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Why Oh Why Does CRI NOT Have A Save Feature OR...

June 20, 2010 03:16AM
Do they and I just don't know about it?

This doesn't happen often, but enough to be a major annoyance. Something happens to the page and I have to start over again. For most of their reports, it's not a big deal, but they have some (the one I'm doing now) that require a sentence answer for every single question.

Is there some "save" feature with them that I am not aware of?
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June 20, 2010 05:02AM
I have never seen a form like that from them, and never looked for a save for their forms were pretty short (except the burger dine in.) Maybe they never thought to put one?

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“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton
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June 20, 2010 05:44AM
It would be really convenient on some of their longer forms.

I do know most of them are pretty short, but there are two that I can think that I've done that require short narrative for many questions.
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June 25, 2010 03:03AM
I just now have begun experiencing problems with this ... specifically with their discount store retailer. And it is rather infuriating given the length of this particular report. What I am going to have to start doing is writing up the final summary on Microsoft Word and pasting it, while sprinting to answer the other questions as quickly as I possibly can to get it in under the wire.
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June 25, 2010 01:40PM
mystikwizard says--->"final summary on Microsoft Word and pasting it,".

I do this all the time with my narrative. Most MS shops require US to download their guidelines. We know what is expected as one goes over the guideline and start to write your narrative b4 the shop. The day of the shop is when you put in the current. Names and descriptions are easier to remember when you have "seen" them b4.

If I pass my "to do Shop" everyday on my way to my 9 to 5, then, a couple of days b4 my required shop I am going to visit the store or place. That is not wrong, And it helps the narrative. "A curb that is cracked and crumbling on Tuesday, fixed on Wednesday, become a curb that meets company's standard on Saturday, the day of the shop."

Plus Microsoft has spell check and correction/grammar verb usage.

Some of these naratives are time consuming and what we think is an hour narrative can wind up being a 2 hour "plus" reporting time. The "Save" feature is good, but if you can't find it, you are doomed to keep writing and writing.
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June 25, 2010 11:19PM
I don't write the narritive before the shop....

Live consciously....
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June 25, 2010 11:29PM
Sojo, if what you are suggesting is writing the report over a period of a few days, I would never consider that. First, my time is worth too much to spend it visiting places I need to shop on days I am not being paid to shop them, even if it was on my way. Second, the report is a snapshot of a certain moment in time on a certain date on a certain month in a certain year. It is not a compilation. I would never write the narrative before the visit.

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“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton
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June 26, 2010 03:51PM
I do some of those big discount retail shops. They can get time consuming. I only do them when they are bonussed well out of town. I do them more as a community service because they don't pay enough to be worth that much time. They want to know about the shop from the perspective of someone mobility impaired who must use a motorized scooter or wheel chair to shop.

I did one of these reports the other night that disappeared right before deadline and I had to do the whole thing over again. It's irritating even if you have it saved in word processing. I wish they all had save features. It would help even on ones where you have just to check boxes.
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June 27, 2010 12:57AM
iblessyah@yahoo.com Wrote:
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> I did one of these reports the other night that
> disappeared right before deadline and I had to do
> the whole thing over again.

I have that happen often with that shop form. Sometimes it just refreshes itself in the middle of the report and I have to start over. I used to think that I was accidentally hitting some key, but it's happened enough times now when I know I did not touch any other keys.
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June 27, 2010 02:07AM
The snaapshot of my narrative is things that change. A bus position in the parking lot is changeable because I have to alter a shop if a bus is present. Therfeore I can write about a bus, unless it is not there on shop day. The female waitress had long brown hair,wore glasses, and was dressed professionally. On shop day it may be a male.

8 to 24 hours to report in detail and exactly what happened, names and descriptiion is something one needs to remember the most. I look for different events to happen on Shop day. The times I go to the place b4 a Shop, especially when I am out of town. Besides it doesn't cost me anything to go a day earlier. This is what I do. It works for me.
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June 27, 2010 03:13AM
I would never do that. I does not seem right to me.

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“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton
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July 01, 2010 11:11PM
sojo917 wrote:

This is what I do. It works for me.


And this is why we have companies who make us jump through hoops because they don't trust us. Writing a narrative BEFORE a visit and just plugging in details is ridiculous at best. I am constantly amazed at what I read on this board. First it a shopper accepting freebies from a shopped business and then this? Sheesh. Makes me have to work even harder to keep this as a respected profession.


karen
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July 01, 2010 11:49PM
Karen IL Wrote:
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> And this is why we have companies who make us jump
> through hoops because they don't trust us.

I read something along those lines on the homepage of an MSP the other day. It was about shoppers who shop a lot of same types of businesses, using copy and paste to save the report, and just changing a few details for each shop.

They said that too many reports that sound exactly the same make clients question the value of paying for MSing.
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July 01, 2010 11:56PM
lisams901 Wrote:
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>
> They said that too many reports that sound exactly
> the same make clients question the value of paying
> for MSing.


Yes, I am positive it does make clients wonder what they are paying for. I mean, after reading some stuff I read on forums, I wonder why, too. Sometimes it is due to the client, sometimes it is due to the MSC, sometimes it is due to issues of shopper fraud, negligence and/or ineptitude. I don't mean a mistake. We all have made those, even good shoppers screw up sometimes, as we are human and humans are fallible.

**********************************************************************
“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton
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July 02, 2010 01:58AM
I have many of my narratives "saved" and use them as a reference for many of my other shops. Admittedly there is some cutting and pasting going on, but details always differ as do requirements. I like to look back at what I have written in the past to make sure I am covering everything and so I don't hand in a carbon copy of my last report. Some of my shops could easily go that route. Same cashier, same store condition, same everything.
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July 02, 2010 04:55AM
I keep every report I do, and if I have a deja vu sense going on, I do look back and make sure I am varying the language, even when the details were the same.

**********************************************************************
“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton
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