Let me be more specific. Yesterday I had one of the taxi/rideshare shops from the Phoenix Airport that I have come to love. Unfortunately, this shop did not go so well. The driver was rude and that I could have just commented on and let go but he actually stopped at wrong addresses twice! Seriously. I clearly communicated the address of the downtown Phoenix hotel I wanted to be dropped off at and the driver took me to two other downtown hotels. I got out at the second and thought, good thing I'm getting out as this is not going to get any better.

The driver was an elderly man and I feel truly awful as I wrote what I believe was an honest but not scathing report that reported only facts - as we should always be doing, yes. My thing is I fear he might be fired as a result of this shop and this one bothers me as with this man's age, unless he knows people, this may be it for him and working. OTOH - it's very true that he is being paid to provide a service, and being rude and then stopping to drop me off at not one, but two, wrong addressess - he may very well be getting fired soon anyway, and perhaps it's like a Biden thing where he's best off (no politics intended here, btw, I use Biden only as an example) stepping away from work anyway. I've been mystery shopping off and on for a number of years but nothing quite like this has taken place during one of my many shops.

I know I did the right thing in writing an impartial, honest report - but I wanted to ask - how would you have handled it? Have you ever felt really horrible about being honest in such a situation?

Any replies are appreciated.

Yes, I try to keep my negative comments to facts and not describe my actual feelings because I hate to think about someone getting fired - even if they are in the wrong job. I once had an Uber ride though as you describe. I was leaving the airport and asking to be taken to a place about 20 minutes away....an hour later, the driver was still confused - even with GPS. I panicked because I started to think he may be up to something criminal, taking me to a home, etc. I suddenly demanded he let me out - in an area where there was no taxi service - ugh. I ended up taking a bus to get back into Uber territory. It was awful.

As Joe Friday said "All we want are the facts ma'am". If you do that you shouldn't worry about what the employer does with the report. They hire the MSC to provide facts about customer experiences. I make sure to note the good or excellent as well as the bad and lousy.

Well said...

@wrosie wrote:

As Joe Friday said "All we want are the facts ma'am". If you do that you shouldn't worry about what the employer does with the report. They hire the MSC to provide facts about customer experiences. I make sure to note the good or excellent as well as the bad and lousy.

When I was a relatively new shopper and was trying out all sorts of different assignments, i did a bar integrity shop on a specific bartender whom they were suspicious of stealing. Everything was going well. All cash was going in register and she chatted with us throughout the visit. She told us about being a single mom and struggling with bills..blah..blah ..blah.

When my hour and a half was up and the bar was nearly empty of customers i cashed out and was shocked to see her slip the cash into her shirt pocket. So now we stayed an extra 1/2 hour hoping to see her put it in the register..nope, didn't happen.

I reported what I saw and think about it to this day. I crossed those types of shops off my to do list after that

I have only felt bad when reporting bad service if I thought the provider was a nice person. I still would tell the truth about the service I received but if it was a report that allowed me to mention how personable the person was or maybe they were attentive but did things wrong I feel that will soften the blow.
I read long ago that companies use these reports to "retrain" where needed and not just fire the person. Most of what we do would not be a firing offense unless it was related to alcohol or smoke products to minors. So I can just hope that re training would be the first go to. If someone is not up for the job they are doing it can be dangerous.
In the case of your driver, what if they dropped you off somewhere incorrect and you did not realize, You get out of the car , they drive away and perhaps you are in a lonely or dangerous or very late at night situation with just you and hopefully your cell phone. To me age is not an indication someone cannot do their job. I am old and very competent. I have dealt with young people with young brains who have no idea ! of anything or of how to treat customers.

I try not to do any shops were I have to "bait" someone into doing something wrong.
if I am just reporting on how the job is done then I don't feel bad.

As with most things in life sometimes we have good experiences and sometimes bad. Not every mystery shop is going to be good - that is a fact. And, the MSC's client just wants the facts whether good or bad.

I once had a horrible dining experience; slow service, cold food, spilled drinks, etc. The thing is it wasn't 100% the servers fault. She had to cover the entire patio of which 2 tables were large parties. One end of those tables was getting their food 20 minutes before the other end. One table left before their food was served because it was taking so long.The resturant/management really set the server up to fail that night. It was a commentary so I could include all observed so that it was crystal clear what the culprit to the poor service was.

I would be honest. If there is room in the report, I would include what the employee did right and what he did wrong.

Horrible? No. Bad/sorry for what may happen to the employee? Yes.

@morocco77 wrote:

I know I did the right thing in writing an impartial, honest report - but I wanted to ask - how would you have handled it? Have you ever felt really horrible about being honest in such a situation?

I prefer to feel bad about a future customer getting bad service from an employee.

The situations where I might feel bad is in a situation where an employee might give me something because they like my personality or something. An example: I did a restaurant shop with my family. When they offered soft drinks, I asked how much they were. It was a restaurant that did not disclose the price of the soft drinks (they usually are quite overpriced). I asked because I wanted to stay within my shopping budget. The employee felt bad because I was with my family and asked how much they were, so she probably perceived I was tight on money. So she gave me a soft drink for free. In some of those situations I would not report it. I don't remember if I did in that particular one. But some shopping situations made it difficult to avoid reporting that sort of thing. The free soft drink doesn't cost much to the business. If it were something like a free alcoholic drink, that would be a different story. Bar loss is something they definitely need to know about, and it would probably be a more systemic problem.

Share the facts (not opinions) in the report.
I always go in to a shop looking for the good in people and circumstances.
Sometimes I am Wow'ed and sometimes I am disappointed or even annoyed, but most of the time things fall somewhere in the middle.

@morocco77 wrote:

Let me be more specific. Yesterday I had one of the taxi/rideshare shops from the Phoenix Airport that I have come to love. Unfortunately, this shop did not go so well. The driver was rude and that I could have just commented on and let go but he actually stopped at wrong addresses twice! Seriously. I clearly communicated the address of the downtown Phoenix hotel I wanted to be dropped off at and the driver took me to two other downtown hotels. I got out at the second and thought, good thing I'm getting out as this is not going to get any better.

The driver was an elderly man and I feel truly awful as I wrote what I believe was an honest but not scathing report that reported only facts - as we should always be doing, yes. My thing is I fear he might be fired as a result of this shop and this one bothers me as with this man's age, unless he knows people, this may be it for him and working. OTOH - it's very true that he is being paid to provide a service, and being rude and then stopping to drop me off at not one, but two, wrong addressess - he may very well be getting fired soon anyway, and perhaps it's like a Biden thing where he's best off (no politics intended here, btw, I use Biden only as an example) stepping away from work anyway. I've been mystery shopping off and on for a number of years but nothing quite like this has taken place during one of my many shops.

I know I did the right thing in writing an impartial, honest report - but I wanted to ask - how would you have handled it? Have you ever felt really horrible about being honest in such a situation?

Any replies are appreciated.

The short answer is “no”. The more complex answer is that I do feel some remorse. Most Sonics are not managed very well. As I have said her numerous times, I have reported the same issues time and again and they are never addressed. So my worry is that if I have a particularly bad experience at a Sonic (Clarendon Texas--I’m looking at you!!!!), I think the car hop may be fired instead of the inner machinations that lead to a 29 minute wait for food one day.

I wrestled with the whole "should I or shouldn't I" on a Sonic shop some time ago when I overheard the carhop (very loudly) use a string of profanity while talking to a customer a few stalls down. It didn't bother me personally, but I felt that that needed to be noted in the brief narrative. I wasn't looking to cause anybody to lose their job, but I also felt it was egregious behavior for a business where kids are frequently present.

I haven't returned to that location to determine if he still works there.

I felt very bad about an Uber alcohol delivery shop where I had to not answer the door. I know there are alcohol delivery requirements/legalities but I didn't feel good at all about that one. I also really did not like having someone know where I live when I've reported them for something that could make them lose their job. I never did another one.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2024 12:20PM by olympia tennenbaum.

No

Just thought of something else. If something is not going well and I can clearly see why, I will add that to the report. Example: service was slow because at the time I entered, a bus load of kids also entered to place orders.

There is one shop that still comes to mind from time to time, where I am pretty positive the employee was let go because of my shop. This was a few years after I started shopping, and I was drawn to it because it offered to reimburse $300 in wood flooring. It just happened that I was in the process of remodeling my kitchen, so I thought, wow, that will pay my new floor! I was to shop at a discount flooring/lumberyard type of store, and I had to ask about delivery for my purchase. The salesman was supposed to quote what the company charges for a delivery, but instead he offered to deliver it himself for a cheaper fee. This was what the shop was about, to see if the salesperson would include the delivery charge in the purchase, or offer to deliver himself. When I was making my purchase, I was praying hard that he would quote the company's delivery charge, but no, he offered to deliver himself for a low amount. I felt so uncomfortable after the purchase, and the next day when he delivered the flooring. I entered the shop after he delivered, as I had to take photos of him bringing in the boxes. So not only did I feel guilty about getting this guy in trouble, or worse, fired, but I started getting paranoid that this guy would come back for revenge if indeed he did get fired. I even made that comment to the scheduler after the shop was accepted, and she said I wouldn't have to worry. Easy for her to say that, lol. I never went back in that store to see if he was still around, or never heard the outcome. I will never ever do a job like that again, it was stressful at the time, and for some time afterward, but like I said, it still comes back to haunt me from time to time.

@drdoggie00 wrote:

I wrestled with the whole "should I or shouldn't I" on a Sonic shop some time ago when I overheard the carhop (very loudly) use a string of profanity while talking to a customer a few stalls down. It didn't bother me personally, but I felt that that needed to be noted in the brief narrative. I wasn't looking to cause anybody to lose their job, but I also felt it was egregious behavior for a business where kids are frequently present.

I haven't returned to that location to determine if he still works there.

Why is it inappropriate to cuss in front of kids? I understand not cussing in front of your grandmother who also doesn't cuss and doesn't like it. My grandma didn't cuss, but she really didn't care if we did. She acknowledged that she lived in a different era. We made an effort to be respectful to her, but she didn't complain if we mess up.

Kids on the other hand need to learn to navigate the world. Sheltering a child from everything that might upset them until they are adults, and then telling them to "go and make a life for yourself" is exactly why there are stupid people on youtube and tiktok that can't do simple math, and don't know the difference between a state, a county, and a city. We should be teaching our children to take care of themselves and to question EVERYTHING, no matter who they learned it from. There are no offensive words if you know the meanings and origins of those words.

I'm sorry. NOBODY in a service job should cuss at a customer EVER!

Cuss in front of your own kids then.

name calling is not the same as using common swear words, like the 7 dirty words you can't say on TV. I will never use a derogatory name to describe a person or a group of persons. I'll never describe someone by the color of their skin, or their ethnicity. I may say something like, "the guy over there with the dark brown hair," or "the guy with the big beautiful full beard." Even if you are in fact an @#$%&, I won't say "you're an @#$%&." .

For the record, I am an automotive technician (mechanic), for 30+ years I worked in garages with men, never got fired for cussing. I did get fired a couple times for refusing to do illegal smog tests. I quit more jobs than I was fired from because the companies were ripping off customers. I censor myself for no one.

It's all in how you were raised. My parents did not use curse words, and the four of us kids did not use curse words. As an adult, I've been known to practice some creative cursing, but I do not do it in front of other people's children, and to this day, I do not curse in front of my mother.

I'm Southern. It's a thing.

There were seven words you could not say on Network TV and radio in George Carlin's time but I'm not sure if the FCC has changed those rules.

I evaluated a hotel once that served three free drinks in the evening. They want to make sure that you are not over-served. Well, the lady acting as the bartender that night brought beers to guest's tables without them even ordering a drink or marking their drink card. Every mixed drink she made, I believe, was a double. Everyone in attendance was over-served that night. I simply reported what I observed and what had happened to me. I have no idea how the report effected that employee, but the client got their money's worth out of me on that evaluation.

Some time ago I did a gas station mystery shop where the MSC wants the shopper to take a covert photo of the beverage station, cooler and the restroom while observing any cleanliness issues, etc.
There was a space for additional comments of any observations.
Well, I did observe one of the employees taking those fresh cookies from the display case and eating them. The employee was the manager (confirmed by the employee at the register when I questioned a clearance item price).
I've wondered to this day if I should have added a comment about the employee (I didn't).
OTOH, I have reported employees smoking pot while on the job.
ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

I pretty much have always agreed that people who choose to use curse words do so because they lack the capacity for more intelligent language....either that or something really awful has just happened and a curse word is the only appropriate choice for the situation....in other words, cursing is for the lazy and the inept.

Downvote me if you must lol.