Anyone ever do any GFk Audits before? What do you think of them?

Not sure if you mean the electronic audits, or GfK generally. Evaluations for their grocery stores and gas stations are straightforward - yes/no, drop-down choices, multiple choice, and comments.

I was referring the the electronic audits.

I listened to the training conference call. Since they had been dropped from the $150 they were posted at to $130 and from the call I discovered this was not a mistake or oversight, I did not proceed through the drug and background tests and the briefing quiz. A big 'no thank you'.

I felt the same way. I also looked into them. I would have no problem passing a drug screen or background check, but that is just way too much effort for a part time job that makes $130!

Yeah! Thirded! No way.

I did one - horrible experience. I went through all the preliminary expecting an ongoing assignment. It was two days of hard work at the location and hours of data entry. GFK claimed to have lost my data and I had to re-enter - multiple times - now they are saying I never entered it and that I did not respond to their messages. I have multiple email records including a confirmation from GFK. They are refusing to pay me. I am mulling over my options for recourse against the company!!

I feel for u katran. I read all the requirements of the audit and I decided to pass on it. The money sounds good $130.00, but not worth the headache. Sounds like they are trying to get by cheap, because a professional auditor would be paid alot more than $130.00 for all that they require.

Ouch!

You need to have a conversation with them--not an email fest--to see how this can be worked out. I have never spoken with the live, but I found the following numbers in an old email

Tel: +1 (212) 240-5484
Fax: +1 (888)-208-7168
Tel: +1 (800) 813-2313 option #9 then option #2 www.cybershoppersonline.com

Be concerned and frustrated but not angry. Give them the information you just mentioned here. Be ready to give them the confirmation numbers for your various submissions, ask if their IT guy can track where the results went based on the confirmation numbers, suggest that you can fax/email/snail mail (whatever works for you) a copy of the confirmations as well as your datasheets so that someone on their end can input the data still again since you have put it in ___ times and don't understand why it is not appearing on their end.

Be prepared to talk with them about your computer (PC or MAC), operating system (WIN XP, VISTA or whatever) and the browser you use. The version of your browser is in 'Help'/'About Internet Explorer' if you are using IE,'Help'/'About Mozilla Firefox' if you are using Firefox. There is little likelihood that the problem is on your end since you got the confirmations, but play along.

It is in their interest this early in the project to keep you happy and willing to do upcoming audits for them. You can indicate you are looking forward to that while to yourself you are silently saying "Fat Chance! You've gotta be kidding"

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2009 02:00AM by Flash.

In my area, it would seem these have been hard to book. I continue to receive emails trying to get sign-ups.

I agreed to do them at $150, which was the original offer. They then came through at $130 and I cancelled. Subsequently I have seen them as high as $200. I suspect we will see a whole lot more at that kind of price before their contract runs out. But if they can't even process through the reports, why waste the time?

Here they are begging for people, but it stayed at $130. The scheduler for here is very nice, but I have never seen her bonus anything, even hard to fill neighbor island shops going begging.

I'm concerned that this client/project will destroy an otherwise great company to work with. I understand they are getting very sticky about jobs and bonuses with other clients. I can only wonder if they lost their gas client because they were too busy pursuing the audit client.

I think the gas co. is unrelated, personally, but I could be wrong. I think the GC changes MSC's all the time. We only have healthy sandwich here for the most part, and before that the gas. I wish they would get more clients over here! :-)

Me too - they've been a stand-up company to work with.

I just finished the two day audit for the appliance store. It was some what of a night mare the first day. Second day was a breeze. The input was a bit of a pain, but I have done worse.
They said that by agreeing to do the 1st one you would be assigned the next three. Apparently they are doing these on a monthly basis for the next two years, but you can only do them once a quarter. (so I am doing three more.... Christmas money. lol)
Yes they started out at $150, and droped it to 130, but that is still not bad concerning what other jobs are paying in my area.
They say it will take up to 20 hours to do the audit. I say BS,you can not start a new department with in the last 30 minutes of the day(which ends for you at 4 p.m.) so I start at 10, take lunch at 12:30 to 1, back in til 3:30 or a little after.
Guess I am lucky. My store is really small, and I can check out different questions while doing another one. got to love multi tasking.

katran, did this get resolved favorably? I gather that you didn't have a saved copy of your submitted report. Not all MSPs make it easy to do so, and GfK is one of them. There's no link for us to save as pdf. There are ways around it, I copy, paste and save to Word.

GfK plans to roll out their new website this year with changes in the reporting platform, sign-in, shopper history, and shop searches. They've enlisted shoppers to do side-by-side comparisons.

Bare changed their plaform once, and less than a year later, changed it back. It just didn't work. New platforms take some getting used to, but I'm looking forward to GfK's new website. They've put much time into it, and are involving shoppers for input.

I right click on the frame I want to save, then in the "this frame" menu, open it in a new window. Full report, ready to pdf.

I did and electronics audit for GFK 2 weeks ago. The $130 + $25 bonus for 2 days work is good money in this area. The job was hard for me as I am not used to being on my feet and walking all day but think I have a handle on it now and the next one will be easier. The report is quite long but doesn't take as much time as I thought it would to enter. The scheduler was fantastic and helped me quite a bit. I look forward to doing more of these audits for GFK!

Are these hard and are they worth it? I kind of enjoy the healthy ones, do you?

I have done 2 GFK electronic audits and I am still trying to decide if they are worth it. They wanted me to drive 180 miles round trip twice,because it is a 2 day audit, and there was no bonus, once you subtract my gas and driving time I am making less than minimum wage. So I am still doing the one here locally. But by the time I have to pay for child care and then adding in the hours it takes to enter the report I am not sure it is worth it. They used to let us go in early before the store opened and that worked much better, but now they are saying you can only be there from 10-5pm. I don't know, I am hoping this next one goes faster, other wise I am done.

I have done 2 of these electronic store audits this spring. The first one paid me $130 and was right here in Bismarck ND. We have a rather large, fairly new store. The new part helped me but the large part did not. Anyway, it took 2 full days of work and I swore when I was done, I would not do any more of them, not because I didn't think it was worth it but because my knees give me problems when I am on them too long. Well, when the 2nd job came along, it was in Minot ND which is about 110 miles from here one way. But the thing that convinced me to do it was the fact that they were bonusing it $150. At first I was going to get a motel room and stay overnight in Minot but then I figured out that with my car, the gas would cost me about $16 for a round trip and since I didn't have to start until 10AM and had to end by 5PM, there was no early morning or late night driving. So I agreed to do the job. I found out that the Minot store was only about 3/4 the size of the first one I did and with the experience I now had, I was able to finish up each day by 4PM and then had a nice leisurely 2 hour drive home on a 4 lane highway before I had to do the report. I wouldn't do it for the normal $130 but with the bonus added, I was glad to be able to get it.

I have been doing these audits since Feb. I have not had any "problems" with this company with the exception of there new regulations that each auditor must be in the shop for atleast 7 hours. I can complete a through shop in about 5 to 6 hours or so. I have shown the company in a written statement that with time management that this can be completed throughly. Then, working with the associates of the store can work for positive outcomes or atleast acknowledgement from managers and ECT of the problems that can resolve before the next audit.
Now in April the company started a new project that had a second auditor check over the first auditors work. If there was any discrepency between the two then one of them would lose there credition with the company. They did this to me. They did not find anything wrong with my work.

I complete about two per month and have a limit on the distance I go. I do not go more than 75 miles from my house ( that is about 2.5 gallons of gas for me).

My father raised me on this saying "time equals money....Don't waste either"