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

Big_Graeme

Dotty13 wrote: »

Hi guys

I have been out of the game for a while, but have dipped my toes in the water with the IMS assignments. What is the best website to use to plan the quickest route between jobs? I used to use google maps as you could play around with the locations, but this seems to have changed since I last used it. What do you guys use? BTW great to see this forum still exists and is still as informative as ever:)

You must have been unlucky when selecting them, mine are less than 5 minutes drive away from each other and don't need any plotting. I still use Google Maps when out and about.

Big_Graeme

weeg wrote: »

Bless gyp in their desperation. Their system as decided I've been a bad girl and has de-certified me 'for failing a test'. A test I have never taken. So an allocator called me offering to talk me through the test as as I did it, as they don't want me to fail and be permanently disqualified as they are desperate. He was very confused when I said I'd never been given a test to take, let alone to fail.

Are there more visits up here or something? I got a message on the answerphone the other day asking why I had stopped working for them.

weeg

Big_Graeme wrote: »

Are there more visits up here or something? I got a message on the answerphone the other day asking why I had stopped working for them.

Just the usual, but they must have sacked too any people and are struggling to get them done. It was the burgers I had been booted off.

centretap

MysteryMan00 wrote: »

You guys are lucky btw managing to get started - I've had an email (at least I got one this time) saying my box wouldn't arrive today after all - it will be tomorrow.

Fingers crossed it's late because they got it sent back and are now putting the rest of the stuff in. If I get it tomorrow and it's half empty I think I'll scream!

Have you received it? Did you get everything?

Dotty13

centretap wrote: »

http://www.drivingrouteplanner.com

Used to use it nightly when I was doing service calls for an IT company to plan the next days route.

Thanks for this - this is what I was looking for. :T

Dotty13

Big_Graeme wrote: »

You must have been unlucky when selecting them, mine are less than 5 minutes drive away from each other and don't need any plotting. I still use Google Maps when out and about.

Mine are all in the same town, but I want to know the quickest way to get to them in order, rather than zig-zagging around town.

Google maps used to allow you to input postcodes and then move the destinations in the order that you wanted them - it doesn't seem to do this anymore, which is a shame.

I'm not too bothered about traffic, as this is expected, I just don't want to keep going back on myself.

missymouse

Do you always print everything? I tend to look at the brief before I go, I may print that off but not the whole questionnaire as it is so many pages.

Do others fill the paper versions in first then transfer online. I make a few notes on my phone or in a notebook, the latter not on the premises obviously.

Wizzbang

So ABAI must be nearly out of business! I did used to do the petrol station jobs quite regularly and their pay was reasonable, if you didn't buy anything expensive and were in the area. My MS work has dried up to almost nothing this year. Sad.

hsa_3

Wizzbang wrote: »

So ABAI must be nearly out of business! I did used to do the petrol station jobs quite regularly and their pay was reasonable, if you didn't buy anything expensive and were in the area. My MS work has dried up to almost nothing this year. Sad.

Yeah, I was thinking just he same as you. I have cut down travel because I used to do a regular round in another county which meant I could put in a couple of full days' work worthwhile for the driving. Now I'm only doing local and I think there must be a couple of other active merchandisers here because there's nothing even local on IMS and and co that can't be named seems to have competition for my time! And I think cos outsource merhcandising coz they know the stores hate merchandisers. Especially FSDUs, so I give those a miss.

But there just seems to be less and less and what there is is much harder: tons of car jobs (not worth the hassle), phone shops (the only worthwhile was was the DS one who went bust...), credit check jobs, money laundering checks where the scenarios are miles out of my comfort zone, assessments which tell you to behnave like a normal shopoper but ask you to do things no normal shopper ever does, what looks like good reimbursement until you read that you have to spend four times that on the product ("Only do this job if you really want a coat"), now even ESA are offering reimbursement only pub jobs.

The you get all these calls from RA and ESA (particularly) being quite rude when you say you are busy.

All MSers are on Zero hours, lowish pay. Heavens knows what the cos tell their clients to get the business. Oh yes, our MSsers are so desperate they'll do anything for just a drink...

Sorry for the rant I'm feeling a bit depressed about it all at the moment! I used to enjoy Msing....

Mr._Bigglesworth

Dotty13 wrote: »

Mine are all in the same town, but I want to know the quickest way to get to them in order, rather than zig-zagging around town.

Google maps used to allow you to input postcodes and then move the destinations in the order that you wanted them - it doesn't seem to do this anymore, which is a shame.

I'm not too bothered about traffic, as this is expected, I just don't want to keep going back on myself.

Google still allows you to switch the postcodes around once you have plotted the route. When i manage to put together a few assignments in an area I'm not too familiar with i use RouteXL.com. This allows you to enter up to 20 address (for more you'd need to subscribe) and it will work out the quickest route through the addresses so you're minimising any risk of doubling back on yourself. you can also export the route to certain formats compatible with satnavs but i'm not that clued up with custom journey imports for satnavs

I also have a look at parkopedia.co.uk to find the prices of the parking around the mystery shop locations. I try to hunt for the supermarket carparks with the 2 hours free. They also have an app on the AppStore, it's £1.49 but you quickly save that in parking costs.