The mystery shopping thread - part 4

johnny_c-l

Congrats on your 1st MS Chollita. You can put something about the customer who interrupted you, although I would focus on how the member of staff handled the situation.

sinderella_2

cookinmummy wrote: »

Apologies for writing the company - I didn't think anything of it as I did not mention the fee (stupidly not thinking that the fee was in the quote above!). But, it was innocently done and corrected - I was only trying to be helpful to sinderella.

I realise that cookinmummy and I appreciated your help. I've been doing this since 4pm (the data input not the visits) and still haven't finished. But its nearly half twelve and I've got a baby to go to. I will have to finish it off tomorrow when I'm fresher. Thanks for your support and also to Carol who has probably saved me 3 hours this evening as well as my sanity. I was really desperate earlier. At least there's hope now...;)

learning_to_drive

sinderella wrote: »

I realise that cookinmummy and I appreciated your help. I've been doing this since 4pm (the data input not the visits) and still haven't finished. But its nearly half twelve and I've got a baby to go to. I will have to finish it off tomorrow when I'm fresher. Thanks for your support and also to Carol who has probably saved me 3 hours this evening as well as my sanity. I was really desperate earlier. At least there's hope now...;)

I think sometimes we get a bit giddy at the amount of jobs we can pick up a day, I once did 4 mystery shops which were ok, but it took me all Saturday night (and some Sunday AM) to do the reports and send them back in. Often, its the reporting that takes the time and I think we all need to not overpromise and fail to deliver!

It can be tough, especially when you see the money stacking up for a Saturday, however it can get stressful (sinderella has shown that) and it's a nice way to up your income, dont be getting stressed about mystery shopping! It's supposed to be a nice releaxing way to earn a few extra pounds, not a disaster waiting to happen with reports everywhere!

jobbingmusician

johnny_c-l wrote: »

Re the RE sandwiches, I agree it's so much hassle writing the report. I recently did a job for a company where they have pre-filled answers to select for the Yes/No questions, then just a short typed report at the end. If you answered yes to (for example) "were the windows clean", then another option pops up to select which says "the windows were clean". Saved so much time; I wish RE would do that.

You can almost set this up for yourself. Open a Word document and paste your answers for any RE job (for that matter, from almost any job) into it. You will find the same answers keep coming up again and again in your MSing - it's so much quicker just to copy and paste!

To paste from an answer box in RE into the document, press control +a to select the text, then control + c to copy it, then flit to your Word doc and press control +v to
paste it in. When pasting from the Word doc, obviously highlight the text you want, then then control + c to copy it, then flit to your MS doc and press control +v to
paste it in.

I actually think it would be in the spirit of MSE (mystery shoppers fight back!) to have a thread full of useful phrases we can just copy and paste into MS questionnaires - what do other people think?

For example, copied from one of my docs

The venue was extremely clean, tidy and well maintained.
The food was very well organized, and a staff member was busy keeping it tidy.

All the staff I could see were wearing correct uniform and badges. I was served by

What do people think?

jobbingmusician

sinderella wrote: »

Can you help me. I'm doing an audit in five different supermarkets. The first shop took an hour and then 2 hours to transfer the info to the spreadsheet. I phoned them on the emergency line over the weekend to say I couldn't do the others on that basis for *** each. Their deadline is tomorrow morning. I got talked into doing them and told a short cut which nearly halved my time in store so I did all the stores but I'm now entering the info on the spreadsheet. Been here for over 2 hours and not even finished one store. I can't do the other 3 for the next 6 hours! They want the info tomorrow. I feel I've got an impossible task. Do I just write off the hours spent counting beer in the stores and tell them it's impossible by email and leave them to find out tomorrow that their job won't be done? I know they'll never give me any more work, but I wouldn't do these audits again anyhow. I'm never unreliable and unprofessional but it just isn't doable. I'm so stressed. Helpp please, some advice..

Sinderella, in addition to the advice you have already been given, consider saving your original spreadsheet for store 1 under a new name for stores 2,3 and 4. Much of the information is bound to be the same - you just have to make the necessary changes! This has saved me loads of time in the past.

Timmne

jobbingmusician wrote: »

What do people think?

A great idea - I must admit you did say this to me a while back but I was rude as ever and never replied

Should I stick a list in the OP? Perhaps people could suggest the useful ones?

jobbingmusician

Awwww Tim, no-one could accuse you of being rude! :kisses3: You do loads for everyone on this thread.

I think a separate thread might be more useful than an addition to the OP, like the 'work available' post - as long as people didn't use it as an extra discussion thread! Easier to find the stuff and cut and paste?

learning_to_drive

Could you post the document to a website for people to download?

Timmne

JM - Good plan batman

Shall we leave you to get the ball rolling?

NUFCnutter

Got my first assignment with Gfk, nice one :T