The MSC's owner spent way more time reading and posting a rebuttal in this thread than it would have taken for him to change a few words in the guidelines. Instead of arguing that other shoppers did not have a problem understanding the guidelines, wouldn't it be easier (and a better business practice) to spend that time making the guidelines crystal clear?

@iShop123 wrote:

Certainly those of you who have been shopping for a long time have run into a case where a report was denied, but you had strong suspicions it was still used.

Actually, the longer I do this the more I'm convinced of the opposite. I know for a fact that neither of the 2 shops I ever had declined were sent to the client. What would a MSC have to gain in going through the hassle of denying a shop? The money gained would not be worth the hassle of dealing with irate shoppers, threats of lawsuits and bad press.

We see how much grief one shopper causes when they feel wronged. Does anyone really think it's plausible that multitudes of others are declined and we don't hear about them...or that the MSC singles out one shop here and there to deny?

I may be mistaken, but didn't a forum member recently state in another thread that they used to be a scheduler or editor, and that they knew of instance(s) where denied/rejected reports were used and passed onto clients anyway ? I may be off base but that's what I remember reading.

@JASFLALMT

It's unfortunate that you chose to interpret my comments in this thread to be arguing. Your post is a good example of why our company has chosen to minimize participation in the forum. No matter what happens, nearly every Sentry thread turns into a dogpile of criticism.

To be accurate, we've completed over 800 shops for this project and one shopper substitute "patio heater" for "outdoor heater". More than a dozen shops had to be rejected because shoppers asked for an "outdoor fan" or "indoor heater". I don't believe the situation warrants changing the guidelines. When we have received feedback that the project guidelines are not clear, we have promptly updated the guidelines and contacted all shoppers with scheduled assignments to make sure that the project instructions are clear.

Are you saying that you now have updated the guidelines? Because I do believe that the OP has given you feedback that the project guidelines are not clear

Dave, why do you suppose that other MSC reps/owners do not have their threads "turn into a dogpile of criticism" but yours nearly always do (you said that, not me)? Sometimes it's a good idea to do some self-reflection and think about ways to change from within. I know I have done that myself many times when I feel that things are not going as should be.

No, we have not updated the guidelines. Based on shopper feedback, feedback from forum members and the overall number of errors related to this part of the project, we believe the guidelines are clear.

I've included assignment guidelines on the agenda of our weekly meeting so we can review the topic in general and reinforce the need for guideline to be clear, specific and easy to understand.

I'm confused. Several shoppers have commented that the editors should falsify the report just so the shopper can get paid? The shopper asked the wrong question so just change the report so the client believes the correct question was asked? The OP carefully crafted their post to be misleading. They lied to us, accidentally revealing what actually happened as the thread wore on. Now the OP has outed themselves. Yet we will continue to see members read the initial post, skip the details, and rush to judgement.

This is not about how the OP described something. It is how the OP reported they asked for a targeted item during a shop.

I know I never said that the editors should falsify any reports.

I still believe the shopper should be paid. It's not that much money and it would be easier in the long run just to pay the shopper and update the guidelines, and it would help the MSC in improving their reputation.

I know of one really fabulous MSC who has the following motto about shoppers: "Treat them kindly, because we need them more than they need us."

@7star wrote:

I may be mistaken, but didn't a forum member recently state in another thread that they used to be a scheduler or editor, and that they knew of instance(s) where denied/rejected reports were used and passed onto clients anyway ? I may be off base but that's what I remember reading.

I think you are off base on that one. I don't remember any editor ever posting on the forum about falsifying reports or about passing denied reports on to the client. I remember seeing a lot of posts from editors that said exactly the opposite of what you remember reading. But I'm willing to be proven wrong - it you post a link to what you believe you read, I think a lot of us would love to see it.

I agree with roflwofl about that. I am a former editor for two different MSCs. Both of them had us working really hard to try and turn even the worst reports into usable ones and at no point were shops used without shoppers getting paid for them. But that is a small percentage of the MSCs out there and I suppose it is possible that not all MSCs are that ethical.

From what i remember reading, it was a shopper who used to be an editor/scheduler. It was a post from within the past several months i think. Again, i don't remember what topic. I could be off base with this but that is what i remember.

@7star I think I'm one of the few, and possibly only, posters who was both editor and scheduler in the past...and I would never have stated that.

Please post a link to the pst if you are going t make that claim. Saying you think may have read something is just a red herring at this point....

I don't understand the resistance to making the guidelines more clear. Seems stubborn at this point.

@JASFLALMT - what changed your stance to make you biased against Sentry?

I received a PM from Dave this morning. It's not the first time I have received PMs from him, but here is the one received this morning.

"it would help the MSC in improving their reputation".

It's comments like this that reveal your anti-Sentry bias. This is the "dogpile" mentality I wrote about. The fact is that there is a small group of forum members with a mob mentality that will never, ever, say anything remotely positive about Sentry. In this post, you've clearly taken the OP's side despite the fact that several other forum members with first hand experience wrote that they guidelines are clear. Nonetheless, you've cirizied me for even posting in this thread and stated that we should pay the OP.

FYI, hanging outside the breakroom of our office is a reminder to our staff. It reads:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

We may not have people gushing over our team on mysteryshopforum, but we mange to get several thousand shops scheduled and completed each month. Nearly half of our shoppers complete multiple shops per month for us. The team interacts with shoppers literally seven days a week.

Thanks for your "self-reflection" suggestion, however, the comments would have more weight coming from someone who isn't biased against our company.

In fact, I almost posted those comments publicly but wanted to keep the conversation between us.

Feedback from someone like @roflwofl is more meaningful because their comment are more evenhanded. In other words, when roflwofl feel we are in the wrong, they post comments criticizing us and then they the other way, they post comment expressing that point-of-view.

Dave, several years ago I did post in a more positive manner concerning your company. I don't really have time to go through all of your old posts from the past several years and dissecting them to figure out when I "changed my stance" but maybe you should. I assure you that I am not a part of any "mob mentality" and there are not a group of forum members who are out to get you. At any rate, I don't currently shop for your company (though I did years ago) and I don't see anything positive to post about at this time or I would.

Interesting that your breakroom sign is something I posted in the forum several years ago. I am not saying that's where you got the idea, I just find it interesting.

I just did this shop a few days ago. They state outdoor heater many times in the guidelines so I asked for an outdoor heater. When the person pulled it up on the computer it did say patio heater. So it appears they are one in the same, but I was told outdoor heater so that is what I said. This is just my opinion.

Dave -
You are getting push back here because you are arguing with folks who agree with you. Most of the readers of this thread seem to agree that the rejection of the shop is warranted. (Rarely will you get 100% agreement on anything posted here.)

My comment was that your directions were "good enough," but "could be more clear." Yes, your metrics show that very few shoppers are making blunders with this part of the shop, but there are a few who are asking for the wrong item. Is it not the goal with your guidelines to have zero confused shoppers as opposed to very few? When you have 800 folks from all sorts of backgrounds performing shops, somebody is going to screw up. The more clear your guidelines, the less often this will happen. Is this not best for the shopper, MSC and client? Maybe I just look at things differently: In my profession, "good enough" is never acceptable. We are always striving for the likely unattainable goal of 100% success. I bring this same mindset to shopping - as do a lot of folks. We constantly see shoppers upset about scores of "8" or "9" on evaluations, even though it's "good enough." By joining the dialogue, you invited that critique/comment.

I dislike the use of bold letters, colors, and capitalization as a way to make to make it clear that a specific verbiage must be said. because, very simply, as a shopper I read the guidelines for many MSC's on a daily/weekly basis. Some such formatting is used for various reasons - such as isolating sets of instructions, highlighting main ideas, making the instructions prettier, etc. They do not always mean "use this precise term." So, while I agree that your instructions were "clear enough," I stand by the thought that they could have been more clear. Why not just say, "Use the precise term 'Outdoor heater.'"? There is zero room for misinterpretation here.

I agree that it seems silly to revamp all the guidelines when the project is nearly finished. My hope in the comment is that moving forward you would consider such clarity in your guidelines for other projects. I would also hope that folks in other MSC's would take such thoughts into account. Anybody who has been shopping for any length in time has had confusing and ambiguous guidelines at some point and all of us should agree that the more clearly guidelines are written, the better it is for all of us.

If you want to know how to improve the forum's view of Sentry Marketing, try this:
"Hey, @JASFLALMT, thank you for the idea and I will take it into account for upcoming projects. I do believe that the guidelines for this particular project were clear enough and we are too far into this project to make changes now. However, Sentry Marketing is always looking to improve in every area of our business and I can see how some clarifications could have been made. While frustrated shoppers is nearly unavoidable in this business, we strive to minimize issues at Sentry. I look forward to reading ideas that you and other forum posters have in the future as well."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2018 04:12PM by MFJohnston.

I am not saying falsify. I am saying editors call and email ALL the time for clarification. So why not check and say was it x or y. This is not for all reports this is for a report with one item being called two things. Same as pop and soda folks......

The OPs OQ was simply, "Do you think a patio heater and an outdoor heater is the same thing?" Some people answered, but some came to this thread to be mean, call names, and threaten.

To those that acted like professional adults, thank you for your thoughtful insight. Getting outside opinions helps me understand my mistakes and learn from them.

​

I just want to say that soda and pop are interchangeable terms from where I grew up in CA. In fact, as naughty kids we called stores and asked them if they had pop in the can. When they responded yes, we asked if they could please let him out!

Even when people agree with Dave, as was noted by someone else, he still refuses to acknowledge that maybe Sentry can do some things better. He appears so vested in his way being right that any suggestions for improvement are meant with the attitude of "they're already just fine, thank you very much." And with the opinion that there's some great conspiracy to "get Sentry" on the forums. OMG.

Apparently shoppers are indeed asking for the wrong item using the wrong term--not just the original OP. They're just not asking for "patio heaters."

Dave, I don't shop for you because the shops available in my area don't pay enough for the work involved. That's it, not because of any bias I may have based on what I read on the forum, even though I've disagreed with you here. Really, you gotta take objectively what shoppers say, not so personally! We know what makes a clear guideline, what makes for confusion, etc. Honest, we do. We're not out to dogpile on you. As JASFLALMT said, you've spent more time digging in your heels and defending your guidelines than you'd have spent just changing them to add clarity!

As a professional copy editor and writer, I know for a fact that many writers absolutely do not take their audiences into consideration when writing and fail to look at what they write from the reader's point of view. They're so sure what they've written is clear that they refuse to entertain the notion that it's not. Until they see my mark-ups! LOL....

Edited to add: When I write something, I like to have someone else proofread it. I know what I meant to say. And, too often, what I wrote says that, even when it doesn't. I don't always have that luxury, so I'll put a piece away overnight or for a few hours, if I can. When I come back to it, I almost always see typos, or I see that I could have said something more clearly, more concisely, or in a way more suitable for the audience for which I'm writing.

I've been a writer for 30+ years, and the day I think I can't improve, learn, or accept feedback will be the day I put down my pen. You might meet with less perceived hostility if you'd acknowledge that we're all fallible, and there isn't anyone who can't improve on something--including you! Now I'll remove myself from this thread so as not to be even more annoying than I already am. Unless you want to have a real dialogue with the folks here who are honestly trying to help you.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2018 07:02PM by BirdyC.

See attached link, last post.

[www.mysteryshopforum.com]

@SteveSoCal wrote:

@7star I think I'm one of the few, and possibly only, posters who was both editor and scheduler in the past...and I would never have stated that.

Please post a link to the pst if you are going t make that claim. Saying you think may have read something is just a red herring at this point....

"Looks like" is not affirmative proof, though.

I am not here to make judgement but the poster says that he/she has been an editor and has inside information. I find it hard to believe that out of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of shops reported over the years, there hasn't been an instance(s) where a rejected report got sent to a client. It would be unethical but it wouldn't surprise me.

@7star wrote:

I find it hard to believe that out of the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of shops reported over the years, there hasn't been an instance(s) where a rejected report got sent to a client.

I don't think Jamie ever mentions the MSC that information was based on so it's hard to say....but I'm not contending that clients have never seen a rejected report. In some cases, the client gets the report and then rejects it. That requires the MSC to do a re-shop and the client cannot un-see the rejected report, but they apparently felt the data was not valid. In other cases, the MSC might forward the report to see if it could be accepted.

May the clients sometimes nit-pick reports and require re-shops for unethical reasons?...perhaps. My point is that it's not worth it to an MSC to submit a report to a client and then reject payment to a shopper for what was submitted, while they were getting paid. It's WAY to much hassle for the little bit of money they may save.

-

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2018 02:55PM by Sentry Marketing.

I have had instances where the MSC told me that they were uncertain that the client would accept the report, but that they would forward it with a request that it be considered. About half of those got accepted and paid; of the remaining ones, half of those were paid by the MSC although rejected by the client and the rest were not paid, basically because I had omitted something crucial to the client. I actually saw that some of those those appeared soon thereafter on the job boards. I have to assume that the others were offered to trusted shoppers to "mop up," and so did not show up (or I missed them) on the job boards. All of the ones rejected by the client were with MSCs that I have no reason to mistrust. BUT, since I stear clear of certain MSCs whose conduct has raised eyebrows over the years, I may have dodged that nasty sort of thing.