I sign up for GFK yesterday and only jobs are audit for stores, how do audit work? What is audit job, time to perform and job description?


Job say pay $35 to buy your own drug testing, with legal marijuana and someone taking Vikoden for pain who can afford to pay $35 to buy drug testing?

@DanteScheduler wrote:

I respect Carey and Dorita both. I have been an independent scheduler for GfK in the past and worked with both Dorita and Carey. Dorita is awesome and really tries to understand the shoppers point of view (I hope that part of me rubbed off on her). Carey can be amazing to work with when she's not being pulled in several thousand different directions.

I can honestly say I was not treated very well by GfK. There were several months where I helped fill extra assignments and projects that were out of my area, and it didn't seem appreciated. There were months when the app failed and I was asked to enter reports, which I always did.

There was one month (before Carey was with GfK), that I had an appendectomy and the scheduling coordinator (Ann Hager at the time), expected me to schedule from the hospital.

This is truly a heartless company in my eyes. They may claim differently, but they decided not to renew my contracts the same month when my wife was in intensive care for emergency surgery. I scheduled from the hospital while my wife was in ICU (I was distracted, but most people would have been distracted), but that wasn't good enough for GfK.

It's sad when a MSC goes from several clients, to one client. When I was only a shopper, I loved GfK. For part of the time when I was a scheduler, I loved GfK. The reason I loved GfK as a scheduler had very little to do with GfK; I loved communicating with the shoppers and honestly, that was what kept me going as long as I was there. Most of the shoppers were amazing and some of them are still in regular contact with me, despite the fact that I have taken an extended break from scheduling.

GfK does not truly respect the contractors; we don't matter to them, as they seem to believe that we are easily replaced and expendable.

I will return to scheduling when I find a company that treats EVERYONE with respect. (I know there are a few of them out there) Until then, I will continue being a shopper with many companies, and helping out schedulers that I know have the same views as I do.

Will you please share the company you find that meets your high standards of good with your friends here? I need to hit the shower after reading all the dirty ways they treat you and friends on this site. Money make people do filthy things, sorry they disrespect you and that is why they lose business my friend.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2016 03:46AM by Akbar.

@Akbar wrote:

Job say pay $35 to buy your own drug testing, with legal marijuana and someone taking Vikoden for pain who can afford to pay $35 to buy drug testing?

IMHO, the Shopper whom can afford legal marijuana and Vicodin can afford the $35 drug testing

Usually it is drug testing and a background check

To me money for drug tests is no different than any other investment I make in my business. If the potential return is good I spend the money. The MSC will reimburse after a couple of audits, so in reality the shopper is just floating the money anyway. If the potential is there to make hundreds or even thousands of dollars, $35 seems rather insignificant. In this business there are much more expensive investments with no guarantees of a return.

Is it safe to say that their "S" brand phone shops are gone forever?

No jobs but audit shops show for half USA, company have other divisions or only audit?

This is how they are known. Make an extreme effort to send a letter with confirmation and signature needed to the company. I am certain that you can find the address on the internet search engine that you use. This is unfortunate, as there a many companies that are fair and will work with you.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2016 11:32PM by gbarnes.

I have been doing them for a different MSC, and they are now much, much easier to do. I hope they never return. I am being paid a reasonable fee now for much fewer headaches and no essays.

@AnonymousGirl wrote:

Is it safe to say that their "S" brand phone shops are gone forever?

@myst4au wrote:

I have been doing them for a different MSC, and they are now much, much easier to do. I hope they never return. I am being paid a reasonable fee now for much fewer headaches and no essays.

@AnonymousGirl wrote:

Is it safe to say that their "S" brand phone shops are gone forever?

i too have been doing them for another msc and the reports are much easier and the $$$ is far better, too.

I didn't know that they were somewhere else. I'll have to begin looking around. thanks!

@parkcitybrian wrote:

@Msaddict wrote:

Am I the only one who feels bad for Carey? It seems she is trying hard to help, even giving out her phone number, but is getting attacked anyway.

so sorry your wittle feewings have been hurt but they/she couldn't refrain from planting shoe(s) firmly in mouth

My feelings were not hurt. I just do not like the gang up mentality I see in this thread. The same with sentry marketing, it seems some companies can bend over backwards trying to help and get nowhere. I don't know why they bother trying

I don't consider spending a few minutes on an internet forum in an attempt to salvage the reputation of GFK as bending over backwards to help the shopper. Once she appeared were we supposed to then ignore the holes in her story and just thank her for deigning to lower herself to communicate with mere shoppers? Nobody ganged up, but we did ask pointed questions in order to get to the truth.

This alleged ganging up is nothing compared to what happens to shoppers with holes in their stories. Is there a reason that MSC's should not be questioned?

Exactly. I would hate to see us holding shoppers to one standard and MSC reps to another.

I have done multiple shops with the new MSC that has the smartphone shops. Their reports are SOOOOOOOOOO much easier to submit. I was able to get in multiple reports in with this MSC's shop form in the same amount of time that it would take me to submit just ONE with GFK. No freezing internet pages, no redundant questions, no typed out responses, and no need to answer questions about any other recommended brand if one of the client's phones were recommended first.

It's as if the new MSC heard all of our concerns and implemented them into the shop report. Too bad GFK chose to ignore our requests and concerns. I believe that they once said that the client wanted this information but that was either a lie or the new MSC was able to negotiate the reports with our best interest in mind when they acquired this client.

I think they recently have one more client added to the big box store.

I don't see this as "ganging up" on Carey; we asked specific questions and got political answers in return.

He is saying he completed the job correctly, cannot give details and won't get paid.

She is saying he did not complete the job correctly, cannot give details and he won't get paid.

He obviously went directly to the client to find out that they used the shop, otherwise how would he know?

At least they agree he's not getting paid.

Wouldn't his resolution be to arbitrate? That is the only option on most of my Independent Contractor Agreements. Even if he went directly to the client, that was after denial of payment so that wouldn't be allowed to be brought up under arbitration. I'm sure he'll never work for this company again, nor will they let him.
But why would he? I hope it's a $12 shop and not the $85-$200 shops.

From what I have seen, this company is down to ONE client. I consider it poetic justice, considering this company tends to treat everyone like dirt. No more wings shops, no more smartphone shops, no more phone audits; just electronic retail audits.

Almost every client they have had in the past is already with another MSC. Let this be a lesson; respect goes pretty far in this industry and when you don't treat other people with respect, your business suffers. When you go from a huge market research company with 7-8 national clients to one client, that's an indictment that something is definitely amiss.

I thought that couldn't be right. According to the job board, it just might be the case.

When Donna Goodwin was handling the shopper side of everything, this company treated everyone a lot better and seemed to keep clients for years... since the change in the company, they lost a lot of clients.

There are fitness shops posted in my area along with big box electronic audits.

Possibly a pilot project. Sometimes MSC's give a client a "trial run" to see if they can provide better metrics than the current MSC they are using. I wouldn't put too much confidence in that.

@GApeach wrote:

There are fitness shops posted in my area along with big box electronic audits.

I got fitness shop emails for the So Cal area

@GApeach wrote:

There are fitness shops posted in my area along with big box electronic audits.

Same here. I increased the range to 400 miles and am covering a dozen states, but still only see 4 fitness shops and dozens of electronics audits.

It's unfortunate that GFK didn't take feedback from its shoppers and use it to make their processes, reports, etc., more efficient and more shopper friendly. There were shopper comments and complaints for a long time, many saying the same things time and time again. It seems shoppers' general opinions as well as very specific suggestions about improvements that could be made fell on deaf ears.

Sometimes it makes sense to listen to the people who are "out in the field" doing these shops.... The end client drives the process, of course, but, imo, a good MSC will consider feedback from its experienced shoppers when making recommendations to the client.

@BirdyC wrote:

It's unfortunate that GFK didn't take feedback from its shoppers and use it to make their processes, reports, etc., more efficient and more shopper friendly. There were shopper comments and complaints for a long time, many saying the same things time and time again. It seems shoppers' general opinions as well as very specific suggestions about improvements that could be made fell on deaf ears.

Sometimes it makes sense to listen to the people who are "out in the field" doing these shops.... The end client drives the process, of course, but, imo, a good MSC will consider feedback from its experienced shoppers when making recommendations to the client.

Birdy, as shoppers, what do we know? According to companies like this; nothing. That's why their executives get paid the big bucks... to tell us what we know.

I agree, the best way to handle things would be to bring a shopper or two on board as advisors; to help shape the reporting process and help make the reporting form more shopper-friendly.

They're supposed to be in the business of providing feedback to their clients, but are above receiving feedback from the people out there doing the difficult work.

Originally, I was told that was one reason they wanted me to schedule for them. I was a shopper and I could help the company with seeing things from a shopper's point-of-view.

I came to find out that these were just words. GfK treats shoppers like dogs and the schedulers jobs are to make the dogs fetch.

GfK is the reason I have had a bad taste in my mouth about trying to schedule for any other company. I attempted to move on and schedule with Integrity Consultants. Kelly Truelove, in many ways, is very shopper-friendly and accessible. As a scheduler post-GfK, this attitude was too little, too late. I was already soured on scheduling.

I know if I decided to get back into scheduling, I could make a definite impact and difference with scheduling success for any company I choose to become involved with; however, I can't go back to the duality I had to deal with when scheduling for GfK. Smiling to a shopper's face and being forced to deactivate them behind their back or give them a secret citation (SASSIE allows shopper citations to be made invisible).

Schedulers for GfK, just like shoppers, are considered expendable. They will run you and run you until the wheels fall off, then find another person.

GfK is down to 7 active schedulers. We had double of that when I was still there. We also had 6-7 clients. They are down to one major one and one unofficial client.

I don't have any ax to grind with GfK... I wish them well and success. However, we all know that success is unlikely unless some of the business practices change with them; including how they treat the contractors.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2016 07:55PM by DanteScheduler.

Told you.

There's something wrong when a company can't seem to grasp that their shop instructions and reports are contradictory, confusing, ambiguous, etc. Not to mention poorly written, rife with grammar errors, etc. Along with the other complaints people made about them. If they can't or won't look at the details, I guess they can't be expected to see the big picture, either.... It smacks of a certain arrogance, as Dante alludes to. They claimed to want a shopper's perspective, then apparently ignored it. The attitude seems to have been, "It's not our fault; our shoppers can't read and/or are just stupid."