Mystery shopping thread 26 *please read the op first**please no client names or fees

mimi1234

preecey wrote: »

Totally agree with you, Larac.

I was equally as disappointed a few months ago when a certain convenience store chain withdrew their contract from Retail Maxim and transferred its mystery shopping jobs to Market Force. The fees more than halved!
I was a little disappointed for Retail Maxim too, as they're only a small company and need all the contracts they can get. Their report systems are a little old-fashioned, but it's really easy to submit a report for them and I like the way they do business.

I feel sorry for Retail Maxim too. They used to have heaps of contracts about 10 years ago and they always paid mileage for every visit, including a cookie shop where you got shed loads of cookies for free, a nice fee and travel on top! Cookies got poached by Market Force and the reimbursement/fee got drastically reduced!

I hope Retail Maxim stay in existence, the staff are awesome. It's always "Good Morning" when you call them even if it's 16:45 in the afternoon hehehe. I think they only have about 3 clients in my area which is a shame.

As for the Market Force shop they have just halved the reimbursement for, hell no! I've dropped it. The scenario has now an extra part to it (compared to a year ago) and the reimbursement gets halved. I am not doing it.

MysteryMe

I don't have much sympathy for RM. They largely waste my time by emailing once in a blue moon about an assignment expecting me to call and when I do the job is always gone.

Larac

MysteryMe wrote: »

I don't have much sympathy for RM. They largely waste my time by emailing once in a blue moon about an assignment expecting me to call and when I do the job is always gone.

Totally agree with that comment. Why they can't have a web site with their jobs on and then you can apply would be much easier. I found that had one off jobs in the middle of know where and really to make it worth while you need it to incoporate it, in to a circuit. As these often very short notice, you could never work them around other jobs. Thats even if you get allocated them as often you would ring up and the job had gone. Complete faff IMHO.

Tolteca87

The RA & GFK money are showing in the bank for tomorrow, the 25th.

preecey

Was just randomly browsing through Wikipedia and was astonished to find out that TNS and Grass Roots are essentially sister companies; they're both owned by a massive advertising company called WPP. I was quite amazed by that.

If only TNS adopted Grass Roots' report submission system, MysticsWeb, then it'd be so much easier to submit the phone shop reports for them. I like doing the phone shop visits but absolutely despise using Sassie...

Big_Graeme

Larac wrote: »

Totally agree with that comment. Why they can't have a web site with their jobs on and then you can apply would be much easier.

Because they have a core group of pet shoppers who were mighty hacked off when they went FFF, I used to do a group of 10 small supermarkets every weekend for them on FFF not a sniff after (the days when they still had the contract)

Big_Graeme

preecey wrote: »

If only TNS adopted Grass Roots' report submission system, MysticsWeb, then it'd be so much easier to submit the phone shop reports for them. I like doing the phone shop visits but absolutely despise using Sassie...

See you've never had that flaky MysticWeb crash on them losing a full report then. SASSIE is pretty much the best system for both allocators and shoppers.

MysteryMe

Big_Graeme wrote: »

Because they have a core group of pet shoppers who were mighty hacked off when they went FFF, I used to do a group of 10 small supermarkets every weekend for them on FFF not a sniff after (the days when they still had the contract)

The people who got the jobs via FFF will have done the test shop for RM and passed muster though. It's not like MF where you automatically become a shopper as soon as you register.


The client would also get a fresh pair of eyes rather than report after report from the same person.

Larac

MysteryMe wrote: »

The people who got the jobs via FFF will have done the test shop for RM and passed muster though. It's not like MF where you automatically become a shopper as soon as you register.


The client would also get a fresh pair of eyes rather than report after report from the same person.

I did wonder if they had a preferred shopper list as the only things I see are jobs which clearly have been dropped at the last minute. I suspect a lot join RM and give up after a while as they make it a right faff getting the jobs.

Big_Graeme

MysteryMe wrote: »

The client would also get a fresh pair of eyes rather than report after report from the same person.

Oh I agree but they do things the old fashioned way (not necessarily bad) and they did get feedback from their regulars that FFF left them struggling for work.

Larac wrote: »

I did wonder if they had a preferred shopper list as the only things I see are jobs which clearly have been dropped at the last minute. I suspect a lot join RM and give up after a while as they make it a right faff getting the jobs.

Yup, quite a few of them too, That is how I got in with them by doing the odd "urgent" job.