Hello Everyone,
I'm not much of a poster but I frequently read the boards and learn a lot from your contributions. I finally have something that I feel may be helpful to others so I'm sharing. I am not a full time mystery shopper but I have consistently been doing a few shops a month since I was in college (nearly a decade ago). I have done a total of 7 shops with Ath Power. The first was in December of 2014 and the last was in February of 2015. Until recently, every single one of my shops was graded and I had all 10's and one 9 I think. I mostly dealt with Jason Ladieu, who was always very sweet and polite. One day, I applied for a route of 3 bank shops. These were with a different scheduler, Katie Puglia. Ath Power does not provide clear guidelines or information about their shop limits. You can do up to 3 shops per day for some clients and only 1 for others. All three of my applications were accepted but for different days. I got the following email from the scheduler:
Hi there,
You were scheduled two shops on the same day. It is one shop per day, so I rescheduled one for the 18th. Please confirm if this works for you!
Thank you!
Katie
_____________
I immediately replied and explained that I was under the impression that I could do a route and if that is not the case, can they please cancel. I received cancellation confirmation from Mary Beth Crowley right away and I thought that was the end of this issue. On 2/21, I got an email from Katie Puglia asking if I was available to do some bonused shops. I logged into my Ath Power account to see if there was more information posted and that is when I noticed that all my shop grades had disappeared and my average rating was a 1 instead of a 10. I replied to Katie's email saying that I could do one of the shops but there was a problem with my account and I wanted to resolve it first. I asked her if she knew anything about it. She said she did not but promised to look into it and get back to me. When I did not hear back from her, I reached out to Jason to see if he could provide me contact information for someone that may be able to help. He was kind enough to forward my email to Mary Beth Crowley, who sent me the following email the same day:
Hi [my name],
I will have to look but ratings are usually lowered if there is a last minute cancellation and if a scheduler has to email you to ask you about an overdue shop. You will still get shops when you are rated a 1 but the scheduler will know to send reminders so that the shops are done and entered on time. If you last minute cancel a few times it will be noted and then you might not get as many shops.
Mary Beth
_____________
This was the reply I sent her on 2/22:
Hello Mary Beth,
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I do not think cancellation should be an issue with my account. I did cancel 3 shops last week but that is because I had applied for a route of 3 per day and was told that I could only do one. When I got an email from the scheduler explaining this, I asked to cancel immediately because I had applied without being aware of this rule (it was not listed on the shop information). To be honest, I think penalizing me or any other shopper is extremely unfair in this situation because a lot of times, it is only cost effective to do particular shops because they can be done in groups. For example, there are areas where I pay tolls of as high as $7.50 to get to and drive 60-70 miles. One $17 shop would not be worth it but 3 might be. When a shopper applies for 3 shops and gets 1, schedulers should be accepting of cancellations.
I have had to reschedule a couple of shops because of the heavy snow in the NYC region the past couple of months but I always completed them at the earliest possible timing and kept schedulers informed. Five of the six shops I completed had 10/10 ratings and the remaining was a 9/10. Even if I was being penalized, why would the scores of previously completed and graded shops be subject to change?
I realize that you are just informing me of the possible scenarios that may have gone wrong with my account and this may not necessarily be the case, but I thought I would take a moment to explain. Hope you had a wonderful weekend and are staying warm if you are in the Boston area!
_____________
When I did not receive a reply by 2/24, I sent out another follow up email to Mary Beth:
Hello Mary Beth,
I was wondering if you found out anything further about what happened to my account? Thank you,
[my name]
_____________
In the meantime, on the same day, I had gotten an email asking to clarify some things on a shop I had completed nearly a month ago. It had already been graded a 10/10 but that morning, I got an email (from Cheryl Bacon) asking for clarification. I was about to leave home for work so after a few emails back and forth, I decided to call her so we could resolve the issue. Ellen Barkhouse answered the telephone and and I asked for contact information for Cheryl and Mary Beth. She was able to provide it for Cheryl but not for Mary Beth as she was not working out of the office. She asked if she could help me with anything and when I explained the issue to her, she said she can see on her system that Mary Beth is the one who changed my shop ratings so she is the best person to speak with and she would try to get a hold of her. Next, I spoke with Cheryl. I was able to provide the information she needed about the shop and after that issue was resolved, I asked her about Ath Power policy regarding shopper ratings. I explained to her that mine had been lowered without explanation and although I was waiting to hear back from Mary Beth with a definitive answer regarding why, I was curious to know if it was because of the cancellation. Cheryl told me that based on what I had told her, I should not be penalized for canceling. Soon after hanging up with her, I got the following email from Mary Beth:
[My name],
Please stop calling people and emailing everyone about the ratings. You took shops that we close to you and then cancelled all of them because you could not have three shops. I also see that a scheduler had to contact you to see if a shop had been completed. We also lower ratings when shopper require too much communication, We have hundreds of shoppers and are on a deadline and we do not have extra time. You were booked a shop to complete now so you see that you will still get shops.
We need shoppers that take shops and complete them on time with a minimum of communication. It may sound harsh. But that is what we need.
Mary Beth
________________
My reply, which I copied Cheryl to as she is a manager:
Hello Mary Beth,
I am surprised with the tone of your email since I have been nothing but polite and professional in our email exchange. The reason I called and emailed "everyone" about the ratings is because it has proven difficult to get in touch with you. When I asked you why the ratings had been lowered, you provided a generalized answer and said you would have to look into my account to tell me what happened. I never heard back from you after that.
I have only been doing shops with ath Power since December so I am not always aware what the policies are regarding the number of shops that you can do per day. The limits are not posted in the shop information, which they really should be. As you mentioned, I did apply for three shops. I cancelled all of them when I was told that I could only do one. I do not see why this is an issue. If anything, when you or a scheduler sees a shopper apply for 3 shops and can not grant them, it would make sense to confirm they want just one. In NYC, there are tolls just to get in and out of certain areas, not to mention parking fees. One bonused $17 shop may not be worth the $7.50 I have to pay at times but 3 may be.
I also do not understand your comment about shoppers requiring too much communication. I had an average rating of 10 and you have lowered it to a 1. Do you honestly not expect a shopper to care about that? I work hard on the shops I do and take pride in them. My ratings reflected that. Even if you did decide to penalize me in some way, how does it make sense to erase ratings for shops that I have already completed? I always reply to emails as quickly as possible. As a [my job], I have other responsibilities throughout my day that do not allow me to be on the phone/computer 24 hours a day. I do not mind getting phone calls from schedulers but a lot of times, they email and then call right away. I always get back to them as quickly as possible. I have mostly worked with Jason Ladieu and more recently, Kathy Puglia. I have found both of them to be very pleasant and professional.
One of the great benefits of living in NYC is that there are more MSC's and job opportunities than I could hope for. I make it a point to work with the ones where I respect the schedulers and feel respected by them in turn. Until my interaction with you, ath Power topped my list. I understand that you have "hundreds of shoppers," but if you would like to keep them, please try to remember that there are actual human beings behind these numbers. They work hard for your company and are worthy of your respect.
Cheryl, I have copied you in this email because you are a manager. I have always enjoyed providing feedback on my interactions with different businesses so I thought you may be interested in getting some from a (now former) shopper with your company. After I complete the shop I have already committed to for today, I will no longer be shopping for ath Power. Life is too short to have to risk dealing with the type of behavior and lack of respect I have received from Mary Beth. As she pointed out, I can continue to be assigned shops with my "one" rating. However, why should I? It will only be a matter of time before something like this happens again. I am lucky that I have the luxury and option to walk away from the company. Another shopper may not and I would hate for them to be treated similarly.
____________________
Mary Beth's reply:
[My name],
While we are sorry to see you go, I have been polite and frank with you. Are you still going to complete the shop on your log? I will be happy to remove it from your log but please let me know right away so we can get another shopper for the location.
Mary Beth
____________________
Cheryl's reply:
Thank you! [I am deleting a sentence regarding a shop clarification to protect client confidentiality].
I appreciate your fast response and I would really love to keep you as a shopper.
I know we got off to a rocky start but I would like to ask for one more chance to prove that we are a great company to work for.
Please let me if there is anything I can do to encourage you to continue shopping for us.
Thanks,
Cheryl
____________________
My reply:
Hello Cheryl,
I am happy to see that you got this shop wrapped up. As for continuing to shop with you- I think there would be no point in doing that unless Ath Power decides to change how they treat shoppers. Mary Beth decided to delete my shop scores on what appears to be nothing more than a whim. My rating remains a 1 even though it was a 10 before. How is that justified? If I continue to shop with you, I have no reason to think that would not happen again. Neither Mary Beth, nor anyone else from the company has acknowledged the unprofessionalism of her email communication or her actions. In fact, in the email she sent me, she described her behavior as "polite and frank."
I was also disappointed to see that the shop I initially had scheduled for yesterday was cancelled until the [shop location] issue was resolved. It would be one thing if I had done something wrong. I had not- you simply needed further clarification. I have been asked for clarifications many times by other companies. They have never blocked me from completing other shops/cancelled shops in the mean time. This is especially troubling because as you acknowledged yourself, I have been fast with my responses. In fact, I had already responded to your email when I got the shop cancellation email. I always aim to be fair and professional when working with a company. In return, I deserve and expect those who I work with to treat me the same way. Unfortunately, Ath Power has utterly failed in this department.
Even though I have not received a satisfactory response to the issues I addressed, I really do hope you take the time to evaluate how shoppers are being treated. If you look up company feedback on mysteryshopforum.com, you will see that I am not the only one who has a problem with how the company interacts with shoppers.
___________________
I know this is a super long post but I always see members asking posters for additional details so I figured I'd provide everything up front. Feel free to skim.
I'm not much of a poster but I frequently read the boards and learn a lot from your contributions. I finally have something that I feel may be helpful to others so I'm sharing. I am not a full time mystery shopper but I have consistently been doing a few shops a month since I was in college (nearly a decade ago). I have done a total of 7 shops with Ath Power. The first was in December of 2014 and the last was in February of 2015. Until recently, every single one of my shops was graded and I had all 10's and one 9 I think. I mostly dealt with Jason Ladieu, who was always very sweet and polite. One day, I applied for a route of 3 bank shops. These were with a different scheduler, Katie Puglia. Ath Power does not provide clear guidelines or information about their shop limits. You can do up to 3 shops per day for some clients and only 1 for others. All three of my applications were accepted but for different days. I got the following email from the scheduler:
Hi there,
You were scheduled two shops on the same day. It is one shop per day, so I rescheduled one for the 18th. Please confirm if this works for you!
Thank you!
Katie
_____________
I immediately replied and explained that I was under the impression that I could do a route and if that is not the case, can they please cancel. I received cancellation confirmation from Mary Beth Crowley right away and I thought that was the end of this issue. On 2/21, I got an email from Katie Puglia asking if I was available to do some bonused shops. I logged into my Ath Power account to see if there was more information posted and that is when I noticed that all my shop grades had disappeared and my average rating was a 1 instead of a 10. I replied to Katie's email saying that I could do one of the shops but there was a problem with my account and I wanted to resolve it first. I asked her if she knew anything about it. She said she did not but promised to look into it and get back to me. When I did not hear back from her, I reached out to Jason to see if he could provide me contact information for someone that may be able to help. He was kind enough to forward my email to Mary Beth Crowley, who sent me the following email the same day:
Hi [my name],
I will have to look but ratings are usually lowered if there is a last minute cancellation and if a scheduler has to email you to ask you about an overdue shop. You will still get shops when you are rated a 1 but the scheduler will know to send reminders so that the shops are done and entered on time. If you last minute cancel a few times it will be noted and then you might not get as many shops.
Mary Beth
_____________
This was the reply I sent her on 2/22:
Hello Mary Beth,
Thank you for taking the time to reply. I do not think cancellation should be an issue with my account. I did cancel 3 shops last week but that is because I had applied for a route of 3 per day and was told that I could only do one. When I got an email from the scheduler explaining this, I asked to cancel immediately because I had applied without being aware of this rule (it was not listed on the shop information). To be honest, I think penalizing me or any other shopper is extremely unfair in this situation because a lot of times, it is only cost effective to do particular shops because they can be done in groups. For example, there are areas where I pay tolls of as high as $7.50 to get to and drive 60-70 miles. One $17 shop would not be worth it but 3 might be. When a shopper applies for 3 shops and gets 1, schedulers should be accepting of cancellations.
I have had to reschedule a couple of shops because of the heavy snow in the NYC region the past couple of months but I always completed them at the earliest possible timing and kept schedulers informed. Five of the six shops I completed had 10/10 ratings and the remaining was a 9/10. Even if I was being penalized, why would the scores of previously completed and graded shops be subject to change?
I realize that you are just informing me of the possible scenarios that may have gone wrong with my account and this may not necessarily be the case, but I thought I would take a moment to explain. Hope you had a wonderful weekend and are staying warm if you are in the Boston area!
_____________
When I did not receive a reply by 2/24, I sent out another follow up email to Mary Beth:
Hello Mary Beth,
I was wondering if you found out anything further about what happened to my account? Thank you,
[my name]
_____________
In the meantime, on the same day, I had gotten an email asking to clarify some things on a shop I had completed nearly a month ago. It had already been graded a 10/10 but that morning, I got an email (from Cheryl Bacon) asking for clarification. I was about to leave home for work so after a few emails back and forth, I decided to call her so we could resolve the issue. Ellen Barkhouse answered the telephone and and I asked for contact information for Cheryl and Mary Beth. She was able to provide it for Cheryl but not for Mary Beth as she was not working out of the office. She asked if she could help me with anything and when I explained the issue to her, she said she can see on her system that Mary Beth is the one who changed my shop ratings so she is the best person to speak with and she would try to get a hold of her. Next, I spoke with Cheryl. I was able to provide the information she needed about the shop and after that issue was resolved, I asked her about Ath Power policy regarding shopper ratings. I explained to her that mine had been lowered without explanation and although I was waiting to hear back from Mary Beth with a definitive answer regarding why, I was curious to know if it was because of the cancellation. Cheryl told me that based on what I had told her, I should not be penalized for canceling. Soon after hanging up with her, I got the following email from Mary Beth:
[My name],
Please stop calling people and emailing everyone about the ratings. You took shops that we close to you and then cancelled all of them because you could not have three shops. I also see that a scheduler had to contact you to see if a shop had been completed. We also lower ratings when shopper require too much communication, We have hundreds of shoppers and are on a deadline and we do not have extra time. You were booked a shop to complete now so you see that you will still get shops.
We need shoppers that take shops and complete them on time with a minimum of communication. It may sound harsh. But that is what we need.
Mary Beth
________________
My reply, which I copied Cheryl to as she is a manager:
Hello Mary Beth,
I am surprised with the tone of your email since I have been nothing but polite and professional in our email exchange. The reason I called and emailed "everyone" about the ratings is because it has proven difficult to get in touch with you. When I asked you why the ratings had been lowered, you provided a generalized answer and said you would have to look into my account to tell me what happened. I never heard back from you after that.
I have only been doing shops with ath Power since December so I am not always aware what the policies are regarding the number of shops that you can do per day. The limits are not posted in the shop information, which they really should be. As you mentioned, I did apply for three shops. I cancelled all of them when I was told that I could only do one. I do not see why this is an issue. If anything, when you or a scheduler sees a shopper apply for 3 shops and can not grant them, it would make sense to confirm they want just one. In NYC, there are tolls just to get in and out of certain areas, not to mention parking fees. One bonused $17 shop may not be worth the $7.50 I have to pay at times but 3 may be.
I also do not understand your comment about shoppers requiring too much communication. I had an average rating of 10 and you have lowered it to a 1. Do you honestly not expect a shopper to care about that? I work hard on the shops I do and take pride in them. My ratings reflected that. Even if you did decide to penalize me in some way, how does it make sense to erase ratings for shops that I have already completed? I always reply to emails as quickly as possible. As a [my job], I have other responsibilities throughout my day that do not allow me to be on the phone/computer 24 hours a day. I do not mind getting phone calls from schedulers but a lot of times, they email and then call right away. I always get back to them as quickly as possible. I have mostly worked with Jason Ladieu and more recently, Kathy Puglia. I have found both of them to be very pleasant and professional.
One of the great benefits of living in NYC is that there are more MSC's and job opportunities than I could hope for. I make it a point to work with the ones where I respect the schedulers and feel respected by them in turn. Until my interaction with you, ath Power topped my list. I understand that you have "hundreds of shoppers," but if you would like to keep them, please try to remember that there are actual human beings behind these numbers. They work hard for your company and are worthy of your respect.
Cheryl, I have copied you in this email because you are a manager. I have always enjoyed providing feedback on my interactions with different businesses so I thought you may be interested in getting some from a (now former) shopper with your company. After I complete the shop I have already committed to for today, I will no longer be shopping for ath Power. Life is too short to have to risk dealing with the type of behavior and lack of respect I have received from Mary Beth. As she pointed out, I can continue to be assigned shops with my "one" rating. However, why should I? It will only be a matter of time before something like this happens again. I am lucky that I have the luxury and option to walk away from the company. Another shopper may not and I would hate for them to be treated similarly.
____________________
Mary Beth's reply:
[My name],
While we are sorry to see you go, I have been polite and frank with you. Are you still going to complete the shop on your log? I will be happy to remove it from your log but please let me know right away so we can get another shopper for the location.
Mary Beth
____________________
Cheryl's reply:
Thank you! [I am deleting a sentence regarding a shop clarification to protect client confidentiality].
I appreciate your fast response and I would really love to keep you as a shopper.
I know we got off to a rocky start but I would like to ask for one more chance to prove that we are a great company to work for.
Please let me if there is anything I can do to encourage you to continue shopping for us.
Thanks,
Cheryl
____________________
My reply:
Hello Cheryl,
I am happy to see that you got this shop wrapped up. As for continuing to shop with you- I think there would be no point in doing that unless Ath Power decides to change how they treat shoppers. Mary Beth decided to delete my shop scores on what appears to be nothing more than a whim. My rating remains a 1 even though it was a 10 before. How is that justified? If I continue to shop with you, I have no reason to think that would not happen again. Neither Mary Beth, nor anyone else from the company has acknowledged the unprofessionalism of her email communication or her actions. In fact, in the email she sent me, she described her behavior as "polite and frank."
I was also disappointed to see that the shop I initially had scheduled for yesterday was cancelled until the [shop location] issue was resolved. It would be one thing if I had done something wrong. I had not- you simply needed further clarification. I have been asked for clarifications many times by other companies. They have never blocked me from completing other shops/cancelled shops in the mean time. This is especially troubling because as you acknowledged yourself, I have been fast with my responses. In fact, I had already responded to your email when I got the shop cancellation email. I always aim to be fair and professional when working with a company. In return, I deserve and expect those who I work with to treat me the same way. Unfortunately, Ath Power has utterly failed in this department.
Even though I have not received a satisfactory response to the issues I addressed, I really do hope you take the time to evaluate how shoppers are being treated. If you look up company feedback on mysteryshopforum.com, you will see that I am not the only one who has a problem with how the company interacts with shoppers.
___________________
I know this is a super long post but I always see members asking posters for additional details so I figured I'd provide everything up front. Feel free to skim.