MSP's not knowing what they want

So, I'm really annoyed at the last tactic I've seen (and engaged in) to keep the money with the MSP and not the shopper. I definitely get that with mystery shopping, there are significant administrative costs. And I get that there are companies with small budgets and people out there with some bandwidth and experience that they don't want to pass up. I think. This is super subjective. This leads to my next point.

Shops that are "fine dining and pay $19."

OH! But the shop doesn't cover tip! And you spend $100! So there goes your $19 "pay."

So dumb. Really?

And then, same shop, "Please comment on the hygiene of the server."

My comment, "The server had greasy hair."

Shop returned, "This is subjective."

NO @#$%&! That entire question begs for subjectivity! Rewrite your form, or ask for observations that you have the skill and expertise to work with.

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What does "with bandwidth and experience they don't want to pass up" mean, please?

I mean that there are MSP's with server space and experience in mystery shopping world, that they can reasonably preform evaluations, but maybe don't have the "bandwidth" literally meaning server space, to hold a lot of data, which would be required for a large-scale operation with lots of clients and long forms. And then bandwidth in a more abstract sense meaning staff. So there are probably clients that want evaluations done, but they don't have a budget for a large-scale super professional MSP, so they go with someone cheaper. And the cheaper MSP is going to cut costs as much as possible, and the first person that would be minimized is the non-descript, faceless, nameless disposable shopper.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2019 06:08AM by rothers27.

That makes about zero sense. The best company I ever worked for--most personal, best paying for what was involved, and easiest to work with was one guy with a laptop. No job board, he picked up the phone and a conversation with him was a delight as he was asking for a favor and was truly appreciative of what was being done for him. Reports were submitted as Word documents as email attachments.

My next best had issues with a website they rented space for reporting shops, but the spouses did a good job of communicating, getting payments processed and being appreciative of work done.

Another guy was pretty much working on his own and reporting was done by excel spreadsheets. Good paying jobs, basic trust of shoppers.

Gal who runs her business from home with no job board. Wonderful paying shops, nice person, appropriately appreciative.

Compare to big companies with big servers, low cost 'know nothing' staff that can make no decisions and funky job boards, give me the little guys every time.

Okay, so forget the type of MSP. My point is really that it sucks that they are saying that you get "paid" but since they DON'T reimburse tip, it's a wash and makes things much more complicated come tax time. The good news is that the shops were approved right away. But, I did have to pay a pretty good amount of pocket for a lot of work and medicore food.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2019 08:13PM by rothers27.

Now, finally, we can talk about the hair. Was it wet? Gelled? Pomaded? Slimed? Jello-d? Other?

(Inquiring minds want to know!)

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. - Lao-Tzu

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MSP's not knowing what they want

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