Name your top 5 favorite MSCs.

I’m fairly new at this, started late June, but I’m noticing that I’m developing favorites. I check their boards first and work any others around them.
So far, based on how they interact with me, my favorites are:
Sinclair Customer Metrics (Awesome schedulers who communicate with me.)
Shoppers, Inc. (They are great to work with and pay quickly.)
A Closer Look (Mostly reimbursements but they have excellent clients! Definitely a treat!)
Alta360 (They seem forgiving of my new-shopper mistakes and let me redo them.)
Intellishop (Easy shops, reliable pay.)
*****Kern Scheduling (Not an MSC but I love working with them.)

Trying to learn from all of these rockstars.

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

More About Favorites

There are a LOT that I haven’t tried out yet, so I may develop many more favorites.

Trying to learn from all of these rockstars.

Right now, Informa, Mintel, Reality Based Group, Clear Evaluations, ACL and Merc. IBusiness Observations is up there too-I can't name just 5 LOL. One of my favorite schedulers is at Alta, but she only has things in the very rural parts of my state, I try to help her out whenever I can.

I also LOVE Amusement Advantage!! They are prob my absolute favorite based on how they work with shoppers.

Trying to learn from all of these rockstars.

Intelli-shop, Reality Based Group, Albatross, Jancyn, and Confero

Market Force, Trend Source, ACL, Mercantile, Customer Impact

Here are my five Ellis , Intelli- Shop. Customer Inpact, Shopper's View, The Souce .

I would do better listing the three best and three worst.

Wine lets us hear tour list

Mine have changed over my 2years of shopping as I am always adding more companies... My favorites at least right now...ACL, Trendsource, Marketforce, Alta 360 and Sinclair.

My least favorite: 1. Cirrus (for the reasons everyone knows); 2. ACL (poor fees, musical chair scheduling department, stupidly short, but demanding, narratives); 3. Market Force (Generally poor fees, excessively quantitative reports). I do shops for each of them, but never happily. There are many that I wouldn't even consider working for, I don't list those.

My top three favorites are little known and I am not sharing - sorry - but the next three top favorites are: 1. See Level, 2. BARE, 3. Ardent.

Any MSC that lets me self-assign, or at least acts on my app in a reasonable time rather than leaving me hanging out there wondering how to plan.

Top 5 Companies in no particular order : Performalogics (easy shops, super easy reports!), We Check (They have my favorite shop), Marketforce (only when bonused), Mystery Shopping Canada, and Mintel (Do not even have to leave my house and I am making money from them. They also reimburse for the Fee my bank charges me to receive my Monthly Fees from them!).

Least Favorite: ACL (Too much work for reimbursement only shops), Cirrus (Never worked for them but have heard the stories re: Payment issues), and SeeLevel (Just not my types of shops; they were, however, the first MSC I ever contracted with, back when they were Called RSG. They also now have my favorite Ardent Scheduler working for them: Deanna Kessler. So this saddens me!).

Lady Marius
Canadian Mystery Shopper

@Lady Marius wrote:

SeeLevel (Just not my types of shops; they were, however, the first MSC I ever contracted with, back when they were Called RSG. They also now have my favorite Ardent Scheduler working for them: Deanna Kessler. So this saddens me!).

I wondered where Deanna Kessler went! That reminds me: I have also wondered lately where Barbry Booth went. She was the forum's Scheduler of the Year the last time we did that. Barbry used to work for Customer Impact and then briefly worked for Kern Scheduling but I haven't seen her name on anything from KSS recently. Does anybody know? Is she still with KSS and just doesn't work on the clients I work with? Or has she moved on?

I love Deanna, she's great. I don't like the shops she is scheduling right now, though. I miss Ardent and that one particular client's shops very much.

I happen to like ACL just fine. They aren't in my top 3, however. That tends to change pretty regularly. Right now Alta 360 is my favorite, IPSOS is 2, and Marketforce is 3. I am not doing enough work for any other MSCs for them to get a rating. It's a tossup with Mercantile and Customer Impact for the 4 position, and ACL and Maritz tie for #5.

I just did my first shop for Mercantile. I like them a lot.

Trying to learn from all of these rockstars.

Always ask for a bonus with ACL.

"I told myself to quit you; but I don't listen to drunks." -Chris Stapleton

I miss Ardent and their client too. Not only am I out the fees and meals, but I have to buy groceries or find replacement shops.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

I love Deanna, she's great. I don't like the shops she is scheduling right now, though. I miss Ardent and that one particular client's shops very much.

"I told myself to quit you; but I don't listen to drunks." -Chris Stapleton

Honey I personal like grocies shop that idea of getting paid for something I have to do for my family any it nice.

My favorite is Customer Experience Experts (CEE, formerly Draude). Love working for them, especially when shops are bonused. After that, probably SPG, Anonymous Insights, MarketForce, and RBG. Although SPG, AI, and RBG don't have a lot of shops in my area, I really like the ones they have, and they're great to work with. Many of the other MSCs I like working for have very few shops in my area.

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

That just goes to show how different MSCs have shops in various regions. I just logged in and looked, and CEE has nothing in my area, nor does SPG or AI. I am registered with all 3 companies and they have never had any shops in my area (empty shop logs, no results on the job boards).

Maritz is my favorite. Schedulers are friendly and helpful and help is only a phone call away if you need help.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

That just goes to show how different MSCs have shops in various regions. I just logged in and looked, and CEE has nothing in my area, nor does SPG or AI. I am registered with all 3 companies and they have never had any shops in my area (empty shop logs, no results on the job boards).

CEE has regional bank shops in my area, and I think they have some shops in the southeast. But not much west of the Eastern Seaboard (at least I don' think so). I'm surprised you haven't seen anything from SPG. They do a chain of restaurants that's national, or at least extends out to the midwest. And periodically they have shops for companies and auto brands that provide roadside assistance. I don't know what AI's geographic reach is. Around here, they do two restaurant chains, both of which are regional.

I'm registered with several of the other MSCs mentioned in this thread that have no shops in my area. Ellis has had maybe two or three over the years, and Alta360 just one or two.

I learn something new every day, but not everyday!
I've learned to never trust spell-check or my phone's auto-fill feature.

I get emails for Ellis shops, I am just too busy to deal with targets over the past couple of years. With the amount of time and preparation it takes for one of their shops, it could easily interfere with my schedule otherwise. I have mini-routes worked out with several MSCs that makes me a lot of money, and my shopping intertwines with merchandising and product retrievals.

I could have sworn I was registered with Anonymous Insights, from way back in the day. But when I tried to log in, I couldn't. So I signed up! They have absolutely nothing in my entire state right now, but one never knows what will show up sometime in the future. So, another reason I am grateful for this Forum!

ALC, Customer Perspective, Market Force, Red Quanta and Trend Source.

Thanks for the shout out! Love our shoppers!

Sue
Project Manager
Sue@jancyn.com

Follow us on Twitter at @JancynShops and like us on Facebook at [tinyurl.com]

Not yet registered to shop with Jancyn? Go to www.jancyn.com and click on Shop For Jancyn in the upper right corner of the page. And may I be the first to say....Welcome Aboard!!

Least favorite: ACL, Reimbursement only, no fee. For $15-20, they want 5 photos, 2 interactions with employees, lots of narratives, timing, then their newbie editors writes back and wants you to rewrite all those timings again, repeat descriptions and explanations of "No" comments all over again. That's just too much work for $25-40. After gas and expenses, it is less than $25. Their smoothies was only $15. One time, their scheduler was trying to get me to do it again, announcing that now I only have to purchase 2 items, not 3. I asked if I get to keep $15 if I spend less than that? She said no. Then where is the gain? Really? These schedulers think we're dummies.

Coyle and ACL. Like Customer Impact and Intellishop, but they don't have too many shops in my area.

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

Name your top 5 favorite MSCs.

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine