I just got an email from Customer Impact about a merchandising assignment. The email made it clear they are trying to get shoppers to take routes. Under the "Pay" section they had the following:

"Pay for this project is $9 per location. Due to the time-sensitive nature of this project, you MUST complete ALL of your total assigned locations to be paid for this project. The majority of your assigned locations also must be completed within the first week of the assignment."

HUH???!!! First, I object to ANY stipulation that could potentially deprive me of my entire route's pay based on issues with a single location. The possibilities there are endless. Second, how do they define "majority" with regards to the first-week stipulation? Completely open to interpretation, and besides, if I get them all done on time why does it matter how many I do when?

This smells fishy to me, CI.

And you are free to choose not to accept the assignment.

@ceasesmith wrote:

And you are free to choose not to accept the assignment.

Obviously, and OP is free to discuss dissatisfaction with the stipulation.

I saw those shops too, I skip over them as quickly as possible. It just seems too frustrating.

I deleted them, not my thing....

LOL!!! Not enough working hours in the month to come on here and discuss the inane, ridiculous, insane, incomprehensible stipulations/rules/requirements. Personally, I give CI points for disclosing all the relevant negatives upfront -- much better than later, after you've printed, studied, taken the test or whatever is required to be assigned the route, then hitting you with the negatives. Or worse yet, wait til after you submit your first report and tell you that the shop was incorrectly completed (especially after you followed the guidelines EXACTLY).

I don't find CI's offer "fishy". I also deleted the e-mail I received from CI. I found that more time-effective.

I actually requested a few. I will be merchandising a few of the locations already and a few are in between stops in my work route or close to home.

I was actually planning to do a large-ish route of these until I got the pay stipulations. I'd love to hear how it goes for you, @sstazz.

Since they gave someone the in-town popular ones, or someone took the in-town popular (easy) ones I didn't take any. At $9 a pop it's not worth it unless I can take them all and get bonused on the ones in other cities. They really should have contacted me to take them all. Now they'll be paying me so much it'll be more expensive for the entire route than it would have been had they simply called and asked me to do them all. When will they learn that this is merchandising and not mystery shopping? They almost always have that stipulation on their assignments; complete them all successfully or don't get paid for any. They can do it, and many other unscrupulous requirements if you agree to it and you are if you take the assignments. Most merchandising companies have the stipulation that you complete the work earlier in the assignment because they hire so many flakes because that's what they can afford to make the owner a millionaire.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2017 04:34PM by spicy1.

@spicy1 wrote:

They really should have contacted me to take them all.

They did contact me ahead with the list, but when I sent a reply I never heard back from them. It was only later that I got the email with the complete shop description, including the pay stipulations.

This is not new at all. Ploy has been around for years.

Hello! My name is Daniel Price and I'm the General Manager of the Audits & Survey's division which runs these projects.

Rest assured that anyone who completes these projects will get paid for the work done. We try to be as flexible as possible and make sure reps get paid even when the shop/audit doesn't turn out as expected. The reason for the language in there is to reserve our right to hold pay if a rep promises us they'll take on a lot of locations, and then only completes a few.

Those who have worked on projects with our division in the past understand that Customer Impact will pay for all work completed, even in situations were stores are closed down/moved/refused permission to conduct the project.

With this client, our volume of audits is going to increase throughout the year, and we are never short of reps who swear to us they will take a region/route, but sometimes we end up giving them to a rep who will then be reserved for a block of locations but only complete 2 or 3 out of 10+.

With this client, we have a short window to get audits done, and with the element of shipping materials, that adds another 3-5 days.

As one can imagine, it's very tough to give routes to reps, and also feel comfortable that all will complete their locations within the time frame. However, if any reps shows us the effort, and say "life happens" and something comes up, they'll never not receive pay for the work already completed.

spicy1, I'm sorry to hear that regarding your locations. There could be a variety of reasons those were assigned to someone else, including a person who might have done work for this client with us in the past. Please reach out to me and let me know what areas you were looking in, because we'll be doing projects with this client all over the country throughout the year.

Our goal is to create a team of trusted reps who we can go to, and be comfortable knowing their region/routes will be done. However, before you get to that point, it takes a while and a lot of back & forth between us and reps as we get to know each other during each project run.

I will say regarding that language in the comments: Point taken. I think there's a better way we can illustrate the importance of not applying for large routes if you are not sure you can complete them without the pay stipulation. I'll do better to come up with the correct language.

If you have any questions or would like to be on this audit team, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at dprice@customerimpactinfo.com.

I'll also follow the thread, but if you have any specific questions, I can answer them quicker if you contact me directly.

Thanks and have a great day!

Daniel Price
General Manager, Audits & Surveys
Customer Impact, LLC.
dprice@customerimpactinfo.com

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2017 03:25PM by dprice.

I was corresponding back and forth with the scheduler, regarding my taking the entire route in my area (only 10 locations). But, never received a response to my last email, if only to say they found someone else.

RESOLVED - I received an email just now advising me that another shopper had been assigned. This is a stand up company!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2017 04:30PM by COMystery.

Excellent point, even if they decline they should send an email route taken.... they do not seem to realize they are not the only one out there planning a week.... we need to know yes or no to figure the rest of the week.

@COMystery wrote:

I was corresponding back and forth with the scheduler, regarding my taking the entire route in my area (only 10 locations). But, never received a response to my last email, if only to say they found someone else.

I can vouch for Customer Impact being reliable when it comes to paying. I have never had them be late with a payment and once I was even paid a day early (on the 14th when they say 15th to 25th). However I have not done merchandising work for them yet.

I e-mailed Mr. Price, and got a very fast response.

Unfortunately, I'm tech challenged, and probably cannot do the shops as they require using a phone app.

The app is very easy to use and anyone there would be happy to walk you through it, I bet. The work is super easy and the wonderful thing is you're done as soon as you walk out. There's nothing to do later.

Thanks, Tech! Often when I download an app, I just get a window that says "not compatible with this device". My smart phone is several years old.

Add to that, I'm a tech dinosaur!

After reading Mr. Price's response here in this thread, I completely understand the need for the stipulation language that there is an issue with. Unfortunately, there are people out there who are not as dependable as some of us, which makes the need for tougher rules and expectations. I have always had great luck with CI and know that they are fair, pay on time, and the staff are great to work with. I appreciate the response from Mr Price. It shows the credibility that I have always known of CI. And I love knowing those details up front. I then have the choice to apply for the job or a not.

I wish these shops were not so close to Valentine's Day, being a candy maker , I am pretty busy leading up to and even after those days. I noticed there is a good amount of these shops available still within a 90 mile radius, maybe I can help once the holiday has passed. Good to know they are fairly simple

Remember your time to: read guidelines, do the shop, input the survey. It seems like each shop is worth more than $9. I did something like this for a merchandising company when I could stand and walk without a walker or cart and was paid by the hour.

Just looked at these, if they're the same, and they pay $6.

When I started shopping almost 3 years ago CI was one of my companies. They do pay on time. My car broke down while I was doing a long route in Texas. I believe the scheduler was from a scheduling company. She was wonderful and only asked if I was safe. I was just getting ready to email her that my car was fixed because it took a few days, when she followed up politely to ask if I would be able to complete my shops.

Daniel has helped me on other shops, when I wasn't sure because I was new.

I thought about applying for these but was intimidated by the verbiage. The locations are far apart for most areas and it would be hard for me to build a route and maintain it every month.

My only issue with CI is when I did work a certain shop for the company, I never could get the assignments in my own area or my other long route areas. There was a 90 day rotation and I never could get to any of the locations. I was told by the scheduler, I wasn't asking for enough stores.

Your reply to stormraven feels very arrogant to me.............much better if you had just left off the first offensive sentence, Others don't really care to read those kinds of personal judgements.

misssooz New Participant 5y
Your reply to stormraven feels very arrogant to me.............much better if you had just left off the first offensive sentence, Others don't really care to read those kinds of personal judgements.

@misssooz wrote:

misssooz New Participant 5y
Your reply to stormraven feels very arrogant to me.............much better if you had just left off the first offensive sentence, Others don't really care to read those kinds of personal judgements.

Who are you talking to?

I agree that I don't like to read personal judgements. Your post contains a personal judgement and doesn't even specify who you are talking to and what you don't care for. And what's up with posting it twice?

@misssooz wrote:

Your reply to stormraven feels very arrogant to me.............much better if you had just left off the first offensive sentence, Others don't really care to read those kinds of personal judgements.

That piqued my interest, and I re-read the thread.

Boy, I just don't know where that's coming from -- I don't see a shred of arrogance any where in the thread, only helpfulness and non-judgemental discussion.

Hmmmm.

I'm pretty sure it's the....you can take it or leave it... that doesn't feel good and doesn't feel helpful, isn't it

Love this response

I have been doing this for 9 of 12 weeks now. It is an easy 20 minutes or less shop. I would do it again.