What do shoppers think of the new, cumbersome reporting on supermarket shops? The questionaire is getting longer and pay staying the same. I think I will take a break from these as beginning to be no worth the time, unless they are bonused. They almost want you to stare down the employees as well to get their attention to interact with. This becomes too obvious. Also, their questionaire does not accept a "0" when there are no employees in a certain department after browsing, shopping in that particular area. Lets face it, there are times when there are no employees out there in a particular area. The instructions say not to start an interaction. Yet they want you to get in the employee's face.

I dropped those Idiots some time ago. "Idiots?", My personal opinion, your mileage may vary...

I have had some increasing concerns with Market Force. I have happily coexisted with them for quite some time but am being called to task on shops where "You should have questioned the instructions." and shops where I have needed to omit a rather minor part rather than be too obviously a mystery shopper. They are certainly circling the wagons over there and one more piece of nonsense in the near future from them is likely to turn me from a fan to a foe.

Anyone have any info on their new gift card shops? A $40 gift card is the payment.

What you said, Flash, has been more my experience with them than not. I don't care for this firm too much. I will do the occasional shop for the right dollars or if it is really quick and easy, but other than that, I don't do much as I find they are difficult to deal with and expect too much in to short a time frame for too little dollars.

The shops I accept from them are the ones I don't feel are too much for too little dollars. I would do more with them if their shop windows weren't generally so far out on semi-reasonable shops, but I will not do their fast food that they have to create "Sweepstakes" to persuade shoppers to perform because I feel those are substantially underpaid. . . and I don't care even if I am driving by the location anyway. They occasionally come up with good enough shops I find it worthwhile to maintain at least a cordial working relationship.

Yes, I guess that is what I have with them. But I find I check their board less and less. I loved the SG shops. But that bank is now shopped by a local firm, and phone only...so that leaves me the ones that I don't mind- the FF where there is no DT at the location; the occasional phone store, and the ones I love, the ones where the speaker company sends me to a famous computer store to check out how the staff sells their product. Quick and pays great. But them I have to rush home to make their deadline. And their forms are NOT as check the box as Trendsource's...But at least at TS I always deal with the same real people who manage the projects, and not a first name from "help desk" and then email back and get a different person from before. Ya know? But, hey, I try and keep as many of my options open as possible.

Can you imagine the competition for shops if we all loved the same thing? :-)

On the other hand, can you imagine the bonuses needed on the ones we didn't love??

HUGE!!!!!

They don't want me so I am safe LOL. I would love to do the fast food shops they have around here to oh well.

blondie are you in a metropolitan area, by chance? Persevere, dear. Attrition in mystery shopping is high. Today's economy has many folks hitting the bricks, including fast food mystery shops, for a paycheck.

You lost me I am in a rural area but there are little towns around with lots of fast food around. I use to work in fast food and I adore shopping it and the ones I have done I am pretty good at. I know its tough times believe me I sometimes I don't know what we will be eating. Thank goodness for dollar menus and chicken and hamburger. Sorry I digress I guess I could try market force again. Thank you Mert!

They were the first MS company I signed up with about a month ago. I have done several jobs with them. Three have been the fast food (HOW do you time a fast food employee without looking obvious?), two were grocery shops and I've done one nicely paying bank job, in addition to others. I know the fast food ones don't pay well and are hard on the waist line, but I decided to take them just because I am starting out and want to learn how to do the shops and reports correctly.

My interaction with their helpdesk employees has been spotty. Sometimes you get an answer and sometimes you don't. I don't find the online reports to be too cumbersome, but then, I don't have anything to compare it with. I do think they pay way too low for what they expect of you.

Overall I have impression of them. I figure every MS company has its good points and bad.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2009 10:08PM by solideogloria.

Well said; point taken! Many would agree.

As of late they are my "bread and butter" company, the $40 gift card (prepaid Visa "Go-tag" assignments were a breeze and profitable. I am hyper-careful on inputting even the blandest report because they have no mercy should you have one finger slip on the keyboard. Excellent about paying timely, I have never had to track them down for promised bonus pay.

They are not a bad company to be with because they do offer shops pretty much everywhere and they do pay on time. Their payscale is low (and when they get clients from other companies the fees generally go down), but their expectations with reports are pretty low. There is not a lot of narrative required with their reports, usually no more than a few sections with 50-200 characters.

I got an interesting email from them today:






Shopper ID: XXXXXX

Assignment ID: XXXXXXX

Dear Shopper,

Thank you for accepting the above referenced NAME DELETED shop that is assigned to be completed on 6/12/2009.

Due to the large number of shops that are scheduled to be completed on this date, we are requesting that you reschedule this shop for any available day the following week. Rescheduling can easily be done by visiting the Reschedule/Cancel page on the Shopper Website, selecting ‘Reschedule’ next to the Assignment ID and selecting from the list of available dates.

If you are unable to reschedule this shop for any of the dates already available on the Shopper Website, or if this shop was part a route that you are unable to reschedule, it is not necessary to let us know. We simply ask that you continue with completing your shops as currently scheduled. If you have several of these shops assigned, please be sure to check your email for reschedule requests regarding other assignments as well.

If you have any questions, please e-mail us at helpdesk@marketforce.com. We appreciate any consideration you can give to this requested date change, and we thank you for all you do as a Shopper.

Thank you,

Market Force Help Desk
helpdesk@marketforce.com

Shopper Website
[shopper.marketforce.com]




I find this interesting, since they "ding" your record if you reschedule too often. I think I will just keep my date.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/2009 04:45AM by dee shops.

I'm not surprised since the are connected with certified!

Oh brother. Rebel, do we really need to go there? Let's just stick with the one at hand. It is not anything connected with the Certified side of their business. This was a retail outlet handled by the blue portal.

I'll go wherever I feel like going with any topic on here since it's a public forum. And yes, Market Force is connected with certified because they OWN certified. Therefore, they hire the SAME type of employees. This e-mail you received from them just further proves how incompetent these employees are! Market Force is a horrible company that pays shoppers LESS than what they SPEND for their shops in many cases. I can make more on amazon mechanical turks in a day then doing assignments for Market Force.

Then don't shop for MFI. Why did you go to so much trouble to get back into Certified as a shopper if you are still going to be so negative?

Dee, back to the business at hand, I received same EXACT email from MF in regard to cellular job, ironically same day as my "congratulatory" email for completing my 500th shop ... would have be nice, but a tad unrealistic, to receive a financial incentive versus a "thanks" email!

I wonder what is up with that email...Yes, mine was cellular too, MM. They took on too many jobs and don't have enough staff, or what? I mean, it is not like they have a lot of employees that are interfacing with the schedulers....:-)

I got the same email and did reschedule my cell phone shop for next week. I was rather glad to get that email because my daughter got sick earlier this week and I had to move my Monday shop to Tuesday, which rather crowded my week. The shop I rescheduled from Monday to Tuesday was still within the "due" dates...am I really going to get "dinged?" Surely they won't "ding" us for helping them out with the cell phone shop reschedule?!