I want to tell you about a situation with a shop that Kern schedules for Maritz so if you have a similar problem you can arrive at a better outcome than I did. I had one of those shops for April 8 and I did the shop along with six others, all of them with Maritz. On my way home that night, I was struck from the rear by a pickup truck while I was stopped at a traffic light. I hope the young man driving the pickup truck enjoyed his phone call or his day dream to the fullest extent.

After arriving home from the emergency room at approx 1:35 a.m. on April 9, I sent an email to Kern with a scan of the investigating officer’s business card, report number, and the first sheet of my hospital release. In that email, I said that I would not be able to shop the location scheduled for that day, April 9. Here is the text of the email I sent, with the subject line not included because of ICA rules. In the subject line, I listed the shop number, the address, and the scheduled date of the shop (April 9).


To Kern:
I have this shop scheduled for today. I got a call from a scheduler yesterday but it was a really bad connection and I never understood the scheduler's name. I was involved in a traffic accident last night on the way home and spent much of the night in the hospital emergency room. I will not be able to drive today and cannot do this shop. My understanding from the phone conversation was that the shop was needed right away and I was planning to be in __xtown___ today. That's not going to work for me and I don't know how long I'm going to be on medication and unable to drive. I'm attaching scans front and back of the investigating officer's business card (the back shows the report number) and a scan of the top sheet of the emergency room release. Sorry I have to cancel on this shop with you. I have already called Maritz on this. I'm counting on you to let your scheduler know and sort this out for me. Thanks / Mary



As soon as Maritz opened on April 9, I called them about the accident and said I would need some more time to report the shops I had done April 8. They told me to report them when I could.

When I tried to report the April 8 shop scheduled for Maritz by Kern on April 9, I found that it was no longer on my current shops list. I had several of these shops scheduled for later in the month. I first took this up with Maritz, who referred me to Kern. I left a voice mail for a scheduler at Kern, and when he called back he told me all the shops had been removed because I missed the 12 hour window on the April 8 shop and they didn’t know when I would be able to work again. He offered to try to reinstate the shops for the rest of the month, but I told him I didn’t want to do that because I didn’t feel I could work with a company that inflexible in case of accidents. I said I wanted to put it behind us and still be friends but not do business. I may have been a little chippy.

I can think now of several things I could have done which might possibly have worked better, but considering my condition I think I did pretty well. What upset me the most about this is that Kern removed an entire month’s schedule of shops without making any contact with me about it. What’s going on here is that if you’re doing the Kern scheduled shops for Maritz, you’re not working for Maritz, you’re working for Kern. I think this situation could have been handled better on both ends. All of us can always do better thinking with hindsight. Here’s hoping this information might be helpful to some of you if you get into a similar pickle.

By the way, I fine except I’m sore and I hurt and I’m really irritable. Can you tell? XXO / Mary

Hope you feel better soon!

Your health is what is important MDavis. Hope you feel better soon. Shoppers are considered expendable to most MSCs, just as MSCs are considered expendable to us; take care of you and the rest will fall in place.

I do hope you make a full and speedy recovery. The scheduler could have worked something out with you. I've had some of those same shops and couldn't report them when I got mugged and they extended my report time.

I hope you feel better soon MDavisnowell. You have given us a lot of good advise.

I hope you are feeling better. I think I know which shop you are talking about. I have worked with that scheduler for the other MSC that had the shop before and he always seemed reasonable, however, I never had any major problems. thanks for the heads up.

BTW: If it is the scheduler that I am thinking of he is on this board. It will be interesting to see if Kern replies to this thread.

I am so sorry this happened to you. It always concerns me about accidents with the amount of driving I do for mystery shopping. I'm really not impressed with the way that Kern handled this. Perhaps you should let Maritz know as they probably need to be aware to.

It bugged me to read your post. I am really sorry you're having this added headache.

I hope you get better and better. You are a warrior and I know you'll make an awesome comeback!

Sorry that happened to you Mary. I was rear ended in January and my car got totalled. (Ha, I was also between shops for Maritz) I was sore for a while, but am okay now. I was just thinking today about how nervous I still am whenever I stop at a light or to make a turn, that someone is going to hit me again from behind. I think with all the texting and phone calls, it's happening more and more.

Hope you'll be back on the road again soon.

Mary -
Glad you'll be mending. Thanks for the heads up.
Feels like you're not looking for advice, but I can't help myself.
I'd strongly second what jpgilham posted re. letting Maritz know the results of your follow-up with Kern.
We're all fully aware of Maritz's 12-hour rule, but most of us also know that transgressing it yields only an auto-generated scold by email, an occasional pissy red letter question when submitting the report, and a rumored very mild smudge on our in-house Maritz rating. Don't know that they'd want a contracted scheduler handling the deadline more severely than they themselves would.
Enjoy the pain meds.

In this case Maritz is the client of Kern and Maritz had already given the okay for Mary to file that report late. I'm not sure where a scheduler at Kern would then have the authority to override a decision made by Maritz.

When I did a shop for Kern for Maritz there was an issue with a photo. I contacted Kern and was told that once the shop is complete they have no further say and that it is up to Maritz to handle

Although conceptually I agree with you my gut tells me that Maritz won't care as long as the shops are getting completed on time.

jpgilham Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Perhaps you should let Maritz know as they
> probably need to be aware to.

Why did you sched through Kern in the first place? I'm a little confused...I HATE shops that are scheduled through a 2nd company.....and kern is one of my least favs....

I do hope you are feeling well today...rear ends are HORRID..

Feel better soon Mary!

Sorry such a crappy outcome to an already crappy circumstance.

Thanks to all of you for your concern.

Nana, I scheduled through Kern because that's the way those shops have to be scheduled, even though they are listed on the Maritz current shops lists and reported to Maritz. I was confused about who I needed to ask about being late on the Kern scheduled shop and I apparently misunderstood what I was supposed to do. Maritz told me I could report later but I guess they were not including the Kern scheduled shop in that extension. When they told me I could report later but I needed to contact Kern on the Kern scheduled shop, I said I had already sent Kern the particulars on the accident. I did not grasp what they were telling me.

I told Kern in an email at 1:35 a.m. on April 9 I had the wreck and could not shop the location scheduled for April 9, but I did not specifically ask them for an extension to report the shop I did on April 8. I thought I had to get that extension from Maritz, and I spoke with Maritz at shortly after 9:00 a.m. on the 9th. That Kern shop was already at twelve hours by the time I got off the backboard and out of the neck brace and got home. I was pretty loopy from the shot at the hospital or I may have thought things through better, but if Kern's policy is to jerk the shop at twelve hours no matter what the circumstances, I was dead in the water anyway no matter what I did. Removing that shop and the other three scheduled for later in the month was probably a computer generated event and probably didn't even involve a human decision. I certainly hope not.

I am not proud of the way I finalized my relationship with Kern and I have always advised it is best not to break off relations. I stand by my general policy but it did not work for me in this case. Never good to burn bridges but I sort of enjoyed the fire in a warm way.

I hope this information will help someone else get through a situation more professionally in the future, and my best to all of you and thanks for your posts.

Mary,

Hoping for continued healing. I agree that this was handled miserably on Kern's end. The fact that you were in the way home from completing the shop and got delayed due to an accident and weren't allowed a time extension is appalling.

LisaSTL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In this case Maritz is the client of Kern and
> Maritz had already given the okay for Mary to file
> that report late. I'm not sure where a scheduler
> at Kern would then have the authority to override
> a decision made by Maritz.


Maybe Kern didn't get the smoke signals. ;-)

Usually schedulers are more flexible, especially since you had already done the shop and just needed to enter it. You used the word "cancel", rather than ask for an extension. I recently got food poisoning during a shop, and after being sick for several hours, wrote to the scheduler explaining the situation. There was no problem with a 12-hour extension, but they asked that if could not meet that, to contact them a.s.a.p. Another time, reviewing a resort property, I actually broke my nose which also resulted in 2 black eyes. The company provided an employee to fill out the very extensive report over the phone, as I was on some heavy painkillers. (I think they were happy I didn't sue the resort.)

In any case, just remember that they are people too. If I have a real problem, I put my phone number in the email and ask them to call, which cuts down on miscommunication.

Kern has one great Scheduler, Jason. Dealing with the owner, Laurie, is a nightmare. She is rude and belligerent. I had a conversation with an owner of a MSC that she was a former scheduler for. He disliked her for an outrageous thing she did and fired her. I have heard many negative things and deactivated my account with them. Shame, because I loved working with Jason.

I spoke with a Maritz scheduler about one of their phone shops. I wanted to complete it on a Friday, but it was only Tuesday and the current window only went through Thursday. The scheduler told me to call back if the window ended up being extended to Friday (he knew I wanted to request an incentive, so I couldn't self-assign). The point is, he specifically told me to call him back to assign it.

On Friday, I checked and the shop was still on the board. I called the appropriate team and asked for the scheduler. Unfortunately, he wasn't there, so the person who answered the phone told me she could help me. I explained the situation and let her know my incentive request. She says she will check with the supervisor and placed me on hold. She returns and tells me I have to call Kern to schedule and gives me a phone number. I'm frustrated because the other scheduler told me to call him to assign, not Kern. Anyway, I asked the girl who I should ask for at Kern, and she says.... "Kern." I said, "No, I mean, who at Kern should I ask for?" She replied, "His name is Kern." I wanted to correct her and tell her that that's the company, not the person, but I let it go. I just thought that was funny

So I called "Kern," and get the voicemail of a guy, whose name was not Kern lol. He calls me back and says that he will assign it to me. I said again that I was calling because I wanted to request an incentive (otherwise, I would've self-assigned on the website). I was then told that I need to contact Maritz for any incentive requests because he can't approve them.

None of this makes any sense to me. I think I'll stick with their clients who are still scheduled in-house.

tlt14.....that's hysterical!