Outback shops and the 250 Character limit with the new MSC

I've done 2 of the Outback shops since they moved to the new MSC and I've struggled with staying under the 250 character limit on the narrative, especially in the "Dining experience" and the "Dinner (Entree) comments: (including: portion, taste, value for the money" sections. Part of the problem has been that the service there has just been terrible, but even if it was great and i wanted to give the server a glowing report, there's not enough room. How have you all been handling this? Do you assume Outback really doesn't want much feed back due to the limit? Do you write in sentence fragments to eliminate unnecessary words? Or do you just write a few sentences and not worry about it?

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

The way I see it, if Outback were interested in quality feedback, they would have stayed/gone with a quality MSC. If you want the McDonald's of the mystery shopping world, you're going to get a report that sounds like Ronald McDonald wrote it. Two hundred fifty characters is only enough for a higher-level report; details have to go by the wayside. I write in complete sentences, and what they get is what they get.

If your path dictates you walk through hell, do it as though you own the place. -unknown

I just wrote some sentences I thought would be most important to write.

Yep.

I did one of these and had to modify the amoubt of detail I usually provide yo other MSCs. I was shocked and pleased with the low character count.

I say yay to short character limits, until something happens where I have to explain to get it approved, and there is no other place to put it. But if they want only 250 characters, that tells me they are not interested in details, so they get full sentence overviews.

I like the new format; it's more concise and relevant.

Not my circus - Not my monkeys @(*.*)@

~Polish Proverb~

@DRJ wrote:

Do you assume Outback really doesn't want much feed back due to the limit? Do you write in sentence fragments to eliminate unnecessary words? Or do you just write a few sentences and not worry about it?

Yes. No! Yes and no. (I write just a few sentences but that will probably make me want to pull my hair out.)

I definitely struggled with the 250 character count, especially in the dining experience section. It was limiting. I am used to other companies who require 8-10 sentences or extensive narrative...

Only put in what was not covered in the bullets above.

What really bothers me is when they have a 250 character limit but don’t specify it until after you’ve saved or submitted. I write a normal multi-sentence narrative and it flags it as 2000 characters over the limit (or whatever). I don’t mind size limits but tell me beforehand.

@DRJ wrote:

I've done 2 of the Outback shops since they moved to the new MSC and I've struggled with staying under the 250 character limit on the narrative, especially in the "Dining experience" and the "Dinner (Entree) comments: (including: portion, taste, value for the money" sections. Part of the problem has been that the service there has just been terrible, but even if it was great and i wanted to give the server a glowing report, there's not enough room. How have you all been handling this? Do you assume Outback really doesn't want much feed back due to the limit? Do you write in sentence fragments to eliminate unnecessary words? Or do you just write a few sentences and not worry about it?

YES! it took 45 minutes for my report because it was difficult to keep each section under 250 characters, especially since my visit had many negatives.

@Phoebe70 wrote:

@DRJ wrote:

I've done 2 of the Outback shops since they moved to the new MSC and I've struggled with staying under the 250 character limit on the narrative, especially in the "Dining experience" and the "Dinner (Entree) comments: (including: portion, taste, value for the money" sections. Part of the problem has been that the service there has just been terrible, but even if it was great and i wanted to give the server a glowing report, there's not enough room. How have you all been handling this? Do you assume Outback really doesn't want much feed back due to the limit? Do you write in sentence fragments to eliminate unnecessary words? Or do you just write a few sentences and not worry about it?

YES! it took 45 minutes for my report because it was difficult to keep each section under 250 characters, especially since my visit had many negatives.

That's been my issue with them. The service at the ones near me have been less than stellar. They'd need to make great strides to get to mediocre. There are only so many negatives you can fit into 250 characters.

@unclebobg wrote:

What really bothers me is when they have a 250 character limit but don’t specify it until after you’ve saved or submitted. I write a normal multi-sentence narrative and it flags it as 2000 characters over the limit (or whatever). I don’t mind size limits but tell me beforehand.

Not sure if this helps - For me, I use Chrome. If I toggle inside and outside of the text box by clicking with my mouse, it will display the number of characters I type, as I actively type, of the max limit (250). For example, if I was at 200 characters, it would display "200/250" in green. Once I go over 250, it will go red. This is displayed for me below the text box, on the lower left.

If there's too many questions I answered No, then I give a brief summary of other items the questions doesn't cover. If I still have room, then I go into detail about the major No's.

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

Outback shops and the 250 Character limit with the new MSC

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine