?
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May 07, 2024 01:13AM
The way I see it, if Outback were interested in quality feedback, they would have stayed/gone with a quality MSC. If you want the McDonald's of the mystery shopping world, you're going to get a report that sounds like Ronald McDonald wrote it. Two hundred fifty characters is only enough for a higher-level report; details have to go by the wayside. I write in complete sentences, and what they get is what they get.

If your path dictates you walk through hell, do it as though you own the place. -unknown
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May 07, 2024 02:00AM
I just wrote some sentences I thought would be most important to write.
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May 07, 2024 06:41AM
Yep.
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May 14, 2024 07:38PM
I did one of these and had to modify the amoubt of detail I usually provide yo other MSCs. I was shocked and pleased with the low character count.
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May 14, 2024 07:57PM
I say yay to short character limits, until something happens where I have to explain to get it approved, and there is no other place to put it. But if they want only 250 characters, that tells me they are not interested in details, so they get full sentence overviews.
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June 02, 2024 12:35AM
I like the new format; it's more concise and relevant.

Not my circus - Not my monkeys @(*.*)@

~Polish Proverb~
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June 02, 2024 01:06AM
@DRJ wrote:

Do you assume Outback really doesn't want much feed back due to the limit? Do you write in sentence fragments to eliminate unnecessary words? Or do you just write a few sentences and not worry about it?

Yes. No! Yes and no. (I write just a few sentences but that will probably make me want to pull my hair out.)
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June 07, 2024 03:36AM
I definitely struggled with the 250 character count, especially in the dining experience section. It was limiting. I am used to other companies who require 8-10 sentences or extensive narrative...
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June 13, 2024 02:44AM
Only put in what was not covered in the bullets above.
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July 05, 2024 08:41AM
What really bothers me is when they have a 250 character limit but don’t specify it until after you’ve saved or submitted. I write a normal multi-sentence narrative and it flags it as 2000 characters over the limit (or whatever). I don’t mind size limits but tell me beforehand.
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July 07, 2024 11:26PM
@DRJ wrote:

I've done 2 of the Outback shops since they moved to the new MSC and I've struggled with staying under the 250 character limit on the narrative, especially in the "Dining experience" and the "Dinner (Entree) comments: (including: portion, taste, value for the money" sections. Part of the problem has been that the service there has just been terrible, but even if it was great and i wanted to give the server a glowing report, there's not enough room. How have you all been handling this? Do you assume Outback really doesn't want much feed back due to the limit? Do you write in sentence fragments to eliminate unnecessary words? Or do you just write a few sentences and not worry about it?

YES! it took 45 minutes for my report because it was difficult to keep each section under 250 characters, especially since my visit had many negatives.
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July 08, 2024 04:00AM
@Phoebe70 wrote:

@DRJ wrote:

I've done 2 of the Outback shops since they moved to the new MSC and I've struggled with staying under the 250 character limit on the narrative, especially in the "Dining experience" and the "Dinner (Entree) comments: (including: portion, taste, value for the money" sections. Part of the problem has been that the service there has just been terrible, but even if it was great and i wanted to give the server a glowing report, there's not enough room. How have you all been handling this? Do you assume Outback really doesn't want much feed back due to the limit? Do you write in sentence fragments to eliminate unnecessary words? Or do you just write a few sentences and not worry about it?

YES! it took 45 minutes for my report because it was difficult to keep each section under 250 characters, especially since my visit had many negatives.

That's been my issue with them. The service at the ones near me have been less than stellar. They'd need to make great strides to get to mediocre. There are only so many negatives you can fit into 250 characters.
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