Mystery Shopping Thread 20 **PLEASE DO NOT MENTION CLIENT NAMES OR FEES ON HERE**

Monkeynut

Is it wrong to comment on a staff members reeeeeeealy greasy hair?
I know generally we are not meant to make rude comments etc, but seriously it's bad!!

I shop in the shop as a 'normal person' pretty often, and it always annoys me because it's yucky!! Have been hoping for ages that she will serve me when I'm doing a job and finally today she did so I really want to mention it, but don't want it to count as a derogatory comment type thing. I'm sure I can get away with it when it's asking about the presentation of the staff?!?!

boyoboy1986

whitelabel wrote: »

:T:T:T:T:T

I hope you are actually VAT registered though, or you could only charge them the £26.75 if they take you up on your offer:rotfl:

I am! I do a spot of recruitment consultancy every now and then and it's all above board.

mysterious_girl

Monkeynut wrote: »

Is it wrong to comment on a staff members reeeeeeealy greasy hair?
I know generally we are not meant to make rude comments etc, but seriously it's bad!!

I shop in the shop as a 'normal person' pretty often, and it always annoys me because it's yucky!! Have been hoping for ages that she will serve me when I'm doing a job and finally today she did so I really want to mention it, but don't want it to count as a derogatory comment type thing. I'm sure I can get away with it when it's asking about the presentation of the staff?!?!

Eeuugh! Yes mention the dirty hair. Its not a very well groomed look is it? "Hair hung in greasy strands around her face and gave off a pungent odour". Lovely. There's a carer at the nursing home where I work with the same problem. I think its disgusting!

polythenegirl

mimi1234 wrote: »

Can someone please give me a bit of inspiration. I'm doing one of those "sells a bit of everything" shops for ABAI tomorrow. I am not too sure what kind of things they sell, so a bit unsure about what I can base the questions around. Can someone please give me a bit of a hand?

Is it the house/garden/food one?

I always ask about Hair Dye - LIVE colours is a good one

And frameless photo frames as well

whitelabel

boyoboy1986 wrote: »

I am! I do a spot of recruitment consultancy every now and then and it's all above board.

:j
good heres hoping they take up your offer and you charge them.

I actually replied last week to an "we have an urgent job in your area" email from RE and i said i could leave in the next 20 mins to go do it but my fee would have to be xx.xx as their fee would not cover my fuel let alone time doing it, or entering a report.

They emailed back after an hour saying thanks but they had covered it but would put me on the reserve list if it comes up again.
Im going to do this to every one ( i get quite a few and ive just generally ignored them all as the fee is horrendous) and increase the amount each time now to see what i can get them to agree to :rotfl:

boyoboy1986

proshopper wrote: »

You have my backing!

I am quite happy to earn a reputation with any agency that I work for. I am not happy to be treated as incompetent without being told the reasons: if I have missed something in a brief or questionnaire, then I will admit to it. If it wasn't communicated to me in the first place, then it's not my fault.

RE, like all the other fff agencies, have a lot to answer for. They give jobs to many assessors who basically have no idea what they are doing. We all then get tarred with the same brush, especially by proofreaders who may never have done a single MS job in their lives, let alone had experience of equating a report with a brief. I know we all had to start somewhere, but none of these fff agencies give any constructive feedback to assessors.

New MSers need more than RE, Gyp and the likes can offer. How demoralising it must be to be a new MSer working for Gyp and have a completed job "cancelled/rejected" without being told why. I don't think RE contribute to the learning curve either (reasons as stated above).

Fees are low because of the need for re-shops (account managers, support staff and proof readers still need to be paid for all this faffing about). Field work periods are short because of the potential need for re-shops. I pick up very few fff jobs - mostly, if I want one as a filler, I ring and get it allocated for a date that suits me, often with an enhanced fee (or I wait for it to become urgent and they ring me). This usually happens because I am "reliable."

It shouldn't be like this. Agencies should "know" their assessors, probation systems should work properly and assessors should get constructive feedback. Rewind ten years!

Agree with every word. RE are on the crest of a wave at the moment and are managing to pick up clients from almost everybody, although as with everything there will be a cycle and it will level out then we will see whether RE are vulnerable or not. As the economy improves (and it will at somepoint) it will be interesting what happens with RE. Clearly there is a lot of undercutting going on (which is being passed on to us) and RE due to their mass are winning the war, however as things improve CEO's, MD's and Operations Execs will start to want quality again rather that what at the moment can only be described as the mystery shopping worlds version of ALDI or LIDL! This will then leave the companies who have managed to maintain standards (to a decent enough level) in a very good position. The likes of aba, abai, GR, react and even TNS to a lesser extent are probably doing themselves no harm by not getting involved in a bidding war with RE.

boyoboy1986

whitelabel wrote: »

:j
good heres hoping they take up your offer and you charge them.

I actually replied last week to an "we have an urgent job in your area" email from RE and i said i could leave in the next 20 mins to go do it but my fee would have to be xx.xx as their fee would not cover my fuel let alone time doing it, or entering a report.

They emailed back after an hour saying thanks but they had covered it but would put me on the reserve list if it comes up again.
Im going to do this to every one ( i get quite a few and ive just generally ignored them all as the fee is horrendous) and increase the amount each time now to see what i can get them to agree to :rotfl:

There is more change of an eclipse than them taking me up on my offer.

Absolutely, up everything as much as you think you can get away with, even push it and ask for parking. I bet for most jobs the assessor fee component is less than 5% of the fee they charge the client.

Monkeynut

mysterious_girl wrote: »

Eeuugh! Yes mention the dirty hair. Its not a very well groomed look is it? "Hair hung in greasy strands around her face and gave off a pungent odour". Lovely. There's a carer at the nursing home where I work with the same problem. I think its disgusting!

It's one of those things that I just can't stand. Just think it's so unnecessary, plus if she hasn't washed her hair then I would assume she also hasn't washed the rest of herself in a good few days either.
I don't even like being in the house on a lazy day with greasy hair!! I don't even like when I haven't had time to blow dry my hair, and you know that stage it gets to when you've got wet hair but it might just look like it's really greasy from a bit of a distance - I hate that!!
Anyway, will shut up now ranting on about skanky tramp hair.

Unfortunately, I had almost run out of letters in the report (hadn't even know there was a limit on these before as never had anything negative to comment on, and the rest was pretty much covered in the tick boxes) so I couldn't put it quite as colourfully as you. I opted for 'unwashed and greasy'.
(Restrained myself from putting Big-Fat-Greasy-Misery-Guts, as that's what me and my OH refer to her as when we're shopping there normally!! :cool: )

Becles

mimi1234 wrote: »

OMG. Wel jel! Think the only top notch shops I have done was for GR, a bank that was just short of a ton, and a kids painting figurine shop which was just short of a ton too with the reimbursement.

These days it's a couple of quid here and there isn't it?

Hope you are having a good day sweetie.

Aye - fees are certainly getting less and it's getting harder to make a decent wage.

Not a bad day. Took the bairns for that bowling visit and they enjoyed it.

Back to school for them tomorrow, so I've boiled a dozen eggs and have made a huge box of egg mayo for their sandwiches for the rest of the week. That made a small dent in my egg mountain.

mimi1234 wrote: »

Can someone please give me a bit of inspiration. I'm doing one of those "sells a bit of everything" shops for ABAI tomorrow. I am not too sure what kind of things they sell, so a bit unsure about what I can base the questions around. Can someone please give me a bit of a hand?

Toys is a good one. I say something like "I need a present for an 8 year old girl, and I haven't a clue as mine are all boys" or something like that.

My son had a problem with his mobile, so we took it into the network shop to ask advice. While the lady was chatting to him I noticed her hair was manky, and I was standing wondering how I would politely write about that if I had been doing a mystery shop. Sometimes my brain works too hard I think

superliss

polythenegirl wrote: »

Me too - I'd happily do those all day long and there are loads ion my area that always get left!

Got 3 booked... thinking about taking a 4th which is still in my area... I love this job 2 minutes in and out. Jobs a good un :beer: