@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."