Hey all have just joined and having shopped for over 15 years and now close to retirement I’m wanting to get into editing, I’ve heard good and bad about it but does anyone know who is looking for QC and whether it can be done full time. I see a lot of posts about delays in reports submitting and frustrations but would welcome people’s views
Thanks for your help
Brad

WordSmith Pros

Welcome! And, what yogajunkie said.

Bare contacted me about an editing job a while back. You may check with them, too.

Unless you are unable to work outside the home or just like working for peanuts, I don’t recommend it. There’s a reason that a good portion of this is outsourced to people outside the US. 15-25 years ago, editing paid “well”. By that I mean you could make $25/hour if you had good shoppers and worked quickly. That ship has sailed.

A google search shows CXE Inc. hires editors / reviewers. Does anyone have any feedback or insight on this company?

I am an editor, and I enjoy it. I have been with the same company for a few years now. The pay isn't the *best* but it is good enough. I enjoy the fact that I can pick up my computer and start working whenever I want. I don't have to take photos, get receipts, or put miles on my car to go get $10 worth of food. At the same time someone does all that, I have made more than $10. It is what you make of it. I hate it when shoppers don't take pride in their work, and I must correct half the report. Resturant reports are mainly what I edit.

@krn2009 wrote:

I am an editor, and I enjoy it. I have been with the same company for a few years now. The pay isn't the *best* but it is good enough. I enjoy the fact that I can pick up my computer and start working whenever I want. I don't have to take photos, get receipts, or put miles on my car to go get $10 worth of food. At the same time someone does all that, I have made more than $10. It is what you make of it. I hate it when shoppers don't take pride in their work, and I must correct half the report. Resturant reports are mainly what I edit.

I've tried editing for several companies and have found out that it's more profitable to shop then it is for me to edit most reports. When folks don't follow directions, write coherently or well, or leave parts out, it takes more time to redo it than it does to do the shop itself.

I was doing long event shops and restaurant shops and the thing is you can spend a ton of time fixing a shop and if it doesn't get used, the editor gets nothing. We try our best to make sure we can submit a shop to a client but it doesn't always work out.

It takes me longer to fix someone's report than it does for me to go out,shop, and write one.

But it definitely varies on what type of reports you're editing. I could do a phone shop in 5 minutes but it would take upwards of 20 to 30 to do a restaurant shop or an hour or more for a hotel or event.

I tried editing some years back - and found out I was terrible at it. I do not know why - my ms reports are almost always 10s with perfect editing on the ms side. But, for some reason I just could not "get" editing others reports or having a full understanding of what the companies wanted the content to be.

I was interested in this in the past, but don't have the desire to do it anymore. One MSC in particular with a heavy focus on narratives and detailed accounts on experiences had some really good editors. I remember one in particular took the time to contact me. She would provide detailed and extensive feedback along with suggestions to enhance future reports. Also, another editor would acknowledge if I made improvements in certain areas and addressed previous concerns. At the time, I did not know that these type of interactions were rare. This definitely helped me a lot with shops at other MSC like Coyle.

@krn2009 If you don’t me asking who do you work for as that sounds perfect and thank you for your initial feedback

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2024 03:41PM by Braddersuk.

The editor I work with on CXE jobs is with Wordsmithpros

Thanks

Okie, I would love to speak on the M video game assignments as for me it is a NEVER AGAIN! My daughter did these all the time and they never sold her a game. She has aged out so a month ago, I thought I would try my son. They sold him the M game (which I promptly returned) but he was so nervous that he cried over the thought that his action may have cost the "nice guy" his job. It wasn't worth the fee...

lauren75, Thanks for sharing your experience! Whenever I see these shops get posted in my area, they are slow to get picked up, and I'm not sure if they all ever get filled. Sorry to hear about the negative experience your son had!

@lauren75 wrote:

They sold him the M game (which I promptly returned) but he was so nervous that he cried over the thought that his action may have cost the "nice guy" his job. It wasn't worth the fee...

I don't do these types of jobs for exactly that reason. I'm not trying to get anyone to lose their job, EVER. And I won't try to trick anyone into doing something that will get them in trouble, either with their job or legal trouble.

It all depends on the company you work for. The delays are mainly due to IPSOS being cheap and taking stuff in-house to snotty, unprofessional editors (my own opinion). Editing is like mystery shopping; you get paid by the edit, not the hour. You can do it full-time if you want; I have done it for over five years. My projects are beginning to go in-house and be offshored to a group in India. Less quality, better quantity. The edits range from .70 to 10.00 or more, depending on the project. I easily do $200 to $300 a day, but I work as a contractor for three or four different companies. Plus, I still mystery shop, gotta pay those bills or risk becoming a W2 again.

Thanks have heard some bad reports of their QC Managers and the way they speak with people and the pay is peanuts but thanks for the heads up x

Dino totally get that and that’s where I wanna get to so I am not totally reliant should one company go in house so any advice or pointers would be gratefully taken as Words Pro I’ve just heard some bad stuff recently about loss of work etc etc

@lauren75 wrote:

Okie, I would love to speak on the M video game assignments as for me it is a NEVER AGAIN! My daughter did these all the time and they never sold her a game. She has aged out so a month ago, I thought I would try my son. They sold him the M game (which I promptly returned) but he was so nervous that he cried over the thought that his action may have cost the "nice guy" his job. It wasn't worth the fee...

Exactly what wasn't "worth" the fee? Your son's tears? The person losing their job? Was there a fee where you would have been like, "To heck with it is son, we're turning in this report and if he loses his job, he loses his job?"
So, it sounds like you dropped the shop, though the employee did something they were not supposed to do?

Sounds to me like you missed out on an opportunity on teaching your son how to make hard decision.
Sometimes we have to do that in life, even when it means someone will get into trouble. I don't know that the person would have lost their job, but certainly some corrective action needed to take place. It may have prevented them from selling alcohol to a minor on their next job.

There is nothing wrong will feeling bad that someone may get into trouble. It shows they're human. It is touching. Your son sounds very tender-hearted. I think that's great. I always believe there is room for grace, too. But I still believe this would have been a great teachable lesson on making hard decisions and knowing that if you had turned in that report and the person lost their job (not that you would necessarily know), it was not your fault or that of your son.

@Morledzep To clarify, you are okay if people get into trouble, as long as you have not tricked them? Do you not view mystery shopping in general as a trick? When I go to "buy a mattress" for the 100th time, I'm not on the up and up. I know I'm not buying a mattress. I'm there to trick the salesman/woman into thinking I am a legit buyer. Same with buying a car or going through the check-out line in the c-store.

Service, I don't do mattress shops, or any other shop that requires me to test an employee with their job on the line. I do QSR shops now and then, mostly for the food. But the only way the cashier gets a ding from me is if they are downright hateful and seem to not want their job. Mostly I do very little mystery shopping. And what I do doesn't generally endanger anyone's livelihood, unless they are exceptionally bad at it, and even then I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, we all have bad days. I like doing audits, I don't have to purchase anything, or very little, and no one is going to lose their job if they don't do their job perfectly, because the audits are mostly about marketing.

I'm very bad at lying. Folks can always tell when I am lying. I spent an hour at a Hyundai dealership trying to convince a salesman that I wanted one of their cars. After about the first 15 minutes we had both figured out that I wasn't going to buy a car, and that I have a serious disdain for Korean made cars in general. But we both went through the motions, and I left. I never turned in the report, I told the scheduler what happened and they agreed with me.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2024 03:06AM by Morledzep.

@ServiceAward wrote:

Exactly what wasn't "worth" the fee? Your son's tears? The person losing their job? Was there a fee where you would have been like, "To heck with it is son, we're turning in this report and if he loses his job, he loses his job?"
So, it sounds like you dropped the shop, though the employee did something they were not supposed to do?

Sounds to me like you missed out on an opportunity on teaching your son how to make hard decision.
Sometimes we have to do that in life, even when it means someone will get into trouble. I don't know that the person would have lost their job, but certainly some corrective action needed to take place. It may have prevented them from selling alcohol to a minor on their next job.

We did a LOT of the cigarette compliance jobs. Maybe 100? At least 25 clerks lost their jobs right there. Boom. Done. State requirement for compliance. They would scan the ID, clear it, scan it, clear it, then put in a fake birth date and sell my kid Pall Mall Reds. Neither of us felt bad at all. They had to go through a ton of steps to sell cigarettes to a minor child.

We did plenty of the video games as well. Maybe 10% of the clerks sold to him. It was not a law, but an agreement or a guideline. My kid was amazed that the clerks would sell to him, Even at 12 or 13, he knew it was wrong. He was naive and thought that people always did the right thing in life. The video clerks did not lose their jobs.