I am still very new to all of this secret shopper experience. I have already completed and received approval for payment for one shop, and I understand that you can only self assign two jobs at a time. But when I tried to request another job, another two actually, they did not show up in my requested shops. I tried to request another one and that one got accepted right away. Can someone please explain why that is? Do I have to be at a certain level before being considered for specific shops? And if so, how can I see the criteria for them?

TIA

I just saw them under Requests! I was looking for them in my assigned shops...Does anyone know how long it usually takes before they are assigned?

Hello!

Every company is different and companies have different clients with different requirements for the shoppers that perform the shops. This information is often not made public. It's very possible. that a company will prefer shoppers with a certain amount/type of experience. However, they will sit on other applicants in hopes of getting the ideal one. However, as the company's deadline approaches, they may try to raise the payment offered and/or give shoppers with less than the preferred experience a shot. Of course, you have no way to know exactly what the rules are for any such shop.

Here is how I approach it: If I am not assigned the shop within one business day, I assume that I will not get it and I will look for a replacement shop. the moment I have the replacement, I cancel the application, reapplying for a different date if I so desire.

As you complete more shops and gain additional experience, you will be able to self assign more shops.

Linda

Exactly as Lida said - the number of shops you can self-assign depends on your overall experience. Your overall shopper points are collected by the system and displayed in the form of your Reputation badge level, and it's progress towards the next one. Simply put, you increase it's level by gaining shopper points, which is done by successfully completing shops (every shop done gives you a fixed amount of points), by completing courses on iSSprep, and by doing Opinion Polls on iSecretShop. With every new level of this badge, your self-assign limit will increase, and it may be a small increase at first, but starts increasing exponentially at higher levels (after level 5), allowing you to self-assign over a dozen shops at a time. Higher levels do require a lot of time and shops done, so stay persistent!

Cheers!

And, unfortunately, if anybody is interested, there is no way to override or increase you self-assign limit at each level. Currently, the software is designed to only permit the designated self-assign limits. Keep working and ranking. You'll get there. Have fun,too.

True, true :)

Though, there may be ways in the future (i.e. as a reward for some special achievements, outstanding reliability/quality, etc).

Although the self-assign limit itself can't currently be increased past it's designated value in relation to the Reputation badge level, there is one way that would allow shoppers to self-assign shops past their self-assign limit. Here's how:

Some clients are using a self-assign override on their shops, if specific conditions are met. For example, if a client has Price Audit shops (and in large numbers), they can choose to implement the self-assign override on their shops, for all shoppers that have the Price Audit badge at a specific level (like level 3 for example). This is a great demonstration of trust in the system and in the shoppers, and a great time-saver for schedulers.

Essentially, what this means is - if a shopper has completed enough shops to earn that level of that specialty badge, they consider that shopper experienced and reliable enough that he/she can be trusted with self-assigning as many as he/she wants. Dozens, (or even hundreds in theory) of shops at once.

Not many clients currently have such large number of shops, and so there is limited need for this, but it's already being used for quite some time, on various clients.

Cheers!