Intellishop

I am curious to hear what people think about Intellishop. I don't mind being held to a high standard. But it seems to me that they don't necessarily pay all that well, they ask for a lot of description and often make you provide narratives by category and then again provide a full narrative at the end. They seem overly critical in their report evaluations and when I tried to write to them to give feedback and get a clearer understanding I was pretty much told that if I don't like it I can shop somewhere else.

Now I am completely open to the idea that maybe I just have not submitted my best work to them. But I don't recall experiencing so much negativity from one company and am just curious if others have had different experiences with them?

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Intellishop is an okay company. They are very clear on what they want and they pay on time. Grading of reports is inscrutable and inconsistent but as long as you can self assign and you get paid it's not something to get concerned about. They don't communicate well on the ins and outs and whys and wherefores of their grading but once you get over it you'll be fine. Just accept that most of your reports will not be tens and you will have several grammatical errors and you need to be more careful of your speeling, gammer, and sentence constriction.

Mary Davis Nowell. Based close to Fort Worth. Shopping Interstate 20 east and west, Interstate 35 north and south.

Intellishop is one of the more established companies that doesn't have to pay very well and can still demand high-quality work because it has a bigger available labor pool. Without fail I've found that smaller companies tend to pay better because they have less bargaining power.

With intellishop the secret is to wait until they bonus a shop that you want. Then the pay will be commensurate with the amount of work required.

I have done a very detailed and well written assisted living shop for them. This required a 10 mile drive and an 1 1/2 hr. of the evaluation on-site. The pay was already at a bonus status of $35.00. Phone call and on-site in one. I had given it my all. Though they asked twice for more edits and added narratives, which I could no longer provide as I performed and given them the excellent report. The editor was anal and wanted more narratives. Though after her 3rd request, I could not give in to the ridiculous demand. I was paid, though on their score, the editor stated due to the fact that I ignored their 3rd request, I was given a citation, and a 3 rating

My grading is up again and able to self-assign, though I only choose easy assignments from them, and they are the last ones on my list.
If nothing else is cooking, I will do Intel-Shop, with the bonus. They are more so the last resort, as comparing the work, time, and demands, does not equal the pay.

You can't make everyone happy, you're not pizza!!!

If you do a search you'll find a lot of discussion about intellishop. Most of it negative. Actually, until I read this thread I have never seen anything positive written about intellishop.

I have shopped for Intelli 35 times since 2010. I only shop highly bonused shops for them. My average pay is $55. I would only shop an assisted living shop for $60 or more. I would shop more for them, but based on my experience with at least one of their editors I won't shop an assisted living again or any other narrative heavy shop. I must say my average is a 9. Most shops are $75, few and far between. They pay on time. I would like to shop their hotel shops, but they never get back to me about questions I have. I will not commit unless I know for sure what they want. Their reputation is not good.

ishop2getpaid
I fully understand what you are talking about for the assisted living for Intelli. I would never do that shop for $35 and you said that was bonused? I must have had the same editor. I was called a liar by the editor, I got furious after her 4th request. I reported her to her superiors, got paid, and they removed her remarks from my log. She gave me a 7.

I have had basically good experience with Intellishop though a few editors were something else. They pay on time but they very seldom have shops that's interesting for me lately.

Intellishop is paying half on the senior living shops- even with the bonus. There is another company that does the senior living shops that pay $75 for the shop - and that is without bonus. When they needed a third shop done that was a bit further from my home, they wrote to me and offered $100.

There were a couple of follow up questions for clarification, but they were not nit pickers about it.

@Man of Mystery wrote:

I am curious to hear what people think about Intellishop. I don't mind being held to a high standard. But it seems to me that they don't necessarily pay all that well, they ask for a lot of description and often make you provide narratives by category and then again provide a full narrative at the end. They seem overly critical in their report evaluations and when I tried to write to them to give feedback and get a clearer understanding I was pretty much told that if I don't like it I can shop somewhere else.

Now I am completely open to the idea that maybe I just have not submitted my best work to them. But I don't recall experiencing so much negativity from one company and am just curious if others have had different experiences with them?

You have a fine understanding of this company. The only thing I can add is that your experiences are consistent with what is reported on the forum. Many people have learned to not let the feedback get under their skin because they pay on time and their shopper rating is likely no worse than other quality shoppers.

Happily shopping Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2015 03:43PM by vlade5394.

I disagree...they do NOT pay on time...or even pay at all, some of the time. It is just the greatest fear of the mystery shopper...to wait a month or more and still not get paid, and then to have to work multiple hours just to get a response from the MSC about why you didn't get paid. They hide behind their Ohio location, knowing that they can get any small claims court case or lawsuit moved to that jurisdiction, and what shopper is going to spend the money to get there and trey to squeeze a hundred bucks out of them?

I had an Intellishop scheduler put a bonus inside a hotel shop e-mail. When I accepted the offer, she scheduled me but dropped the bonus claiming it was a mistake. When I said I didn't want the shop without the bonus, she threatened me and said I should honor my commitment (I kid you not.).

My experience with Intelli-shop has been the same. I used take it personally until chatting with other Mystery Shopper folks and realized it wasn't me - it's them! Low pay and inconsistent editing. I tend to stay away from them, unless, like someone else said, there is a bonus which might make it worth my time/effort. THEN, just ignore the inane comments the editor makes about hair color, or whatever else they fixate on that day.

I usually only do their bonused shops because I think their basic rates are too low. I have done a few car sales shops for them and found the surveys narrative heavy. I usually get 9s and 10s on my reports, but had the last second to last one bounce back to me because I neglected to provided a final narrative that detailed the visit from start to end. It was pretty much a cut and paste job from other parts of the survey because the visit was already broken into divisions for greeting, sales, test drive, price. My last car sales job I did was submitted at the end of last week. So far nothing back from the editor, but we'll see...

My experience with IntelliShop has been completely atypical based on what I've read in threads here.

I have never had a report that I submitted returned for any reason.
I have always been paid on time for the shops that I've performed for them.
With rare exceptions, I have received 10's for every report I've submitted. The exceptions have been 9's.
When I've needed to contact schedulers, they've been helpful and extremely responsive.

I accidentally flaked on a shop last month. I sent an email to the scheduler as soon as I realized what I'd done, and she allowed me to do it the next day instead.

I'm really glad that I didn't let the reviews I read before signing up for IntelliShop scare me away. I have them to thank for my success, since they made me focus more on writing the narratives than I might have otherwise. The only thing I really don't like about IntelliShop is that they don't have a lot of shops I'm interested in right now. I really enjoy the tire company phone shops, and I'll occasionally take an oil change shop when my car needs it and I don't feel up to changing it myself, but that's about it.

I mainly work for IntelliShop for the convenience store shops, since there's so many of them in my area. The schedulers I worked with for those shops have been absolutely great and reasonable! I even planned out a nice $200+ route of shops this weekend, with just their shops alone! Can't wait to stock up my food and drink stash in my office next week from those shops.

Otherwise, I never really touch any of the other shops they offer, in my area. The food comparison shops were not bad either, but the food shops I've seen from them recently doesn't appeal to my taste at all though.

Shopping the Greater Denver Area, Colorado Springs and in-between in Colorado. 33 year old male and willing to travel!

@xenshopper wrote:

I usually only do their bonused shops because I think their basic rates are too low. I have done a few car sales shops for them and found the surveys narrative heavy. I usually get 9s and 10s on my reports, but had the last second to last one bounce back to me because I neglected to provided a final narrative that detailed the visit from start to end. It was pretty much a cut and paste job from other parts of the survey because the visit was already broken into divisions for greeting, sales, test drive, price. My last car sales job I did was submitted at the end of last week. So far nothing back from the editor, but we'll see...

I've noticed that the editors seemed to be taking a bit more time to review reports than they used to. I think the last three that I did took about 10 days before I received ratings for them, and they were graded on different days even though they were submitted within a few hours of each other. I'd wondered if it was due to the new recording requirements, but it seems to be an across the board thing. Good to know.

@Tarantado wrote:

I mainly work for IntelliShop for the convenience store shops, since there's so many of them in my area. The schedulers I worked with for those shops have been absolutely great and reasonable! I even planned out a nice $200+ route of shops this weekend, with just their shops alone! Can't wait to stock up my food and drink stash in my office next week from those shops.

Otherwise, I never really touch any of the other shops they offer, in my area. The food comparison shops were not bad either, but the food shops I've seen from them recently doesn't appeal to my taste at all though.

Tarantado????? I know what that means in my language.

You can't make everyone happy, you're not pizza!!!

I've shopped with Intellishop for several years. I can take it or leave it. Not a huge fan. I've done mostly pizza & gas station shops for them which are pretty easy but not much pay. I didn't like the comic book store assignment. I did a phone call for a daycare that required way too much narrative for the small pay.

They like to give scores of 8 and 9 without any specific reason.

They're ok. I wouldn't cry myself to sleep if I were ever to be deactivated.

I used to shop for them a LOT but got tired of the "crap"......and just don't any more.....

I have only completed a few shops for them. I started out with an 8 on a phone shop, which was my first phone shop for them. Now I get 10s with encouraging remarks.

"Thank you for your report. Your comments were well-written and detailed, providing us a clear understanding of what happened during your visit. Please keep up the nice work!"

I had to learn how they wanted their reports done. So there is hope if you want to do their shops.

@ishop2getpaid wrote:

Tarantado????? I know what that means in my language.

Hey! Ako rin, pare/mare!

Shopping the Greater Denver Area, Colorado Springs and in-between in Colorado. 33 year old male and willing to travel!

They have treated me pretty well, but then im able to laugh about the editors, grades, and herp bonuses.

~
up, up, down, down, left, right,left,right, B,A, start.

@frugalmommy wrote:

My experience with IntelliShop has been completely atypical based on what I've read in threads here.

I have never had a report that I submitted returned for any reason.
I have always been paid on time for the shops that I've performed for them.
With rare exceptions, I have received 10's for every report I've submitted. The exceptions have been 9's.
When I've needed to contact schedulers, they've been helpful and extremely responsive.

I accidentally flaked on a shop last month. I sent an email to the scheduler as soon as I realized what I'd done, and she allowed me to do it the next day instead.

I'm really glad that I didn't let the reviews I read before signing up for IntelliShop scare me away. I have them to thank for my success, since they made me focus more on writing the narratives than I might have otherwise. The only thing I really don't like about IntelliShop is that they don't have a lot of shops I'm interested in right now. I really enjoy the tire company phone shops, and I'll occasionally take an oil change shop when my car needs it and I don't feel up to changing it myself, but that's about it.

Exact same here. My biggest issue with Intelli-Shop is simply that they don't have many jobs in my area that I'm interested in. I don't like the pizza company they carry, and I never do gas stations. I did a new car test drive that paid well and didn't take long, and got a 10 rating and some very kind praise. The next month I was offered a good-paying airport shop by the scheduler, accepted it, and then found out I'd made a mistake in my planner and double-booked myself: I had to be on the road to NY that entire day. I emailed Michael Rody apologizing and explaining the situation--I had thought I was leaving on the trip the day AFTER the shop--and he was totally cool and understanding. He even said I could take the shop when it came up again next month. (He must have forgotten, because I applied for it and didn't get it. Lol.)
I'd work for Intelli-Shop more if they had assignments that fit my niche. I guess I'm an anomaly; Maritz is regarded as being one of the best MSCs out there and I don't really care for them.

"The future ain't what it used to be." --Yogi Berra

I've worked for them for years. They have some really good shops, and some dogs. I truly felt taken advantage of last summer when I did an extensive review of a golf tournament location. The report was on a different site and it was a bear. The amount of work they required for $50 and reimbursements was beyond ridiculous. I was so anxious to do the shop and go to the tournament that I accepted one for each of two days. I must have walked miles and the reports took forever. I can't begin to tell you the horror. I really didn't have much time to see the tournament either. I did complete both shops, since I committed, but never ever again will I do that one. This year I will take the free Veteran's tickets and enjoy myself.

*****************************************************************************
The more I learn about people...the more I like my dog..

Mark Twain

Well, I stumbled across this thread, just as I was going to ask about the assisted living shops. Now I understand why the price is up to $75.

I've also learned to wait for the bonus bucks, and only do them if I NEED the money.

The assisted living one is actually a piece of cake! But hint hint hint use a google voice number. They WILL call you back. Many times.

It's not a piece of cake if Intellishop REFUSES your digital audio recording, done exactly to their specifications! You, the mystery shopper, end up NOT getting paid, period. they're good at that...

It was a piece of cake..... mine did not require audio or video. I am in a no record area. I NEVER NEVER do those. NEVER. EVER. That has been rehashed and hashed on here. I just refuse them so you all can take them. I will do all the senrio living ones that require none of that. They pay well.

@winemaker wrote:

It's not a piece of cake if Intellishop REFUSES your digital audio recording, done exactly to their specifications! You, the mystery shopper, end up NOT getting paid, period. they're good at that...

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