What is Shopper Report scoring/grading, why is it important, and what does it mean to you?
What is a ‘score’ or ‘grade’?
When you submit a survey, or report, for an assignment you complete, your validator will assign you a score. Even before that, your scheduler will assess and grade you accordingly. These are combined and averaged over your assignment history to give you your score.
Why do we score shoppers?
We need to have a method of tracking how each person performs. This will allow us to ensure the highest quality surveys are submitted to our clients. When our clients are happy with the reports they receive, Shoppers Confidential secures repeat business or draws in new business, which means more fun, compensated opportunities for you!
What do these scores mean to you?
These scores are important! When a scheduler is looking at 50+ applicants for an important assignment, one of the biggest things they will consider is your score or grade. Even if you are the only applicant for an assignment, if you have a low score, a scheduler may speak to a recruiter to see if they can draw in other applicants because they do not want to take a risk with your low grade.
What does my scheduler score me on?
These are some items that your scheduler takes into consideration:
• Did you complete the assignment before, on or after the due date?
• Did you need to request extensions?
• Did you ‘flake’ and not complete the assignment at all?
• Did you take on a rush assignment to help us out of a bind?
Many people love these opportunities. We reward those who complete their assignments promptly and are the most flexible with working with us, with higher shopper scores.
What does my validator score me on?
When you submit your survey, the validator is looking for many different things:
• Did you follow the survey instructions?
• Did you include all the required attachments, and are they in the format required?
• Is your report written using proper sentence structure? Capital letters to start, commas when necessary, and punctuation at the end.
• Did you avoid using contractions? (i.e. instead of “I’ve,” you write, “I have,” etc.)
• Is your spelling correct?
• Are you using the proper word (i.e. their, they’re, there etc.)?
• Do your details add up, or do your findings contradict each other?
• Does the report flow well?
• Does your report contain a lot of details or very few details?
• Do your survey answers focus on FACTS, or are there OPINIONS when it does not ask for opinions?
• Is everything written in the correct tense?
• Is the report generally well written with very few errors to correct?
In a phone call or video shop, we are also looking for technical execution. Did you have the conversation flow naturally like a regular, inquiring customer? Did you keep your screen recording on the live video with the target? The audio and video quality are crucial to our clients and us. Of course, it should not even have to be said, but ensure that you are using professional language and do not say anything inflammatory or outside the scope of the assignment.
People who generally submit well-written surveys with few mistakes have higher shopper grades. We may also make notes such as ‘important positive, positive, neutral, negative, and important negative’ when necessary. These notes will also weigh in on your overall scoring. We recommend installing Grammarly for free, and you can visit our blog post about it.
Your score is low, so how can you fix it?
The first thing you can do is contact your scheduler when you apply for an assignment. Email them and let them know that you have good intentions of working to raise your score. The next thing you can do is be great! Complete your assignment early, or at least on time. Read the list of things validators look for in a survey and double-check your report before you submit it. Be flexible, and communicate clearly and openly with your scheduler.
Overall, we all want the same thing: Lots of really great opportunities available for you to be compensated for while you shop! We can do that together by keeping our quality high, revision time low, and collecting from a pool of really, REALLY awesome shoppers.
Thank you all so much, and keep those well-written, on-time assignments coming!
If you want to become a shopper with us, visit our webpage for shoppers for details and visit our portal site to register!
