IPSOS - QC Delay email

Who else received an email from IPSOS stating that they have "recently been experiencing a higher than normal volume of submissions" and that they are "working diligently to resolve this as quickly as possible and get you paid"? I have already seen emails stating that they will soon be paying twice a week for the holiday season. Meanwhile, I have shops that have been waiting to be reviewed for over 9 days as of today. If they are not reviewed tomorrow, this will be the first time that IPSOS has managed to hit their contracted deadline for payment (3 weeks) with any shop that I have performed. I've always been paid, but I hope that the slowdown in payment causes shops to stop being snapped up quickly.

Thoughts from other shoppers?

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Wouldn't you expect a "higher than normal volume of submissions" if you have offered a higher than normal volume of shops?

Sounds like they ramped up the front end without considering ramping up the back-end of their operations to support it.

Memememe! I got one!

Got the same email (I’m sure we all did), and I have a huge number of shops waiting to be edited from this week. I am trying to remember - shops have to be edited by 5 PM on Friday to be paid the following Tuesday?

I got a email that said they are pausing the shops for a while.

I got the pausing shops email but not the one about a huge number of shops to edit etc. I wonder if the two are connected and they just cannot handle the volume of shops they already have turned in so they are pausing the shops that are scheduled but not yet done. The shops themselves went out much later than usual for the mailing shops I do and since they did not have many in September I wonder if all the shoppers waiting for them to arrive on the boards pounced on them and got them done quicker than expected.

Did the email which shops or did it say all shops?

@revaharj wrote:

I got a email that said they are pausing the shops for a while.

@Mousegal wrote:

I am trying to remember - shops have to be edited by 5 PM on Friday to be paid the following Tuesday?

This is correct to the best of my knowledge.

I did 3 fast food shops this week and they were all edited the next day.

@DRJ wrote:

I did 3 fast food shops this week and they were all edited the next day.

I performed a technology shop that was edited within an hour of submission. I still have 9 gas audits going back to 9/27 that haven’t been touched.

I have shops that were done in September that have not been paid. They will be at the 20 day mark this coming Tuesday.
I have other shops done in September that have not even been edited.
So, like I said in the other string, IPSOS may pay on time, but, if the shop's editing is delayed, the payment is delayed. Is it deliberate? Who knows?
At least they finally admitted they have a problem.

@revaharj wrote:

I got a email that said they are pausing the shops for a while.

This is interesting. Did the email state that all shops for the company were being paused, or only shops for select clients? I have not received such an email; however, I did notice a couple of well bonused shops disappear and then reappear on the job board.
I have received emails from IPSOS listing shops for several clients today, including a new gas client. It seems that this company is all over the map right now. Perhaps they should have bypassed their shindig in Atlanta and reviewed completed jobs instead of recruiting more shoppers (?).

I did not receive any of these e-mails from IPSOS, but I noticed that all the mailing shops that were posted starting October 1 disappeared on Friday. Can someone provide more information from the "pausing shops" e-mail? It sounds like that e-mail explains the situation.

Thank you!

Ir seems Ipsos may have bitten off more than they can chew. Approx. 09/19, I sent a termination letter, then received a confirmation the following day. The first of Oct., though, I began receiving shop notices, so I posted a SHOO Ipsos comment, but the notices have not stopped. This morning I routed Ipsos to my SPAM folder; an action I would have preferred not taking. It is my opinion, this matter was simply overlooked; a case of the head and tail not coordinating.

I have not received any emails about this..

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2022 07:49PM by Isaiah4031a.

Me either, and my phone shops are graded within a couple do days

My phone shops and my fast food shops seem to be getting edited quickly. But I have 2 week old gas station shops that still haven't been looked at. Maybe the gas station shops are as big a problem for the editors as they are for the shoppers? Maybe no one wants to do them for the money they are offering?

Mine have been edited right away, both gas and phone shops. But, mine were on the SASSIE platform, not on the Shopmetrics platform. I wonder if the email was referring to both platforms or just one. Or if those of you who have stated you have been waiting for your shops to be edited, were they on a certain side or a mix of both platforms?

Sassie - I have gas shops that have been waiting since 9/27. The helpless desk assured me that they would be reviewed soon.

@purpleicee wrote:

Mine have been edited right away, both gas and phone shops. But, mine were on the SASSIE platform, not on the Shopmetrics platform. I wonder if the email was referring to both platforms or just one. Or if those of you who have stated you have been waiting for your shops to be edited, were they on a certain side or a mix of both platforms?

@shopperbob wrote:

This morning I routed Ipsos to my SPAM folder; an action I would have preferred not taking.

@shopperbob - you took the most prudent action. I changed my email address with this company approximately 8 months ago. The majority of IPSOS emails are routed to the correct email address; however, some emails only go to the old email address that I use for personal communication (this seems to be a glitch with Shopmetrics). I was getting bombarded with so many emails from the company at one point that I turned the emails off (on both platforms). The emails kept coming from schedulers that had [obviously] not updated their contact lists.

@patman9760 wrote:

Sassie - I have gas shops that have been waiting since 9/27. The helpless desk assured me that they would be reviewed soon.

I forgot they had a helpless desk.

Patman,

Thank you for enlightening me. Your explanation had not crossed my mind.

All of mine are on the Sassie platform.
Like I said, this coming Tuesday payment shall determine which shops pass the 3 week contractual agreement of timeliness.
What I find interesting are the amount of shops of one particular client that are not edited (some past a 2 week period) and those that are edited withing hours and days. SMH
OTOH, I note that either they (the MSC) has either hired new editors or is using editors unfamiliar with the programs. I note they (the editors) are returning some shops, asking rookie questions that should not need confirming. Is that deliberate or just plain newbie editor mistakes?

Meanwhile, I still note as I did earlier in another string, the absence of the scheduler who comments on this forum.
It saddens me that I have become so critical and cynical of this particular MSC.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2022 01:02PM by French Farmer.

Wonder what their magic formula was when deciding which shoppers to send the delayed editing and pausing shops emails to. Down right bazar to send to only a % of the shopper base and not all.

Unless they were targeted to specific regions or or shoppers that shop specific clients. One of the problems with that -- just because you have not shopped xyz before doesn't mean a shopper won't tomorrow. So a shopper could walk into an announced editing delay without knowing it (because they never shopped xyz before and did not get the email). Nada good.

I don't think it is platform specific as I shop both Sassie and Shopmetrics, but did not receive either of the emails. Another possibility is a glitch in their system that did not capture all shoppers when sending the emails?

Probly went to shoppers with shops in the queue.

I only received the QC delay email. I would still like to hear details about the emails that were sent out stating that shops were paused; nothing has been paused in my area.
Quite the opposite, actually. The “queen of retail oil” (as I have heard the scheduler being referred to) has sent multiple emails today about shops that are urgent and must be completed today. “Make me an offer”… One of these is 15 minutes from my residence but I think I’ll pass.

Oh okay. 2-3 others said they received the edit delay email too, so my bad for assuming it was a email blast Ipsos sent out.

@patman9760 wrote:

I only received the QC delay email. I would still like to hear details about the emails that were sent out stating that shops were paused; nothing has been paused in my area.
Quite the opposite, actually. The “queen of retail oil” (as I have heard the scheduler being referred to) has sent multiple emails today about shops that are urgent and must be completed today. “Make me an offer”… One of these is 15 minutes from my residence but I think I’ll pass.

It has been obvious for quite some time that they have bitten off more gas clients than they can chew, yet they still keep gobbling up more without adequate support staff to handle them and communicate with shoppers. They are probably using new, poorly trained editors who are overwhelmed by the volume and complexity of all the different gas clients.

@French Farmer wrote:

Meanwhile, I still note as I did earlier in another string, the absence of the scheduler who comments on this forum.
It saddens me that I have become so critical and cynical of this particular MSC.

I wouldn't be saddened by becoming cynical of any MSC, @French Farmer. It never hurts to be a forward thinker and it will almost always assure that you "don't put all your eggs in one basket", so to speak. I seldom perform more than a handful of shops for one company until I receive payment because of events that have occurred in this industry over the last 20 years.
Were you in this business mid 2000's when a "well established" MSC by the name of Global Growth Group (G3) - formerly Sparagowski & Associates - jumped ship in the middle of the night and left their employees, clients, and contractors hanging out to dry by claiming bankruptcy? I exited the MS world for a few years beginning in 2007 (thankfully it was during this event), so I was not financially impacted. I did converse with one of the defunct company's former schedulers not long after she lost her job - many contractors were devastated. IPSOS has a strong presence in the stock market right now, but it's always a good idea to diversify (stocks, as well as MSC's).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2022 06:44AM by patman9760.

I also remember the Freeman Hotel Group out of Texas that left many of us being owed money around that same time.

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