Mystery Shopping Thread 25 *PLEASE READ THE OP FIRST**PLEASE NO CLIENT NAMES OR FEES

MysteryMe

Ref Buybacks. My neighbours and I had some very nice cake from a posh supermarket once!

skivenov

Do TNS use VAS any more?

cambermam

Hi I've got a group of audits coming up. It's for a pharmacy and requires lots of photos to be taken. Anyone have any tips other than what my instructions say? I'm hoping they won't take too long. I have to take the guide with photo examples with me, will i look a noob if I refer to it before I take every photo? lol...

skivenov

So long as it's an overt visit no harm at all. The harm is in trying to do it off the cuff and getting it wrong. I've got no problem at all with admitting to store staff that it's the first time I've done a certain type of visit, so I'm on my learning curve. More often than not, they generally turn out to be more helpful because of this if you need a hand to find an item, etc.

Be nice, be honest, be appreciative of their time and help, be patient if you need to ask them something and they're busy. I do a pharmacy audit for a different project semi-regularly, and the staff like me that much (or are at least are that worried about getting a bad result), that I have to stop them from giving me a guided tour of every item on my list :rotfl:

hayley11

Do jobs get released completely randomly or do certain companies release jobs on certain days, certain times? Thanks

cambermam

skivenov wrote: »

So long as it's an overt visit no harm at all. The harm is in trying to do it off the cuff and getting it wrong. I've got no problem at all with admitting to store staff that it's the first time I've done a certain type of visit, so I'm on my learning curve. More often than not, they generally turn out to be more helpful because of this if you need a hand to find an item, etc.

Be nice, be honest, be appreciative of their time and help, be patient if you need to ask them something and they're busy. I do a pharmacy audit for a different project semi-regularly, and the staff like me that much (or are at least are that worried about getting a bad result), that I have to stop them from giving me a guided tour of every item on my list :rotfl:

Thank you. Yes it's an overt visit thankfully, the photo specifications are a lot more varying than i anticipated but it's common sense really so I'm just looking forward to getting the first one out of the way then I should hopefully be able to fly through the rest without scratching my head too much.

Every job I do is a huge learning curve, i am quite new to MS'ing but finding the new challenges to be enjoyable. I have my favourite company already which does lots of supermarket work only problem is they rarely have any jobs available in my area.

cambermam

skivenov wrote: »

Do TNS use VAS any more?

I joined TNS last month and there's never been anything on VAS for me. My welcome email said it was being phased out and that most things are on sassie now

DevilsAdvocate1

cambermam wrote: »

Hi I've got a group of audits coming up. It's for a pharmacy and requires lots of photos to be taken. Anyone have any tips other than what my instructions say? I'm hoping they won't take too long. I have to take the guide with photo examples with me, will i look a noob if I refer to it before I take every photo? lol...

Just double check that you have every single photo before you leave. One of my photos didn't work and the job was an 80 mile round trip. I wasn't paid.

JohnnyG

hayley11 wrote: »

Do jobs get released completely randomly or do certain companies release jobs on certain days, certain times? Thanks

A bit of both. TNS used to have a monthly supermarket wave that was always released at the same time every month. GAP seem to release their next month's assignments about 10 days before the end of the current month but MF appear to release as and when.

The thing to do, if you can, is to check all sites as often as you can and also subscribe to the alerts thread.

JohnnyG

GfK payment pending for tomorrow