@walesmaven wrote:
Either way, the best practice would be to get consent, in writing, from the schedulers of BOTH MSCs. You do not, have to, and should not tell, each MSC who the other MSC is. (ICA rules, again.)
One thing we HIGHLY disagree on. I believe even letting another MSC know their client is being shopped by someone else is a breach of your ICA.
This question comes up a couple of times a year and most people either say yes or no. In reality to me it's much more complicated than that. I'll give you a few real world examples:
I used to do a route of Citgo audits. I had half a dozen locations that were Circle K. In those areas the shops were with 2 different companies. In that particular case I was well aware that both companies, the end clients, and the location were aware of the other shops. I did not feel like it was a breach of my ICA to discuss it with them. Both MSC's were fine with me doing both shops as long as I did one then the other. Why I don't know as they were interested in 2 entirely different sets of information. But I digress. I wasn't able to do both shops the first time when I asked and for some reason one of the companies changed their mind and wanted them done on different days the next round, which didn't work for me.
At one point it was possible to book a Pilot truck stop shop, a Cinnabon shop, and a fast food shop, all in the same Pilot gas station. All were done by different MSCs. As the requirements were significantly different for each shop, as well as the purchase requirements, I had no problem doing all 3 shops for 3 different MSCs at the same time without discussing it with them.
At one time Regions bank was shopped by 1 MSC for Regions and another MSC as a competitor shop. The reports were going to different locations, the end clients were not aware of the other shop, and it would have been a HUGE breach of my ICA to let the MSC that shops Regions know their client was being competitor shopped by another MSC. In addition the shops were not asking the same questions. I was never able to get a shop for each at the same location, but I would have done it with no problem whatsoever without discussing it with the other. I absolutely would not have written the same report and would have left out any information asked by one MSC but not the other. IE if one MSC wanted to know if they asked about your direct deposit and the other did not, I would not give that information to the second one.
Now, there are clients who hire multiple MSCs to shop their locations in order to get a second set of "eyes" so to speak. I would never even consider doing both of those shops, even with asking. A, I feel like that again would be a huge breach of my ICA to let one MSC know the end client had also hired another company and B, it would eliminate the end client's reason for hiring 2 companies. However, this situation is much rarer in my experience than the others.
So basically, in order to know the answer to your question, you need to know the source of each shop, what they're looking for, why they're looking for it, and then use some common sense on if it's ok or not.
But that's just my opinion.
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