We just published an interview with Market Force CEO. He has some very interesting answers about 'deactivation', and well as getting re-instated.

[www.mysteryshoppermagazine.com]

Discuss the article here.

Warmly,

Thanks for a great article.

I love that you help de-mystify the great MS giant by letting us peak behind the scenes. I'd love to see more of this in the future.

Andrew,

thank you for the comments. Stilllearning is doing a great job conducting these interviews for us. We hope to have many more great interviews.

Warmly,

I appreciate the article. Some posts made me decide to take a break from Market Force because I did not want to be deactivated due to successfully doing numerous shops. On two occasions, I received a note from them. First, about a photo which they said was not the right one. I sent another photo of the same store and told them the original photo was correct as very obviously they were referring to the kids store with the very same front design (adult) but beside another store. They were located on the very same floor. As in the other case, I did not get any response. I decided to never do the kids and adult stores in the same month.

I did get deactivated by Certified Field Associates before Market Force acquired them because I did not want to do merchandising. Someone called me and reactivated my account. I am now active in both.
But I am still apprehensive about being deactivated without doing anything wrong.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2014 07:42PM by risinghorizon.

I was interested in the responses from Market Force due to the number of shoppers on the forum who said they were de activated after a long time as a shopper. Some of them were names I recognized from their many posts and who sounded like great shoppers. Of course they could have done something wrong but they never indicated a warning or an answer to why they were deactivated. It seems that at least one of them would mention in their posts they had been warned about something but I don't recall that either. I myself was banned from a particular shop where the manager handled my inquiries and when he saw the report he remembered the situation. It all occured over the phone and I never met the guy so he would not have recognized me by face. So I was banned since he knew who I was supposedly. After several years I emailed them and asked if I could be reinstated to those shops especially if that manager had moved on since then and got a canned auto response. I do not recognize in either of these examples that anyone at Market Force handled the request from the shopper and looked into the situation or even gave a non automatic response.
I do appreciate the interview but found it very unsatisfying in light of the many seasoned shoppers who said they had a good track record and got cut for "unknown" reasons. Keep these interviews coming as there is still lots to be learned from them.

First of all, thank you Jacob for creating this thread!

@sandyf, I've sent you a PM, requesting some additional information.

If you've been deactivated from a specific shop or have been totally deactivated for unknown reasons and you've recently (within the last year) followed Karl's instructions about getting reactivated, I definitely will follow up.

(heart)

Appreciate the article, the CEO issued a "stock response" that went unchallenged. MF is my bread and butter company and I always fear the inevitable as I know too many professional shoppers who have found themselves deactivated. Regardless of the number of cordial, appropriate queries they have submitted to the Help Desk they have received no assistance, "We receive too many inquiries", "As an independant contractor you do not have the right to receive cause for termination", etc. I have been in the biz for a dozen years, full time shopper and have yet to hear of a dedicated long-term shopper who was deactivated and received concise, fair follow-up from Help Desk and the powers that be. Will remain optomistic that miracles can happen....

mysterymom, my intent is to make it sound like the CEO and I are sitting down chatting, however, in reality, I send them a list of questions to which the CEO responds. Unfortunately, the result is you ended up feeling "the CEO issued a 'stock response' that went unchallenged".

If you have a specific incident you would like addressed, please let me know as I assure you I will follow up.

(heart)

I was pleased to see the interview and found some of the answers interesting, although I found Karl's response to the question about deactivation somewhat unsatisfactory since I did not feel it really addressed the question directly. I also found directions for getting reinstated less than impressive.

It put me in mind of the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Jamie Lee Curtis movie "True Lies." An every-day housewife discovers her husband is actually an international spy instead of a businessman. She haltingly asks him "Have you ever killed anyone?" And the answer is, "Yes, but they were all bad."

AustinMom, I agree with you. Karl's response was good, but still not completely satisfying. Could you suggest some follow-up questions for me to ask? I will ask them.

(heart)

Since you were offering, I would ask that you check with him and see if he will name a specific person in the company that people can contact to handle questions of terminations, both from the entire company and from individual shops. Since he says they are willing to interact with us on this, we need a real person to deal with and not "info@" or that sort of thing. With such a large company and all the employees they have surely it would benefit them to have one person handle such inquiries so the responses can be fair across the board and based on company policy.

What I would like to know is how I managed to fall off the distribution list this week, Jacob. Getting the MSM is usually my clue that it is Monday, so I really count on it.

The most important thing he said in there is big data.
Virtually all big businesses are heading that way and
if fixing problem stores won't significantly change their
revenue based on the big data analysis then those stores
will continue to remain unfixed. Something you are already
seeing across some businesses that are shopped. Mystery
shopping is becoming just one component of the big
data picture. It's importance continues to be debated
among industry experts. One of the reasons why Chili's
is dumping it. They feel their kiosk feedback will give
them same info for the big data analysis as shoppers can.
If a pattern emerges, enough diners will say the same thing
and it will be flagged. Something that would happen if
they were paying shoppers to do it.

@ sandyf ~ In theory your request sounds reasonable but in all honesty, would YOU want to be THAT person? I would not want to talk to angry, disgruntled or unrealistic shoppers all day. Sounds like a depressing job to me.


sandyf Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Since you were offering, I would ask that you
> check with him and see if he will name a specific
> person in the company that people can contact to
> handle questions of terminations, both from the
> entire company and from individual shops. Since he
> says they are willing to interact with us on this,
> we need a real person to deal with and not "info@"
> or that sort of thing. With such a large company
> and all the employees they have surely it would
> benefit them to have one person handle such
> inquiries so the responses can be fair across the
> board and based on company policy.

Many thanks Jacob for this insightful interview less the vague answer about deactivation.

Hopefully other msc bosses will oblige for interviews that benefit both them and the shoppers at large.
Maybe a representative from the MSPA will be interested...

Could someone please post a link to the whole issue here? I cannot seem to get into this issue. Thanks.

I read the interview with the CEO, and find it quite disturbing that he doesn't address the issue of shops being rejected without reason. The reason I stopped shopping with them is that I would get deactivated from clients for whom I have done many shops, and their response would be that the reason is "confidential" and they can't discuss the reasons with me. I would get the same response when they wanted to reject a shop that I promised to do for a large bonus because they were desperate to get it done. When I sent them terse emails, they decided to pay me for the shops.

I think that his company has grown to a point that he doesn't understand much about what is going on with his editors/help desk personnel, and does not understand the relationships between his company and the shoppers that allow his company to earn the income that it does. They started out not as a small company, but as a financial group that bought out multiple companies and molded them into one larger one. I get that they can attract new shoppers who take many of the shops for lower fees. However, they need to understand what is happening with those shoppers that have been dedicated and performed well with them over the years if they truly do care about their shoppers like he says in the interview.

Not sure if this will work or not. Looks like it is not creating an actual link.

Browse our Past Issues

***EDIT: It didn't work. Try this instead...
www.mysteryshoppermagazine.com]


***2ND EDIT: It looks like that didn't work either. I give up. Contact Jacob directly. Good luck.***



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2014 01:59PM by Shop2LiveinFL.

It kind of read like, "blah, blah, blah," to me. Canned, corporate speak. At least it wasn't a huge surprise.

My biggest problem with Market Force is that any emails that come from the Help Desk are signed "Shopper Advocate".

I think not.

[www.merriam-webster.com]

Just curious, do you think MF knew about our little group prior to this? And do you think someone or someones will now start monitoring us?

walesmaven Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Could someone please post a link to the whole
> issue here? I cannot seem to get into this issue.
> Thanks.

Go back to Jacob's first post on top of this thread - his link there works. I just checked.

eveb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just curious, do you think MF knew about our
> little group prior to this? And do you think
> someone or someones will now start monitoring us?

MF has monitored this forum in the past and most likely are still monitoring it now. Some shoppers have been "deac" because they were able to tie the post to the shop. One would always want to be careful about the shop you post, because sometimes a little bit can create a big problem.

At one time, there were two MF Help Desk employees who were responding on this forum to shoppers who posted questions. Their posts stopped abruptly, but I would assume that many MF employees continue to monitor the posts on our forum.

[www.mysteryshoppermagazine.com]

Thanks Mert! That one works like a charm!

Wales, you can get the whole issue from any prior issue. Click on the 'past issues' link.

Still earning, in reply to your comment regarding the person to handle issues with shoppers being a horrible job...most companies have "customer service" personnel and a personnel office for issues that employees have. People in that field are trained to work with disgruntled customers and employees and to know how to deflate the anger. Many of the people here just want a live person to speak with that will give them an inkling as to what the company thinks they did wrong and perhaps a chance to tell their side of the story to a human being. In a large company with so many shoppers this would help the image they have. I would love to ask someone ....will there ever be a time when I might be able to shop this client again? and get a yes or no based on something.
Another change I would love to see is to be able to block job listings for a finite period of time instead of forever. I would suggest maybe once a year. After years some might rethink shopping that client if their situation changed. I know many companies do not have the option to block a client so this is a plus on MF but being able to reverse the block would be even greater. I live in a big city and can get hundreds of shop listings on my page, many of which I am not interested in.

Sandy, I chose to opt out from one client permanently. However, the page said I could opt back in at any time by sending an email so it's not really permanent.

The gist I got from the article was Karl thumping his corporate chest. It read similar to a snippet from an annual report. However, shoppers may have felt short-changed.