The Mystery Shopping thread - IX

cte1111

ukmonkey wrote: »

http://mshoppertheoffi.invisionplus.net/

They only accept 'real' email addresses, which in their definition excludes hotmail, yahoo or any other free email address. So not sure how many of us can sign up, unless you have a work email address and are allowed to use it for personal emails.

Mes1214

GemzyKate wrote: »

Just wondering about people's experiences when it says to take a picture of the shop....does anyone ever get asked why they're taking photos of a particular shop? If so, what do you tell them?? I've got my first photo one this weekend, in quite a small shopping arcade so it's going to be fairly obvious!! :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I have never encountered any problem in taking pictures of the shops because there are loads of tourists taking pictures everywhere in my area all the time. Last week I saw one taking a picture of the bin inside a coffee shop :rotfl:

aplaceinthesun

cte1111 wrote: »

They only accept 'real' email addresses, which in their definition excludes hotmail, yahoo or any other free email address. So not sure how many of us can sign up, unless you have a work email address and are allowed to use it for personal emails.

Maybe thats why I had a problem months ago but then isnt ntlworld.com not a real one .... I pay a bleeding fortune to Virgin each month for it !!!!!! I did try contacting the administrators anyway but with no luck.... best of luck to everyone else.

gmac9i

ukmonkey wrote: »

http://mshoppertheoffi.invisionplus.net/

Thanks monkey

scotsbob

duchy wrote: »

What I don't understand is why someone who uses another forum -wants to come on this one and change it ? Why does it matter if we choose a more laid back approach and wish TG junior well with his Swine Flu -some forums are No Chat/Just Business others are more of a community. We don't have as many rules here as some other forums (partly because we like it that way and partly because we have no way of enforcing them as MSE is generally unmoderated) so we do things differently-we encourage chat (but NOT on the alerts thread please ! ) Different strokes for different folks-how boring and pointless it would be if all forums were the same !!
I do see why some people get aereated over the constant same question. There's a limited number of jobs to go around and whilst people ARE generally helpful and share I can quite see why they don't want to further dilute the job pool with folk who can't even be bothered reading back or searching before asking for help. Yes I do think general guidence on how to add clients should be in the FAQ on the first page-and could be added now rather than wait for a new thread so there is somewhere to direct people to which would cut down on the sarky comments and irritation factor. Most people on here are genuinely helpful and I'd hate to see that lost because people get fed up or feel taken advantage of.

Forums serve two functions. Firstly as a place to get practical help with problems and difficulties. Secondly as a place to share experiences.

Searching the Mystery Shopping Alerts Forum is very easy because it is all factual and an absolute minimum of chat.

Searching this forum is very difficult because the factual information and chat are combined. There were a couple of dozen posts yesterday on Abai but only about four of them give practical help. Anyone looking for answers has to read all the comments and chat to find what they want.

Popular forums, such as this will attract people who get to know each other and understandably exchange greetings etc. Someone coming to a forum for factual information can get bogged down in the numerous postings.

There may be a case for splitting the first page of this part of the forum and expanding it into purely factual information and keeping the rest of the forum for people who have an interest in Mystery Shopping to share their experiences, greetings etc.

scotsbob

ukmonkey wrote: »

Or take it at an angle, i.e so that you're out of view of the shop you've visited but can still capture the shop in the pic.

Much obliged to you for that very helpful piece of advice, i will bear it in mind on my next assigment.

ukmonkey

scotsbob wrote: »

Forums serve two functions. Firstly as a place to get practical help with problems and difficulties. Secondly as a place to share experiences.

Searching the Mystery Shopping Alerts Forum is very easy because it is all factual and an absolute minimum of chat.

Searching this forum is very difficult because the factual information and chat are combined. There were a couple of dozen posts yesterday on Abai but only about four of them give practical help. Anyone looking for answers has to read all the comments and chat to find what they want.

Popular forums, such as this will attract people who get to know each other and understandably exchange greetings etc. Someone coming to a forum for factual information can get bogged down in the numerous postings.

There may be a case for splitting the first page of this part of the forum and expanding it into purely factual information and keeping the rest of the forum for people who have an interest in Mystery Shopping to share their experiences, greetings etc.

Agree with much of what you say.

FWIW, I've been asked to re-write the intro to this thread, which I'm doing, steadily, but it is taking much longer than I thought as my sparetime is somewhat limited atm.

I'm thinking of splitting it by MS company and having info such as how to release jobs on RE, how to add ABAi clients, etc etc.

ukmonkey

scotsbob wrote: »

Much obliged to you for that very helpful piece of advice, i will bear it in mind on my next assigment.

you're welcome.

Now, about my "MS The Office" account that has been suspended...

aplaceinthesun

ukmonkey wrote: »

Agree with much of what you say.

FWIW, I've been asked to re-write the intro to this thread, which I'm doing, steadily, but it is taking much longer than I thought as my sparetime is somewhat limited atm.

I'm thinking of splitting it by MS company and having info such as how to release jobs on RE, how to add ABAi clients, etc etc.

That would be really brilliant , it would save so many questions , I know youve done some work on this in the past already and have asked forum members for suggestions so just wanted to say thanks for that :beer: :T:T

duchy

I see the alerts page as the business -and this thread as anything else. I really don't understand the obsession with splitting everything. You read what you want to read -you skip what you don't. Alerts are different because some people use technology and alerts require an instant response.
I don't see any clash with people belonging to more than one forum so long as they follow the conventions of each (although judging by the sound of all these suspended accounts I guess The Office doesn't agree with that line of reasoning).

Ultimately you can't please all of the people all of the time though with ANY forum !