I just received my first graded gas station shop (I totally forgot about grades years ago!) and I just have to laugh. They graded me at "8" with random comments that made no sense if they bothered to read MY comments that I submitted in the report.
For instance, several gas stations do not have a company logo on the canopy due to city regulations, older style of roof, etc. I explained that in the comments section. The new system would not let me submit the report without the company logo photo so I submitted the entire canopy to show that there is no logo. Again, I explained this in comments. They took off a point for "wrong or missing photo" or some nonsense.
I even sent several urgent emails regarding this reoccurring issue along with other issues but no response to any of my emails. Absolutely ridiculous!

The only grade I worry about is the "OK to pay".

From time to time I've certainly gotten 9s (or thanks to Ipsos' even-only system 8s) for shops that didn't deserve it. But I'm quite sure there have been many more instances where I got a 10 for a shop report that was not truly perfect in every way.

@ceasesmith wrote:

The only grade I worry about is the "OK to pay".

I don't care about the grade. I care about the stupidity of editors who do not read or comprehend the comments that I write in a report when things don't go exactly like the guidelines say. And they want us to be professional? Respond to your damn emails ipsos!

I wasn't disagreeing with you, Luvs. As my daddy always said, "You'll never go broke underestimating the stupidity of people".

Besides, I don't think we have access to the editors, so your e-mails probably were not read.

I just did a slew of shops for December. One of the photos required was of "Current POP, or expired if current not posted". Well, guess what? Editor didn't realize what the January POPs were. I really didn't think the business should be dinged because they put up January POPs as soon as they received them, right?

Yeppers.

But like I said, if they pay me, I don't care what my grade is (except in the rare case that it might affect my getting future shops -- then I'll fight like a mother tigress for her cubs, LOL!)
But 8's aren't going to affect your ability to get future shops.

So count to 10, have a hot drink, relax, tomorrow is another day.



And happy new year!

@ceasesmith wrote:

I wasn't disagreeing with you, Luvs. As my daddy always said, "You'll never go broke underestimating the stupidity of people".

Besides, I don't think we have access to the editors, so your e-mails probably were not read./quote]
Just to clarify, the e-mails were being sent to the scheduler PRIOR to me submitting my reports. It has almost been a week and not one single response.

Gotcha.

You must have different schedulers than the ones I was working with; I got lucky, I guess. I had never done either of these particular shops, and had lots of questions, and both schedulers were incredibly responsive.

And I had NEVER seen a gas station without logos on the canopy before doing these shops. I did the same thing you did -- submitted photos showing all 4 sides of the canopy sans logos.

I just put my comments in the comments fields, explaining what happened and so on.

Like I said, guess I got lucky.

I did 15 stations last week. Two were reviewed, I don't know or care why only two. I received an 8 and a 10 and have no idea why on either. If Ipsos wants to correct mistakes and improve shops they should indicate what the errors were and not a vague mention of minor or moderate errors. As mentioned the only grade I am interested in is the ability to self assign and getting prompt payment. I'm not taking s college final here. Speaking of payment, it seems it is slower than it was with the old system.

IPSOS has gone downhill quickly, on many fronts. I had a 10 Rating, yet yesterday randomly I got a "6" on a report (for a shop I've done at least 50 times) but in the comments they said they were grading the report an "8." I dared email to ask which was correct - a 6 or an 8 and I got the rudest email ever from the Scheduler and zero response from the Editor. Then today, I had one shop scheduled and I have the Scheduler sending harassing emails in the middle of the day that the shop is already OverDue (huh?). No idea what is going on over there, but people who were previously good to work with have turned in to nightmares. I've done over 500 shops for them, and today will be my last. For $14 a shop, they can harass someone else! Jennifer B needs a class in appropriate, polite business communication, and I wish she was the only one who has gone off the rails...

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2021 06:47PM by Cassiespark.

Good to know it was not just my own negative interpretation of particular scheduler's manner of communications.

@sestrahelena wrote:

Good to know it was not just my own negative interpretation of particular scheduler's manner of communications.

i thought that jennifer b doesn’t handle the red white and blues? always had a feeling she wouldn’t be easy to deal with.

Its a shame how difficult they are to work with now. Seems they would realize they don't have a viable business model if they don't have recognized, appreciated, motivated shoppers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2021 04:58PM by Cassiespark.

so...what do you do when the message is "hold pay" and you think you have done everything corectly?

Well, I finally got ONE response to ONE of my emails regarding clarification issues for one of their clients. Too bad that it was 6 days late and I already submitted the report. I am still waiting on the NO CANOPY LOGO situation. They need to add a N/A option like they do for the NO MAIN ID SIGN.

What does received mean but without a grade? So if it's received, does it mean the shop was accepted? Or denied?

sparkles and Luvs - I share your frustration! I have been trying to get Ipsos to respond to a few questions and issues....crickets...my scheduler agrees with me, which gets me a seat on the bus, if I have a quarter! It may take months, as I believe the IPSOS US operation is far understaffed to handle their volume of business.

But what does 'Received' mean without a grade? Was it accepted for pay? How does a rejected shop look like?

received means it was approved. ipsos usually answers my emails a week later, so they are useless if you have any real issues.

So it's good for payment?

@sparklesthekitty wrote:

So it's good for payment?

yes

@jay225 wrote:

received means it was approved. ipsos usually answers my emails a week later, so they are useless if you have any real issues.

But our safety is their first concern and we are to contact them immediately if there is a problem. Ha, ha, ha!

Yeah, I'll put that right up there with the route I did last month. If I couldn't complete the shop, I was absolutely NOT to leave the location without calling the "hotline". So I called and got voice mail. A total of 7 stores (of 58), I was not able to complete for one reason or another (no manager available, items not in store, etc.). Seven voice mails. A month later, never any reply to any of the seven. What good is a number no one answers?

I just got my grades for my blue stations. All 8's. LOL. Between the former company and the current, I have about 1000 of these under my belt and yet every report apparently contains minor grammatical errors... without me even writing a sentence in the report. At least we get paid.

"Minor grammatical errors" -- without any writing?

Thanks for the giggles.

"Jennifer B needs a class in appropriate, polite business communication"

I had two run ins with her in November...she was so unprofessional I stopped applying for anything she is scheduling. I've always worked well with Ipsos schedulers until that happened, I figured she was a one-off.

I've been keeping scheduler notes and the RUDE ones are on their own....you can tell because they have ALOT of open jobs!

I have done hundreds of shops for Maritz and for the first time I received a 2 on the last report that I did.
I actually do not care as long as they pay me. But it was a shock. The editor said I major spelling and grammar errors. If I remember correctly, there is very little narrative so it is difficult to have major errors!

A "2"??? What's going on with their editors?

I think the company has outsourced their editing for some shops to a new company since the first of this year; I have never had ANY problems with my reports until this change was made, and then one day I got an email, responded with a correction to the error and thought it was resolved since I heard nothing further. Well that was silly of me.....four days later I get another email from a different editor pointing out the problem and giving me 12 hours to correct it. First of all, the strongly worded request was sent late in the evening, and second, the 12 hours expired before I even checked my email in the morning (pretty sure different time zones). I sent the requested corrections and exchanged several emails for clarification, only to find the "hold pay" was removed on one and added to another shop not previously mentioned. I voiced my concerns and asked for the supervisor name and email address for further correspondence, but as it is said, crickets! This is only happening on one type of shop I do for this company, and my other shops are 9 or 10 ratings (sometimes I do not catch when my letter "i" does not capitalize. I finally gave up and said this is costing more than the value of my shop fee! I am not a newcomer to mystery shopping and work for several companies so this is rather an unusual situation for me....anyone else having similar issues?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2021 04:47PM by Huppster98204.

I have noticed that since the Maritz takeover, the schedulers have all been switching around to different projects every couple of months. The shipping shops can't seem to keep a regular scheduler these days whereas before, I'd seen the same schedulers work on each shop type for years.