Since they were recently mentioned in the Mystery Shopper Newsletter I noticed they have begun to post on the job board here.

Am looking for feedback from anyone that has shopped for them and had to get through the shop guidelines.

As a courtesy I feel like warning any new shoppers:

"WARNING- reading these guidelines may cause anxiety and unnecessary stress"

Lately they read like you are a complete moron and on more than one occasion were so
full of unnecessary comments that they omitted the actual scenario and or key elements
of the scenario.

They are all over the place and jump ahead to make sure you read this keep reading,
when you shop do this, when you enter your report do this. Midway through you are
asked did you read this? At the end a button pops up click here to certify that you
read these instructions, and on and on.

Find myself having to read them over and over at least three times to tease
out just the facts of the assignment.

Been at this for many years and not sure if I have been spoiled with clear and
organized guidelines or if others view these guidelines the same way.

My grade for their guidelines on a scale of 1 to 10 would be a 3.
What about you?

I've never found shops in my area with them.

Sounds like maybe that's a good thing.

Like fire and building codes, stupid shop instructions are usually not written until a shopper does some thing stupid that they don't want to see repeated.

I've only done restaurant shops for them so far. One small issue with conflicting instructions, and it was certainly written with the novice shopper in mind. Otherwise pretty tolerable.

I read through their instructions several times because they are cluttered to me. It would be easier if they used bullet points instead of jumbling it together.
Ordering:
<> Bar shop - minimum .... drink....
<> Dinner shop-

I like the shops they have around me but I don't like feeling nervous I missed a strangely worded detail. A section at the bottom that states the most common reasons for the shop being rejected would address the "stupid shopper mistakes".

@BellaFenice- "Cluttered" I like this word it describes the layout of the guidelines perfectly.

This is not only a very legit MS company but a wonderful resource for our industry. Every month Angela hosts a conference call which is always full of good ideas. For example, today I took a crossword puzzle book with me to a restaurant shop as a great way to discreetly take notes -- one of many great tips garnered from the monthly call. Info is on Market Viewpoint website, and in the great blog. Take advantage of it!

@ DoogieZZ- thanks for posting. Glad to hear that you enjoy Angela's conference call. They are a neat concept. But I think Angela would do better in sharing her tips with her staff before teaching shoppers tricks......I'm guessing she has gotten away from this task based on the many errors/ommissions in the schedulers shop details and eons of unnecessary tidbits in the guidelines themselves.

I read the few threads about this company and boy oh boy..do I EVER know what you mean now.

I did a shop for them and that form was the form from hell.

Talk about repetition here! Holy smokes. How many times can one talk about an employee who doesn't say much? hahahah

My brain's fried.

But...I did it and am going to do another one. hahahaha (me on the way to the funny farm here)

After reading your posts about our instructions, I feel the need to explain a few things so that you understand why we have such “cluttered” instructions. Yes, they are long and wordy, but over time, we have found that they need to be for many reasons. A large portion of our clients have assignments where the rotation to re-shop is at least one year. We love when seasoned shoppers take our assignments, because it just makes our job easier. You know the drill, you do your job exceptionally well, and we have a meaningful report to pass on to our client. However, many of the locations are in areas where we do not have a large shopper base, so we are continually trying to find new shoppers to complete them. Frequently, the shoppers we find are not only new to us but also are new to the industry in general. Detailed and specific instructions are necessary for them to understand what it is they have to do for the shop. While there is always the chance that we might find that new “gem,” more times than not, they are “diamonds in the rough.” And quite frankly, that is OK with us. Everyone has to start somewhere, and we were all there once. We would prefer to train them to be more productive in the future than to have to continually bounce reports back, or reject a report for an important missed step. Those are also the shoppers who Angela tries to help with her free monthly teleconferences.

With regard to the “forms from hell,” we can only be responsible for some of the content. The client ultimately tells us what questions and comments they want to see. Each client has specific parts of their selling process that they would like to focus on when mystery shopping. Some of these companies have vast competition and are trying to gain market share by offering top notch customer service while selling their products to the best of their ability. Every detail, no matter how insignificant or redundant it might seem, is important to our client. In addition, those details are the specific improvements that a sales consultant can be coached on when the report is ultimately administered. Because, please remember, your report does have to be administered, and those conversations can only be as effective as the reports you submit.

Just to give you some of my own background, I have been part of almost every step of the mystery shopping process. Originally I was in retail and was shopped many times as a sales associate. When I moved into management, I had to then administer those reports and coach my employees on how to give better service based on what the shoppers observed. After becoming a stay-at-home mom, I started mystery shopping to keep my sanity, have some fun, make a little extra money, and see the other side of it. Wow, what an eye-opener! I did a variety of industries over the past 9 years and became more and more active with it when I found Market Viewpoint. As an independent contractor, I have been editing and scheduling for them for a little over two years and have continued to be impressed with the exceptional quality of shoppers in the industry. I have found this to be a very nice company that will work with shoppers to get the job done. The coaching and training tools available, through teleconferences and books, are offered as a genuine desire to help anyone in the industry who wants to be successful.

I hope that I have answered your questions. Please feel free to ask anything else so that I might address any further concerns you have.

The "why" the guidelines are wordy are less important to me than the fact the scenario's are left out completely. I'd much rather see the guidelines be better organized. This would be easily achieved if they were put through the same edit process that a completed shop form is. Or have another colleague proof read them. I just proofread this to edit myself!

If I were in a position to edit the guidelines I would omit all of the "read this" "keep reading" "don't forget this" "did you read this?" that are placed within the body of the shop instructions. These comments bog down the task at hand and prevent the guidelines from flowing. To me this commentary is unnecessary. It made me feel like my school teacher was over my shoulder because I couldn't be trusted as intelligent enough to know how to read.

Its much easier when the guidelines are on point and actually include the scenario. In a few that I read through the scenario was actually missing. No extra points awarded to me for reading the guidelines in disbelief three times. Then having to take extra time to write in to obtain the scenario. Very time consuming for any shopper new or seasoned.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2014 03:09AM by ishoparound.

Thank you for taking the time to provide us with meaningful feedback. To address the specific concern about the scenario, that is typically in the confirmation letter that you would receive when we give you the shop, because there are usually many which we rotate. Those that I have seen are very short emails, and the scenario should not be difficult to miss. Previously when we have included the scenarios in the instructions, we have found that shoppers would use the first one on the list rather than the one that they might have actually been assigned, so that is why they have been omitted from the instructions. Both the issue of the scenario and the instructions in general will be revisited next week when we have a full staff available. Hopefully the result will be helpful for all of you as shoppers.

I really do appreciate your honesty. This is a constant learning experience for all of us, and we welcome feedback at any time. I don't always check this board, but please feel free to either PM me or email me at elaine@marketviewpoint.com with any further concerns or questions if I don't get back to you right away. I might not have seen it here, but I would definitely get an email.

Thanks again

Please forgive me for interjecting because I have not done a shop for this company yet, but I HAVE run across Shop guidelines that are similarly organized (or disorganized, as the case ma be) and I think I have a helpful suggestion. In cases where the guidelines are very cluttered, it looks to me as though different admonitions and warnings are added in as a situation has come up with a shopper. Someone realized that the instructions were not clear enough or that as with many things, needed to be "idiot-proofed." It has become a living document and that as a VERY good thing.

The issue is that once in awhile, someone should start from scratch and re-organize the instructions so that they follow a logical flow and "like" sections are placed together (perhaps as bullet points). For example the "warnings" and are separate from the "shop flow" section so that in one section a shopper can get a good solid feel for how the shop should progress, and in another they can see all of he potential pitfalls and how to avoid them. If there are examples, they can be placed within each section.

One last section can be for the "non-negotiables" that will cause the shop to be rejected outright, which is always a good thing to see at the end.

Personally, if I owned a MSC, I'd probably contract with my very best shopper to once a year go over all the guidelines and edit them for readability and logic. So many times when I've written something, it has made complete, logical sense to me, but when someone else reads it, they discover I've left out a step or a detail because in my mind it was assumed.

That is EXCELLENT feedback. Thank you! I'm going to set up a file of the suggestions for when we meet next week. Keep the feedback coming, folks

@ tracyvp --These are fantastic idea's.

@ Elainemvp - The emails that I received did not include scenario's; they instructed to refer to the guidelines for the scenario.

It would be neat if you could somehow look at the way other companies "Guidelines" are laid out in comparison to the MVP guidelines.
This would probably give you a clearer picture for your time when you are full staff.

What the other companies guidelines have is the "flow" that tracyvp mentioned above. That minus the inference that the reader needs to be taught or hand held to read through cluttered guidelines that are missing the scenario. I felt like it was some sort of trick question to see if I was paying attention.

Thanks, that is another good suggestion. I had also considered looking at other companies' guidelines, except that I think that is most likely proprietary information and not something that can or should be shared. We are, after all, competitors. I will look through my own shop files to see if I have any well-constructed guidelines for comparison.

Still, good feedback! Thank you for your time and opinion. Keep 'em coming

To set things right here, I did not mean the forms were forms from hell. I felt they were for young kids so they could REALLY understand what you wanted to be done. My apologies. I should watch my mouth. You are a good company and didn't deserve it.

Have a great day now.

Thank you so much for the compliment! We always welcome these comments as a way to educate shoppers on why our forms and processes are the way they are. However, the suggestions that have been raised are very constructive, and we hope to incorporate what we can into our instructions and guidelines. So, it is all good