I applied to Ardent Services last summer. I have never heard from them about training or anything else. I tried to apply again, but the website won't let me. It says there is already an account with that email. I tried to use a different email with no luck. Any suggestion?!?

Wait.

They only go through their database and have training when they need new shoppers in an area.

What bgriff said. It sounds like they have you in their database, but they don't need new shoppers.

Yep...Patience. I signed up 2 years ago. Just got the email for training.

No offense, Anne but I had been a shopper for AS for almost 2 to 3 years. They used to have shops at the same locations twice a month for lunch and dinner shops. Now, since the food poisoning incidents, the shops have declined to either lunch or dinner shops.And I think the owners want to provide enough shops for their loyal shoppers.

Anne, I had same experience you described. My email was in the system, so I tried the "forgot password" button. No response and no communication at all from Ardent. Then out of the blue, I received an email about training in my area. It was probably close to a year before I heard from them. Hang in there.

I had two years of silence from Ardent before I became a shopper for them! It all just depends on when the need arises for a shopper in your area.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2017 05:04AM by OCyou2.

@catgrannyof5 wrote:

No offense, Anne but I had been a shopper for AS for almost 2 to 3 years. They used to have shops at the same locations twice a month for lunch and dinner shops. Now, since the food poisoning incidents, the shops have declined to either lunch or dinner shops.And I think the owners want to provide enough shops for their loyal shoppers.

Phht, no they don't. They ashcanned a whole bunch of the loyal shoppers at the end of last year. They've gone down hill faster than an Olympic skier. Shopper be warned, they will most likely not be kind to you, to say the least.

@weatherman2111 wrote:

@catgrannyof5 wrote:

No offense, Anne but I had been a shopper for AS for almost 2 to 3 years. They used to have shops at the same locations twice a month for lunch and dinner shops. Now, since the food poisoning incidents, the shops have declined to either lunch or dinner shops.And I think the owners want to provide enough shops for their loyal shoppers.

Phht, no they don't. They ashcanned a whole bunch of the loyal shoppers at the end of last year. They've gone down hill faster than an Olympic skier. Shopper be warned, they will most likely not be kind to you, to say the least.

Can you elaborate?

It took me two months before I was able to shop. I completed my application mid January and received an email invite in March for training. Prior to receiving the email in March, I contacted Ardent and spoke with a representative who confirmed receipt of my application. I was then told then if and when there's a training in my area, I'd be invited my email.

I've experienced nothing but professionalism from the company.

@ChrisCooper wrote:

Anne, I had same experience you described. My email was in the system, so I tried the "forgot password" button. No response and no communication at all from Ardent. Then out of the blue, I received an email about training in my area. It was probably close to a year before I heard from them. Hang in there.

Weatherman elaborated quite a bit of bitterness about getting removed from their shopper pool in a thread last year. I've been with them for 10 years, no issues. I do 2-5 shops a month.

I do know (from experience) that if you DON'T do a shop for them in a while they will make you inactive. This does baffle me though because of the way they assign shops.

Why can't they act professional and advise potential shoppers of their waiting list??? It is just simple manners...never shopped for them, but heard they are mighty quick to drop you if you even flake out once. Is that actually true??

I dunno. I've done hundreds of shops for them but never flaked once. I've had issues a couple of times where I've had to cancel and was able to do so with no problems. I also don't know about the waiting list. I think when I registered I received a thank you and a message they would contact me when they had shops in my area. About a year later they contacted me. No big deal.

I worked for them for a little over three years. I went from 20-30 shops a month with maybe one or two requests for clarification to every shop last October needing clarification to two shops a month to being ashcanned without even being told. I had to e-mail Deanna to ask why I couldn't log in and she told me I was cut from their system. My original scheduler was cut by them in September. She told me that a bunch of her shoppers got ashcanned at the same time as well. My scheduler was great. The rest of the company is staffed by backstabbers with zero loyalty. They aren't long for this world with the way they operate now.

I never flaked out on a shop. I had to request for an extension to do the report a few times but never been excluded. I had requested for a shop extension but never had any problems. I can't speak for whatever reasons you were banned, weatherman.

I've had good experiences with Ardent. I find them much easier to work with than almost all the other MSCs I work with.

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Mod note: Post removed as it breached the Forum guideline which states, "Do not reveal the clients of mystery shopping companies". Additionally, it is usually an ICA violation to name both the MSC and client.

Catlassy, thanks for mentioning what happened after you asked to limit the number of shops per month. I was thinking of doing the same thing. The food is so heavy I really don't want to do multiple shops per month. I'll have to develop the willpower other shoppers have shown and stretch out the leftovers for a few days.

I'm not sure that asking to cut back the number of monthly shops was the cause of what happened to catlassy. I initially was assigned 3 shops a month. That was too much for me and I asked to cut back to 2 within the first 6 months I worked for them. I also take a couple of months off every year, usually in September/October, and perform no shops. Each year, I email the scheduler to say I won't be available for those two months. At the end of the 2 months, I email and say I'm available again. Once I forgot to email and the schedule emailed me and asked "are you ready again?" and then assigned shops to me. I have also declined both assigned shops in a month a couple of times because I wasn't comfortable with the KQ. I try to communicate clearly and respectfully when I am and am not available and I've never felt any annoyance from the scheduler or any kind of punishment. Chris, based on my experience, I wouldn't advise anyone to worry about letting Ardent know what limits you want to set.

I've shopped for one of their clients since 2011. About a year ago, I also stated shopping for another of their clients. They have 3 clients now. I'm hoping they get more clients.

Catlassy, Please edit your post as you listed the client and the title of the post has the MSC.

I don't understand the need to notify the scheduler if you want less shops per month. The website allows you to select which sites you are willing to do. If I'm going to be too busy or don't want to do more shops I just reduce the shop locations I'm willing to do. I can do this every month.

@kenasch wrote:

I don't understand the need to notify the scheduler if you want less shops per month. The website allows you to select which sites you are willing to do. If I'm going to be too busy or don't want to do more shops I just reduce the shop locations I'm willing to do. I can do this every month.

That depends. What you do makes sense if there are a few client locations in your area. There are about 25 in my area. I am willing to shop 12 of them, but only two a month. Since the scheduler reviews the shops each month and automatically assigns locations to each shopper based on their preferred list, and the number she knows the shoppers want to do, if a shopper already knows he wants to do only 2, it makes sense to let the scheduler know about that limitation.

@roflwofl wrote:

@kenasch wrote:

I don't understand the need to notify the scheduler if you want less shops per month. The website allows you to select which sites you are willing to do. If I'm going to be too busy or don't want to do more shops I just reduce the shop locations I'm willing to do. I can do this every month.

That depends. What you do makes sense if there are a few client locations in your area. There are about 25 in my area. I am willing to shop 12 of them, but only two a month. Since the scheduler reviews the shops each month and automatically assigns locations to each shopper based on their preferred list, and the number she knows the shoppers want to do, if a shopper already knows he wants to do only 2, it makes sense to let the scheduler know about that limitation.

OK, now I understand. I only have 4 in my area that are close enough for me to shop. Never thought of an area having 25!

I do my shops on Sundays. I buy loaded bowls and take them to work for lunch. They last me for four days.

In the restaurant, I take a few bites of the bowl so I can report the taste. I then munch on the chips and guac to take up the time.

@ChrisCooper wrote:

Catlassy, thanks for mentioning what happened after you asked to limit the number of shops per month. I was thinking of doing the same thing. The food is so heavy I really don't want to do multiple shops per month. I'll have to develop the willpower other shoppers have shown and stretch out the leftovers for a few days.

I was assigned an average of 6 to 8 shops a month for about 2 1/2 years and requested to only do 3 to 4 month last year since I stated that I would like to do fewer shops per month. That was never an issue and still average about 3 to 4 per month. Their other client, a gourmet fast food restaurant in Northern CA, I was assigned 4 shops per month and requested to do only 2 shops per month. Again, I stated that I only wanted to do 2 shops per month to allow some other shopper to get more shops.

@Arch Stanton wrote:

Why can't they act professional and advise potential shoppers of their waiting list??? It is just simple manners...never shopped for them, but heard they are mighty quick to drop you if you even flake out once. Is that actually true??

Only a flake could answer that question, but I don't think it's actually true. It's pretty hard to flake on these shops. Shoppers select chosen locations in the database. On the first day of each month, the scheduler emails assignments. Of my 12 choices, every month I am assigned two. The assignment is for the whole month - 1st through 25th. I can do the shops any day at lunch or dinner alone or with a guest. And the scheduler stays on top of the assignment schedule. One month I waited very late. I did one the 24th and I was just working on the report when the scheduler emailed me. She was calm and polite but wanted to be sure I was okay and could get the shops done. I emailed back I was in the middle of Report #1 and would do #2 tomorrow and apologized, explaining I just got backlogged. She said "not a problem, I was just worried," and she commented if ever I felt overloaded and needed to cancel to just let her know and she could move an assignment to someone else. She made it clear that she "valued me as a shopper" and that it would not affect my future assignments to cancel because "everybody gets into a time crunch sometimes." I've always found the scheduler mighty quick to respond to my emails, weekends, holidays, even once when she was on vacation, unlike many other MSCs. And I have never felt they might be quick to drop me.

There really isn't a waiting list. But I agree it would be nice if there were some auto email sent to anyone who has just applied that said something like "Thank you for applying with Ardent Services. We have no assignments in your area right now. We will retain your shopper information in our database and notify you of training opportunities when we have something available."

@weatherman2111 wrote:

I worked for them for a little over three years. I went from 20-30 shops a month with maybe one or two requests for clarification to every shop last October needing clarification to two shops a month to being ashcanned without even being told. I had to e-mail Deanna to ask why I couldn't log in and she told me I was cut from their system. My original scheduler was cut by them in September. She told me that a bunch of her shoppers got ashcanned at the same time as well. My scheduler was great. The rest of the company is staffed by backstabbers with zero loyalty. They aren't long for this world with the way they operate now.

You did 20-30 shops per month? I find that hard to believe. You would have to do a lot of traveling and be eating the particular food of their main client every day. I also don't believe they will be going under.

I thinks the schedulers are as sweet as pie- but I was dumped by Ardent and did not find out until I asked about why I had no shop on my page...............THEN I was told only after I asked why I had no shop. Not very nice. My scheduler was fired too and some shoppers along with her. She was a delight as a scheduler. Ardent itself I a not impressed with. I have done about 500 shops over 3 years and never been dumped by an MS...........it was a blessing in the long run. They make pretty good food and I will be happy to pay to eat there from now on.

I do shops for one of their other clients....average of one a month here in Chicago. I've had no problems with them and they are great to work with. I've been wanting to shop their main client but the trainings never worked out but apparently now you can train on your own for the shops. Hopefully soon I will be shopping their other client since there are a large number to choose from in the area.