Do you want to be fustrated and confused?

This company has the worst customer service and support out of any company I have ever worked with. I am new to this forum but a long time Shopper. They called me up to do a shop over and over. I told them I would assign it to myself if I can do this because I want to be 100% sure I can make it over there. Sure enough, I log in the next day and see that this on my page. I hurry up and complete the shop after driving who knows how far. I just made it in time as the shop was closing at 5pm. I shopped the location and did what I had to do. I had plans that night so I went straight out from there. I got home at midnight..... I complete the shop report at 1am.. SUBMIT...

The next day they said I could not get credit for the shop. I explained what happened and why it was an hour later for reporting. The schedular says no problem, be more careful in the future, you do a lot of shops for us and we recognize this. Well, The next morning, I can not ASSIGNED SHOPS OR SEE WHAT IS IN MY AREA. I write back to them and another schedule emails me.


Good morning TINA:



Unfortunately, we have decided that we cannot offer you any more assignments. As you know from reviewing the Shopper Quality Standards that are posted on our shopper website, we review each shopper's shopping history using several different historical reports. We hope that you can understand that we cannot share the specifics regarding why you are no longer being given the opportunity to select new shops; doing otherwise could reveal some of the most confidential and proprietary aspects of our business. Because Market Force is unique in this industry, we are not at liberty to share the decisions behind how and why shops are or are not offered to certain shoppers. However, we have had to remove your name from our shopper database and we will not be able to offer you any more assignments. We wish you professional success in your present and future endeavors.

And this is for life...
I have only been late on one shop 5 years ago with this company. Other then that, not other issues, problems, or questions... Are they kicking everyone off. A friend of mine told me they tell their CLIENT BASE that they rotate all shoppers... So everyone will get kicked off for life at some point.

Not the end of the world as there are more fish in the sea....

Tina

My understanding is that there is an algorithm that looks for patterns across shoppers reports to attempt to verify that they are being objective and honest in their reports. My bet is that in part the algorithm looks at entry/exit times and total time on site. Statistically, you should only be entering a location as a random shopper only 1 in 60 times exactly on the hour (such as 1:00 PM), or 6 in 60 times when the time is an even 10 minute increment. So if your entry/exit is 2:40 PM/3:00 PM, the chances are good that you 'rounded' your times. One report like this is very possible by chance, a bunch of reports like that will cast grave doubts on your accuracy.

There are other things that if I were a company would raise doubts. If I send in shoppers every week to a location and their times to be waited on cluster in the 5-7 minute range and you are being waited on systematically in 3-5 minutes it is likely that the location has spotted you as the shopper and is doing a performance for your benefit. Not your fault, but it renders you useless as a shopper.

If your reports are out of whack with other shoppers--they find burned out light bulbs 8 out of 10 times and you find them 1 in 20--something may be wrong.

I suspect I have had the 'algorithm speak' for one client for whom I can no longer shop, but evidently the algorithm has identified it as a client specific thing as I can do the rest of their shops. There is also a chance that I just met some 'quota' for the client.

Even though it is annoying as anything not to be able to do the shops I really like to do, on a basic level I can understand their need to monitor shoppers' results for patterns that would imply either shopper inaccuracy or locations' quiet identification of their shoppers.

The algorithm makes a lot of sense, that's one of the tools I would use as a MS company. I do have a problem with an MS company not stating ANY reason for being "dismissed". If I do 100 shops for MF and I'm suddenly dropped do they really think that if they tell me it was because I "tripped" the limit from their algorithm, without getting into detail, that I'll go back to those 100 shops and figure out the formula and tell the world? Not likely. Stating nothing leaves a shopper to wonder, doubt, etc. etc. which is bad for the industry and IMHO not the way one business entity treats another.

That said, though we are independent contractors we are the market for MSCs, and if any one company pushes too many too far the market will correct and they'll be out of business. That takes information, which is why this forum and others like it are such a great thing!

And whether you formally call it an 'algorithm' or not, you get a gut feeling about things. If you are a parent and you know it takes your kid about 45 minutes to clean their room on Saturday morning and they 'finish' in 5 minutes because there is something they want to watch on TV and they can't until their room is clean, I'll bet you look under the bed and on the closet floor to see if stuff has just been dumped rather than put away. You may or may not reveal to the kid how you figured it out, but chances are you will turn off the TV on them until they get it done right.

I was interested that a shopper was miffed that MF told them that they wouldn't tell him/her why they were dropped because after all MF does not get an explanation of why a shopper might drop them. There are two sides to a contract and either side can refuse to agree to it.

When I had shops canceled and the client was dropped from my job boards I inquired whether it was because I had just passed a particular birthday so theoretically could have aged out. I was told that was not the reason and given the thoroughly exasperating "You have to trust the system". So I understand the frustration of a non answer, but I also recognize that this is not a full time job where by law my employer needs to counsel before firing and state the cause for firing except in certain limited situations.

A "non answer" is so much more humane than just locking someone out. CMS will lock someone out who has outstanding shops, who may have planned their day out to make those jobs happen.