Hi Everyone!
I would be happy to answer any of your questions! I'm going to apologize in advance for the long post (I tend to do that!) but I want to give you some background on the website and why Deva and I put this project together.
I have owned ACE for 16 years. Deva works full time for Primo Solutions and we've been friends forever. Most of that time, including the present, I schedule. I do sales. I edit. I do payroll. The list goes on. I don't have a lot of time on my hands.
I sometimes compare scheduling to herding cats. Then, I found the IMSC, went to a couple of the conferences and started participating in the forums more often (even though I really didn't have time, I LOVED interacting with shoppers). It kind of felt as if I was breathing life into my company again, as sappy as that sounds. But I was getting excited about it because I was REALLY getting to know my shoppers.
As I looked at the problem, finding shoppers willing to travel a gazillion miles for me when I didn't have the budget to bonus shops. I would even go do some of my own shops because I just couldn't bonus some of them any more. Deva and I took a trip to Gulf Shores together, to do some of OUR shops! By the way, I live east of Kansas City!
Before that trip, Deva and I had been brainstorming, trying to think outside the box about how we could pull everyone together and work for the common goal, to benefit everyone. Then project started to take on a life of it's own.
There's Gigspot, there's Presto Maps, but there's not one single map that ALL companies can post their shops on and work together as a team. We thought that if both shoppers AND schedulers had an idea of how many shops were in a specific area, they could come together, pick up multiple shops for several companies and everyone would be happy! It's a win-win for all!
Saturday, a shopper (not using the system) texted me about a shop that he wanted to do because he was traveling through the area. I was so excited because it was my first experience being able to refer him to two other schedulers that I knew was looking for a shopper in the same area that I was. That is where the magic happens!
This is NOT a reporting platform. It's just a simple place to look for shops. Chat with schedulers (and other shoppers) through a private messaging system and also add yourself to the map (you can pin yourself to the map to let schedulers know where you may be traveling).
While I do just about everything for ACE, I am not an IT person! This is also separate from ACE Mystery Shopping. So, there are development costs associated with this site. Not to mention time. Over the last few days, we have spent about 40 hours just uploading shops to the system. So, while we don't expect to be on "The Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" anytime soon, we would like to be able to recover the costs of running the site and perhaps even compensated a little for our time (or enough to hire someone to run it.)
We have posts for all of the companies below and promises of shops from even more. We had 6 new schedulers sign up today and I am waiting for their lists.
A Closer Look
ACE Mystery Shopping
All Star
Amusement Advantage
B Business Solutions
BLD Scheduling
Business Observations
Cirrus Marketing
Coast to Coast Scheduling
Customer Experience Experts
Customer Perspectives
Grace Hill
ICU Associates
Informa Research Services
IPSOS
iSecretshop
Jancyn
Market Viewpoint
MCG
Measure CP
NIM Research
Nsite Inc
NWLCP
Primo Solutions, LLC
Private Eyes Online
RBG
Reality Check
Red Brick Scheduling
Sales Quality Group
Satisfaction Services
Sentry Marketing (Dave promised he would send me his list soon).
Service Evaluation Concepts
Service With Style
Sinclair Customer Metrics
Strategic Reflections (John said he would get his schedulers on board soon!)
Summit Scheduling
Udemo
Thanks!
Julie Simbro
ACEMysteryShopping.com - and now RouteShoppers.com