I have done numerous shops for IntelliShop with a few 10's scattered around but mostly 8's cuz of them having to "contact me" for some kind of clarification or another (in their opinion) and I would like to share the latest nugget from them.

This has to do with a credit union shop where I was tasked to inquire about the procedures in opening an account.

The credit union representative stated that one of the requirements was to open an account with a minimum of $5.00 to be placed in a savings account and I duly reported this as a requirement.

Here is what the IntelliShop editor sent to me...

What account can you open with $5 in a savings account?

Any comments?

It's a valid question, if there are multiple types of savings account available at this credit union.

My credit union has a "Young Investors" savings account, a "Second Chance" savings account, tied to a "Second Chance" checking account, etc... I think they have four or five options for savings account, and the "Young Investors" one has a minimum of $1 to open, and it's the only one that does not have to be tied to a checking account.

If it's not a special type of savings account, with a name, then just reply "Just a regular savings account."

I'm not sure I would consider it to be a valid question because $5.00 is usually a typical credit union requirement to qualify as a "member". The editor should know that without (ding, ding), deducting 2 points for contacting you.

(heart)

Intellishop always finds a reason to contact you or finds "numerous grammatical errors". I write law briefs every day that go to the highest courts in my state. I KNOW they are not finding "numerous" grammatical errors. I have written back and asked them to specify what errors they located. Only when I persistently followed up did they change the grade....to a 9. Eye roll. I learned long ago to not pay too much attention to the grade...the pay is the same anyway!

I had a streak of 8's and 9's for awhile, but could find no errors in my narratives. I proofread, spell-checked in different programs, nothing! In a fit of snittiness brought on by God only knows what, I included at the end, in the "Comment to Us" part... "Here's sumthing to eddit to justify that 8 your gonna give me."

I got a 10.

BBird0701 Wrote:
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> I included at the end, in the
> "Comment to Us" part... "Here's sumthing to eddit
> to justify that 8 your gonna give me."


We have a winner! Good night everybody. Drive safely.

BBird0701- That is probably the most epic post I have read. EVER.

Mbrookes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BBird0701- That is probably the most epic post I
> have read. EVER.


I am normally a lot more professional, but... I think I suffered from the MS version of "going postal" that night.
I blame it on lack of sleep and teething babies, but surprisingly, I never heard a word about it.
Plus, I finally got that all magical, mythical, Loch Ness monster Intellishop 10. Since then, I've gotten more, but... that was my first.

After a very rough day, boy did I need that laugh!

I must just get lucky with the right editors ... I almost always get 10s from Intellishop.

Which kind of surprises me after hearing from everyone around here.

I got a 6 on a report because they had to contact me numerous times with no reply from me (their emails came from bouncing boxes, the scheduler never replied to my emails and I tried calling them twice) then I just hell with it and scanned the info the way it printed out from their form and uploaded it that way, they lowered the score to 6 because I didn't crop the scans and paste them back together the way they wanted.
They should have formated their report better for printing if they wanted it that way. It has lowered my overall score down to 8 with that 6.

I received my first 8 from them today. All other scores have been 10s from the beginning. Here is what was in the comments:

"Your report has been finalized. Thank you for providing additional information. Two points were deducted from your final score because we had to contact you for additional information. Otherwise, your comments were well-written and detailed, providing us a clear understanding of what happened during your visit. Please keep up the nice work!"

Not only did the editor point out why my score was low, but complimented the things I did well and left an encouraging remark. I think other editors should take note if they're not doing it this way. Not only am I not upset about my first low score, I feel that I deserved the deduction and I feel encouraged and determined to do better the next time.

Is this NOT what others are seeing? Did I just get a good editor? This should be the norm.

I mostly get the generic:

Shop Grade: 10

Comments: Your report has been finalized. Thank you for submitting it with all the required information. It was well written with good supporting comments. Keep up the great work!

A few times I get a grace one:

Shop Grade: 10

Comments: Hello (my name)

Thank you for submitting this report. After editing, it looks great. Thanks again, keep up the great work!

That one was a little weird because I had to use a lot of exact quotes and the salesman did great (in my opinion) but his wording was really blunt, to the point, and a bit unorthodox. It fit with the nature of the shop, though, to have him be passionate about the motorcycles he sells, so... I think maybe that's why they edited it, to smooth over his wording. I still got a 10 though.

8/10 = B
9/10 = A

If you received a 7 or less, I can understand trying to find out what went wrong in your report. But if you're complaining about not receiving straight 10's and have some 9's and 8's out there, c'mon now. You're still getting paid and keeping a good relationship with your schedulers is more important than wondering what went horribly wrong that dropped your score to an 8 or 9.

I do understand that some MSC's put restrictions and require shoppers to have a minimum average score to self-assigned or apply (some I've seen as low as 6; some I've seen as high as 9), so I can somewhat see why people are complaining.

Having once relied on MS as sole income, a streak of 8's for the same shop, with no explanation, kept me up sometimes with worry. I was so afraid of either a) being told one day that I'm cut off from the shop because I just don't "get it" after numerous times, or b) another shopper moving into my area who somehow got those magical 10's on that shop, and being given preferential treatment for them when it came time for assignment. At the time, there was a very limited number of types of shops I could perform due to my age and time of day availability, so every single one that I could do mattered greatly to me.

I don't let one get to me. But when I reach a point of 3-4 in a row where I'm getting an 8 and can't figure out why... I email and ask. I want to produce top-notch quality work and if I haven't figured out where I went wrong by the first few, then it's time for me to ask.

While improving yourself is always something we all should be doing, we have to understand the kind of industry we are in. In this industry, as independent contractors, we rely on the MSC as the other set of eyes and the quality check. The reality is, minor mistakes will be made here and there. We have to decide how much time, especially with the assignments with extremely long narratives, to spend and thoroughly quality check to obtain those perfect 10's every single time. Is it worth spending double your time to thoroughly back check your work? Sure it is. But if the 1-2 point dings are for minor issues such as grammar or an incorrect input, I don't believe it's worth fussing over. If it's a misinterpretation or a mistake you made in the guideline, I understand the need to find out what's wrong.

I guess I'm giving too much benefit of the doubt with the IntelliShop schedulers when I'm scored 8 or 9, but not given any additional feedback on why. When that happens, I've always assumed it were minor fix-ups the editor caught during the QC.

That's what I mean. When I have a bunch of the same shops and I'm getting an 8 on each one... but 10's on all other shops from the same MSC, I don't chalk it up to minor grammar issues. I feel it's something I keep leaving out. If they don't explain by the third or fourth one, and I can't figure it out, I ask why.

There's one I FINALLY figured out why I was getting that 8. I kept overlooking one of the Yes/No questions I was to reiterate in my narrative. In my defense, the Yes/No question was waaaay up at the top of the report form and the applicable narrative I was to have included it in (I guess) was waaaay at the bottom and about four long narratives and a slew of other Yes/No questions later.

I'd rather send off a 30 second email and ask, than spend double my time spell-checking when it wasn't a grammar issue, but just a poor report layout, and something obvious to them but not obvious to me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2014 11:58PM by BBird0701.

I was just saying that I thought it was nice of them to include the comments when clearly I was at fault for omitting information from my report. It wasn't necessary and I thought they were quite generous.

I can understand editors not commenting on every ding. For example, when I'm typing fast I sometimes type "and" instead of "an". I know the difference, my fingers are just doing more of thinking than my brain at that point. There are other things that are obviously typographical errors that I feel need no comment. If it were something like not understanding the difference between homonyms, then I think an editor should point it out, time permitting, or they'll see the same thing happening over and over again.

Tarantado Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> While improving yourself is always something we
> all should be doing, we have to understand the
> kind of industry we are in. In this industry, as
> independent contractors, we rely on the MSC as the
> other set of eyes and the quality check. The
> reality is, minor mistakes will be made here and
> there. We have to decide how much time, especially
> with the assignments with extremely long
> narratives, to spend and thoroughly quality check
> to obtain those perfect 10's every single time. Is
> it worth spending double your time to thoroughly
> back check your work? Sure it is. But if the 1-2
> point dings are for minor issues such as grammar
> or an incorrect input, I don't believe it's worth
> fussing over. If it's a misinterpretation or a
> mistake you made in the guideline, I understand
> the need to find out what's wrong.
>
> I guess I'm giving too much benefit of the doubt
> with the IntelliShop schedulers when I'm scored 8
> or 9, but not given any additional feedback on
> why. When that happens, I've always assumed it
> were minor fix-ups the editor caught during the
> QC.



I'm all for improving myself I strive to do so every, but if you are dinging my score without telling me where I am making a mistake how do I improve?

It's part of the difference between being a contractor and an employee. Your client (the MSC) has no obligation to teach you how to do your job. It's annoying, of course, and counter-productive, certainly, but in order to correct you, they would have to spend their time writing a paragraph telling you what you did wrong. Since the MSC isn't paying the editor to be your teacher and you're not paying the editor to be your teacher, the editor has no reason to bother.

Also ... if shoppers produced perfect reports all the time ... the editors would be out of a job. So they have an incentive *not* to help us improve.


Consider this: I'm an accountant. I have clients for whom I reconcile their bank account every month for a flat fee. If I go in and find that they did everything perfectly except they routinely forgot to enter their automatic debits every month, I can choose to fix them and say nothing, fix them and say, "You forgot your debits again" or I could spend twenty minutes of unpaid time teaching them how to automate the entry of the debits on Quickbooks, so they post automatically on the correct date.

Why would I do that? If that's the only reason they need me to reconcile their account, if I teach them how to do that, what do they need me for any more?

I have a policy of not teaching my clients how to do my job. If they want me to teach them to use Quickbooks, I'll tutor them on a per-hour basis.

I expect the editors are more interested in their own job security than they are in what your average score is.

I received a message from Intell-shop on my last shop telling me thy wanted a better explanation of why the experience was better than my previous visits. All I done was add this statement, "I rated this shop a little better because of the following." and for that they dinged me 2 points. All of my shops had been 10 till that. Oh well.

Very good points Dspeakes.

2stepps, there may have been more that they "dinged" you on than you realize.

dspeakes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's part of the difference between being a
> contractor and an employee. Your client (the MSC)
> has no obligation to teach you how to do your job.
> It's annoying, of course, and counter-productive,
> certainly, but in order to correct you, they would
> have to spend their time writing a paragraph
> telling you what you did wrong. Since the MSC
> isn't paying the editor to be your teacher and
> you're not paying the editor to be your teacher,
> the editor has no reason to bother.
>
> Also ... if shoppers produced perfect reports all
> the time ... the editors would be out of a job.
> So they have an incentive *not* to help us
> improve.
>
>
> Consider this: I'm an accountant. I have clients
> for whom I reconcile their bank account every
> month for a flat fee. If I go in and find that
> they did everything perfectly except they
> routinely forgot to enter their automatic debits
> every month, I can choose to fix them and say
> nothing, fix them and say, "You forgot your debits
> again" or I could spend twenty minutes of unpaid
> time teaching them how to automate the entry of
> the debits on Quickbooks, so they post
> automatically on the correct date.
>
> Why would I do that? If that's the only reason
> they need me to reconcile their account, if I
> teach them how to do that, what do they need me
> for any more?
>
> I have a policy of not teaching my clients how to
> do my job. If they want me to teach them to use
> Quickbooks, I'll tutor them on a per-hour basis.
>
>
> I expect the editors are more interested in their
> own job security than they are in what your
> average score is.


I understand your point but if their system of dinging without telling the IC's what they are doing wrong is making them lose IC's then they are defeating the purpose anyway. I know that I barely shop with them, not jut because of the picky editors, but the picky editors that don't tell me where I'm going wrong and the fees are low to boot. It's just not worth the deflation to the ego sometime.

I have also had my problems with the editors at intelli-shop. On one report they asked me to clarify an answer had given...but it was already clarifed...so I just reworded the sentence and it was fine...sooo stupid and a big waste of my time. They are always saying that I have grammatical errors as well and I know better...also they keep telling me not not use the word seemed in my reports because it takes away from my credibility...how does that take away from anything??? When I said that it seems as if he was distracted...If I dont know for 100% what is going on I will use the word seems because otherwise to me, that would be lying or streching the truth...I rfuse to do that because I am not only working to help the client...I do not want to get an employee in trouble for something that wasn't true...

dspeakes – Regardless on whether the the shopper reports are perfect every time (which is impossible), QC is always be required (or it should be) to maintain quality.

teagirl422 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have also had my problems with the editors at
> intelli-shop. On one report they asked me to
> clarify an answer had given...but it was already
> clarifed...so I just reworded the sentence and it
> was fine...sooo stupid and a big waste of my time.
> They are always saying that I have grammatical
> errors as well and I know better...also they keep
> telling me not not use the word seemed in my
> reports because it takes away from my
> credibility...how does that take away from
> anything??? When I said that it seems as if he was
> distracted...If I dont know for 100% what is going
> on I will use the word seems because otherwise to
> me, that would be lying or streching the truth...I
> rfuse to do that because I am not only working to
> help the client...I do not want to get an employee
> in trouble for something that wasn't true...

"Seemed" creates speculation. If you're not definite that you observed something during your shop, you shouldn't answer it and state you couldn't observe it. Sometimes, the MSC will just have you answer "Yes," as "Yes" would be nothing against them, while "No" is almost always a negative point.

For some cases, I understand where you're coming from for subjective questions like "Did the associate appear happy and enjoying themselves?" For those cases, you just have to report as objective as you can, whether it be the associate's posture, tone of voice, eye contact, etc.

I *seems* to me that "seemed" can denote your opinion while "behaved" can be a stronger way of saying basically the same thing. Perhaps try that next time and see if it flies?

Tarantado--yes, quality control needs to be maintained--but on both sides. I have not been able to find any rhyme or reason to the scores they hand out, and that in itself is a quality control issue on their side. Informing us of what we did wrong is part of the quality control. They are not "teaching" us our job, they are helping us understand what their particular company wants to see in a report. Since every MSC wants something different, there is nothing wrong with clarifying. Most of my scores are 10's from IS, but the smattering of 8's and even a 7 just makes no sense. In the 7 they edited out much of what I wrote. It was an unusual situation and I tried to clarify that as much as possible. It was sent back to me asking me for more details, specifically information that they edited out of my original submission. It is just frustrating. I have also been dinged for other "grammatical" issues and have asked for clarification--once I got an answer--the editor was wrong in what they changed...I just shook my head and moved along .

Parkcitybrian,

I have shopped many credit unions. As far as I know you open a Savings account with them to become a member. Different from regular banking. Yes you only need to open one with a few dollars. I would call a Credit Union and get the specifics of what a Credit Union is about. Also, if you ask about opening account in N.H. you must live in that state. I'm not sure if this applies to all states or not.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2014 05:36PM by ggeorge.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2014 05:37PM by ggeorge.