Thank you, Troy. I have wondered about the details of some of the merchants I work with. I talked with one that clearly told me that the canopy cost close to 100,000 dollars for everything. He said his contract stipulated that the branded wholesaler was responsible for canopy maintenance. He had hurricane damage done after Irma and was still waiting for them to come. This was easily over 6 months since the hurricane. As I thought about his explanation, I began to understand the "franchise" fees could easily have been adjusted to reflect this. Someone who wants cheaper fees could easily reflect that he would maintain his own canopy. Someone else who doesn't mind the high fees, which include maintenance doesn't want the responsibility. I have also become aware that many merchants deal only with the jobber (gasoline supply company). They get to have a branded gasoline, but the millionaire jobber company, for example, Walthal Oil, takes care of the major branding components such as the MID and canopy or even dispenser decals. The merchant may only have the responsibility to post pop when they receive it.
Since I am aware of this, your explanation makes more sense to me.
When I first started this I could not tell which stations had the neon line surrounding the canopy or even which dispensers had a lighted valance. I had an editor send a report back once saying something about changing an answer to N/A for one of these lighting issues along with another issue. This made me begin to pay more attention to whether or not there were neon lights on the canopy or could the valances be lit at all. I began to realize that the valances on the dispensers had different sizes, the smaller ones could not be lit whereas the larger ones could.
This is a learning process. I have learned a lot more about gas stations than I ever knew as a consumer. Editors for a certain brand are given pieces of information that we may not have. I do not want to be an editor. I think their job is harder than ours because they have to know more of these details than we do and probably don't make as much money.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2018 04:14PM by F and L TeleComm.

Spicy, my professional career includes 10 years experience in Market Research. Mystery Shopping is a subset of Market Research and uses the same principles and techniques in data collection and data processing. My experience includes managing call centers, data processing, questionnaire design, analysis and reporting, and quota and sample management. All of which I draw upon to offer insight and understanding on topics where shoppers might benefit from an insider perspective.
In addition to that, I have another 10 years in Customer Service and Sales management for high-tech, telecom and entertainment industries. Which I also draw upon when I think it may add some benefit to a discussion.
And no, I have never worked as an employee for a Mystery Shopping Company.

@TroyHawkins
I can certainly understand why some franchises might have different needs for mystery shopping and that some might have different expectations for their stores. However, that does not explain why an answer would be changed.

Take the porn example.... Some franchise owners might want their stores to carry it. Others might now. The shopper should mark "yes" or "no" according to whatever is observed. If the MSC is scoring the shop report, one location might received a positive score for the affirmative answer and another a positive score for the negative answer. However, this does not change whether or not the location was selling porn. As shoppers, our job is to report what we see, not (generally) to judge whether it is correct or not. While it might be that one franchise owner doesn't want the porn question asked at all and it the MSC might simply delete the question from the report, it still does not make sense to change the answer.

What really doesn't make sense is changing a shopper's answer and then going back to the shopper to explain the changed answer.

@MFJohnston I completely understand why you say that. And yes, the shopper should answer truthfully. On the back end though, data often is manipulated to remove or recode non-applicable responses. This SHOULD only happen during data processing by a single person working in the master file, NOT by individual editors. Editors should really just be checking the report for completeness and consistency.
Many companies grow and unfortunately do not establish solid data management policies. They have their editors and schedulers doing things that worked for a low-volume start-up which are bad practices for larger organizations. Having one person change the data and another contact the shopper about the change is symptomatic of poor data management in the MSC. Yes, it’s very annoying and should be brought to the attention of the MSC owners, it’s not the MSC trying to hide anything from their client.

Nearly all msc ideas have been studied and presented and posted on youtube by the mspa and their current or previous cohorts. No one needs inside info really

@spicy1 You are more than welcome to toggle me or just ignore my posts. I will add my input and perspective where I see fit regardless.

I agree with Troy Hawkins. I have been a Maritz editor and finance analyst for a gas jobber. Maritz does edit for spelling and grammar. They do edit pictures. They try to keep the format unified send the file to the customer. The branding company takes mystery shops serious if the store scores too low consistently they will debrand the location.

@TroyHawkins I dont know why you mentioned toggle and whatever. As you said, I can input also. I just happen to be binge watching the mspa conferences these last few weeks so I mentioned they are available. Im not saying anything about your input and whether to or not to.

I'm going to give a little different perspective on the issue of what is/should be provided to the client. I got into mystery shopping in probably a very different way than most

After retiring from a local government job of over three decades, part of which was working directly for elected officials, including the chairman of the board of supervisors, I started doing a bit of contract work for consultants. It was a mixed bag, mostly consisting of land-use, environmental, and political projects. I also free-lanced as a writer for various news organizations. As such, I would go "undercover" in an attempt to get a feel for a community's attitude and concerns over certain projects so that the consultants could give the best advice to clients on how to overcome objections and market projects.

One day I saw an ad for a mystery shopping company that sounded a lot like what I was doing. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Early on I did a good number of McDonald's shops. I found them frustrating because I did not care if my food was ready in 60 seconds or less. I personally cared a lot more about the quality of the food and the cleanliness of the restaurant. Many years ago I opined in this forum that I thought the main MSC who had the contract was shooting itself in the foot by giving McDonald's what they asked for rather than what they needed.

A corporation does not need a consultant to maintain the status quo. It can hire recent college grads at a fraction of the cost to be "yes" men. It needs experienced consultants to determine the bottom line, find the hindrances to that bottom line, and make recommendations to get the corporation headed on the right direction.

As it turns out, it took a lot of stores closing and some rougher years before McDonald's learned it's lesson. It's now rebranding itsrlf without the help of the MSC that, in my book, failed it miserably. And that failure I'm sure had to be the loss of a contract that exceeded $1 million or more and the loss of mystery shopping opportunities for thousands of mystery shoppers.

Another example I ranted about on this board was Chipotle. One of the sites I did had a long list of health and safety issues that I reported every month for I don't know how long. The cockroaches and rats were beyond description. The filth was unbelievable. And the employees leaning over the food bins with their unnetted long hair almost touching the food just made me sick. The Yelp reviews for cleanliness were even worse than my reports.

I finally quit because I couldn't stomach walking in the place. Whether it was the MSC changing my report or Chipotle ignoring it, I don't know. I do know Chipotle has had a number of food poisoning issues so I doubt what was happening at that one was isolated. Again, was the MSC giving Chipotle what they wanted to hear or what they needed to hear? In my opinion any consultant who doesn't lay it on the line for their client is doing that client a disservice.

Sure, it can be argued that the consultants or MSC were simply doing what they were paid to do. I would argue that that is what sets apart mediocre consultants from top-of-the-line consultants, or MSCs.

We can all name MSCs whose integrity is above reproach, demand high quality shops and reports, and have stellar reputations. We can probably name more that are lax, lazy, shady at times, and certainly don't hold themselves to the same standards they demand of shoppers.

So, although I agree that ultimately it is the MSC's report, everyone involved is hurt in some way when that report doesn't provide an accurate measure of what is going on at a certain business. As shoppers, it could be years before it hurts us, but eventually it will likely result in less opportunities for us as we see one business after another go under and one MSC contract after another get cancelled.

In regards to the porn question being changed, it might be that the MSC/store brand company have a more specific idea for what they consider a “no.” Perhaps they will only truly mark off for a store that has magazines blatantly showing bare chested women out on the counter.

I have noticed their drug/porn questions seem a little more “open ended”... like they just want to see pictures of anything we think looks off, and then they want to determine if their client considers it a yes or no. I would imagine a store selling illegal drug paraphernalia or porn might be taken more seriously than say, peeling pump decals.

I have seen notations that a particular station was exempt from certain requirements, and that I should change my answer to yes. This is on the forms I fill out as a shopper, and I have seen it for at least two brands. Do some brands not show these exemptions to shoppers, and instead have the editors or the computer change the answers? I don't know. I think that was the point Troy was making. Not that he knows this happens, but that we don't know it doesn't happen.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2018 09:26PM by mystery2me.

I have had a Maritz editor change the answer to a question making it incorrect in a way that counted against the station. I reported that the restroom was stocked. The editor changed it to indicate that there were no paper towels. There were, indeed, paper towels.

yikes

@ceasesmith wrote:

I have had editors change "the Wagners" (simple plural for a family) to "the Wagner's" (singular possessive). Just like changing "I have had editors change..." to "I have had editor's change..."

This sort of thing makes me want to kill. I wrote in a report once, "The salesperson did not compare the product to the competitors' products." I meant exactly that. There is more than one competitor in this product category, so I wrote a plural possessive. The editor had sent the report back to me for clarification on something, and at that point I noticed she had changed "competitors'" to "competitor's." In other words, one competitor. Nope; not the situation and not what I wrote. This entire report turned out to be a nightmare. I did indeed leave a couple of things out, which I corrected. But this editor not only changed my "grammar mistakes" (which weren't), but asked repeatedly for information that I'd already included in my report. But because my summary narratives didn't follow exactly the sequence of the questions, I guess she couldn't figure out that yes, the observations were there, just at a different point. I wrote in a logical sequence, which didn't always match the questionnaire's sequence.

But, in the grand scheme of things, I'd be a whole lot more upset if an editor changed the content of my report to alter the end result. That's unethical. And, to boot, contradicts the purpose for the shop.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2018 07:07PM by BirdyC.

Since I'd experienced editors asking for more information (in the middle of the night), although the information was already provided in the report but not in the sequence of the questions, I've been writing the narrative following the order of the questions. It's irritating, especially if the questions move from the interaction's beginning, to the end, to the middle, back to the beginning etc. "Although the Associate did not offer a promotion, or an up-sell, they provided a pleasant greeting and closing". yuck

I haven't bowed to writing one narrative sentence for each question, yet. Soon though, probably by next year considering the new wave of editors.

@spicy1 wrote:

I haven't bowed to writing one narrative sentence for each question, yet. Soon though, probably by next year considering the new wave of editors.

Oh, God, let's hope not....

Birdy - Changing the report, fluffing it up and massaging it so it doesn't bark is STANDARD PRACTICE with MSCs. Happens all the time...

These narratives take too much out of me. I like doing the shops I just wish I could just answer questions for them.
Now I got all A's on my papers in college so don't think I'm uneducated. (One professor told me my "peer reviewed" paper could have been published.) But a good narrated report takes me several hours to complete. I do type by touch but only about 40-45 words a minute. Maybe I'm putting too much into them, I don't know. The last few I did, I cut them short and only gave a brief overview not the full blow by blow like I'm writing a novel, and reiterated the no answers. They were accepted with very little feedback. But I have cut back on them because I just don't have the time with my gas station routes-my bread and butter.

@winemaker wrote:

Birdy - Changing the report, fluffing it up and massaging it so it doesn't bark is STANDARD PRACTICE with MSCs. Happens all the time...

It's one thing to massage or fluff a shop to, for example, eliminate language that includes opinions and not facts, or re-word something to make it meet the client's reporting preferences. But if that includes lying to the end client, which it is if, for example, a "yes" is changed to a "no," it's never right and shouldn't be tolerated. I would hope that the client expects to pay for the truth, not what they wish to be the truth or what the MSC thinks the client wants to hear.

I recently did a "yellow" gas station. It was put on "hold" for a better photo. As I scrolled through the report, I noted that every dispenser that I had found acceptable (by the shop's guidelines") was changed to a "caution) or even a "no".
Yes, the station's dispensers were of an older variety, but I saw no reason to flag them for either one of the so - called offenses. They were clean, operating properly and had no noticeable damage.

So, I question why I'm even being asked on the debrief to examine the pumps if the editor seems to have a better idea of their appearance and operation simply by viewing the photos. Why not ask the shopper to just take the photo, upload it and let the editor pass judgement?

Sheesh!

BTW, with regard to narratives - I limit myself to a maximum of 4 sentences.

@French Farmer wrote:

I recently did a "yellow" gas station. It was put on "hold" for a better photo. As I scrolled through the report, I noted that every dispenser that I had found acceptable (by the shop's guidelines") was changed to a "caution) or even a "no".
Yes, the station's dispensers were of an older variety, but I saw no reason to flag them for either one of the so - called offenses. They were clean, operating properly and had no noticeable damage.

So, I question why I'm even being asked on the debrief to examine the pumps if the editor seems to have a better idea of their appearance and operation simply by viewing the photos. Why not ask the shopper to just take the photo, upload it and let the editor pass judgement?

Sheesh!

BTW, with regard to narratives - I limit myself to a maximum of 4 sentences.

I agree with you. The "yellow" stations are the worst for editors changing what I wrote or removing a photo and saying it wasn't there, when I am not able to submit the report without all the photos. I very rarely take the yellow stations anymore. Too much of a hassle.

@spicy1 wrote:

It is your contention that they are using a generic reporting form and generic questions, that include a question about porn or whatever and don't bother to remove the question for Client B, even though the question only pertains to Client A and they would rather just remove the answer from the report from 200,000 reports. Oh, I see, thanks for clearing that up, that explains it.

I can't speak for Maritz, but that is exactly the case with some companies. Editors will see a note that says, "mark question #10 N/A for the XYZ location." It isn't worth it for the company to have a slightly different form for a few locations where the client wants to make an exception.

I have seen that more with non-yellow stations. At one I marked that a diesel pump was great and when I had a clarification to resolve, the answer had been changed to reflect that certain signage was missing. Yet there it was in the picture -- I could read it. So then when a station got the report and looked at it, I look like the idiot. I also had someone call me questioning an answer because a station was contesting it. It was about a sticker that should not have been present and they were marking off the pump because of it. The station claimed there were no additional stickers. I looked at my pics and saw that it was the official Illinois weights and measures stickers that have to appear on pumps. And they were on every pump, but only one had been changed by the editor. It is frustrating to know that other answers must be changed and I don't know about them -- I only get to see the ones in the reports with clarification holds.