Am I the only one who finds their pay ridiculously low??? I have never performed a shop for them, but have heard good things from many on this board. The only reason I haven't done a shop is that I can't justify the work for the pay. I was recently contacted by them for bank shops in my area. These weren't just inquiry shops - but new account opening shops. They were paying a whopping $20 for them. I've done several account opening shops for other MSCs, and all were at least double what Maritz is paying. I guess people are actually performing their shops for these low fees???

1992 pay scale for a 1992 company.

The pay is not tops, but Maritz is a first rate company. They do things a little differently, but they're good to work with and they pay on schedule. Those of us who do a great deal of work for Maritz are quite comfortable knowing many shoppers are not interested. It's not possible to make huge money working for Maritz, but with careful arrangement of routes and unrelenting efficiency, a decent day is the common result. I can easily adapt to their way of doing business.

I love their $9.50 bank shops. I can usually find a location close to where I will be or close to work. Plus, there is no narrative on the report. I think I could do those all day long.

well that's true....no narrative is verrrrry nice

Their pay is competitive. I've done a lot of gas mystery shopping and audit and the pay was good and fair compared to other mystery shopping companies who does the same shop. I've done fast food shops with them and believe me it was more than I bargained for. They are one of the best.

I second what MDavisnowell said...They are first rate.

Personally I like being able to schedule out a month's work without having to hunt and find jobs to meet my quotas. With Maritz, I know what's coming, I can schedule it in the month when I feel like doing it. They have long shopping windows for when you do schedule. I schedule routes with Maritz, then I add in other MSC's jobs to my route.

They are a personal company, they pay on time, they help you when you need it and most of all....when you call you know you get someone with a heartbeat on the other end of the phone. Moms, grandmas, sisters and brothers...not robotic scripted answers.

I love and do many of their gas station shops, and occasionally one of their FF shops. Their bank shops for me are on a 10 foot pole. They're not particularly hard to do, but sometimes I was waiting 30/45 minutes for a banker to talk with me. NOT worth the low pay for that!

My experience with Maritz has been very positive. As has been stated, they pay faster than most MSCs, are quite accessible by phone and their shopper constructed routes are excellent..

Maritz keeps me so busy 4-6 weeks at a time with gas audits. The shops are so plentiful and steady with rotating throughout the year I have little time to squeeze in other shops. The staff is helpful and understanding when issues come up. The pay is steady. The fast food shops pay more than most with less imput than other companies. I love working for this company.

I have nothing but good things to say about Maritz. I will agree that the pay is not the best out there, but I get a steady stream of work and I always get paid.

I wouldn't call $10 for a gas station job requiring a reveal and 16+ pictures. Especially when other companies pay $20-$40 if you wait until the end of the month. Also, I usually schedule shops anywhere from 7 to 5 days in advance. When I request a shop from them, they usually call me 3 weeks later when I don't have any other shops in that city. I have done one fast food shop for them and they do pay faster than most companies.

Ninja - The $10 shop with $1 reimbursement is the lowest paying shop they have in my area. It is certainly not average pay for their stations. The good thing about their stations is that you can pick up 30 to 40 per brand at a time and that work will provide a base for a few weeks. The $20 to $40 bonused shops are great if you can catch them and if you're not out of rotation. If If If. I do a combination of the Maritz shops that I can book 30 and 40 per brand, and I can pick up other shops here and there onesie twosie to fill in. It works well for me.

Although I don't do stations exclusively, I specialize in them. Stations are my base, and Maritz is my base company. I like the stations really well, but it's great there's so many different types of work out there. I don't make a lot of money, but I'll run $1,000 to $1,500 a month for part time work and I have a lot of freedom. I wouldn't want to discourage newcomers from taking a look at the stations, although I hope they decide to leave them all for me.

Did Maritz lose the fast food shop? I just got an email with it listed with another company.

mawmaw26 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did Maritz lose the fast food shop? I just got an
> email with it listed with another company.


Looks like it as the shop I have completed before is now being offered by another MSC at a lower rate.

From the instructions it looks like the same shop with the reveal at the end.

I would only complete them at a bonus rate so I have no interest for $7

Yes, it is $2 less with this company. I did a lot of them, too.

For me, Maritz is like going to the dentist: never overly pleasant, occasionally painful, but overall yielding positive results.

The positives:
- A strong base of national clients, which translates to large quantities of recurring shops
- Simple, no-nonsense shops. No flowery narratives or complex scenarios.

The negatives:
- Using the phone as their primary/preferred method of communication. I perform around 500 shops/audits per year, around 25 of them with Maritz. Outside of Maritz, I have needed to call an MSC no more than 2 or 3 times. With Maritz, it seems that every other shop requires a call, because they don't allow their lower-tier employees to use email. What is this, 1995? For me, stopping in the middle of the day to call an MSC is a huge inconvenience, as I work a professional 8-5 job. Calling Maritz during a break in my day, only to find that the department I'm looking to reach is busy is beyond aggravating. And, leaving them a message sometimes isn't an option, as I may not be available the rest of the day. By contrast, 99% of the same issues could be resolved via a 30 second email, which I could send from anywhere while doing anything.

- Payment by paper check. Again, what is this, 1995? They have a very solid relationship with one of the biggest financial institutions in the world (that goes beyond mystery shopping), and they can't set up direct deposit? You can't tell me that the fees that they would incur for the ACH-based deposits would exceed the cost of printing and mailing paper checks.

"They are a personal company, they pay on time, they help you when you need it and most of all....when you call you know you get someone with a heartbeat on the other end of the phone. Moms, grandmas, sisters and brothers...not robotic scripted answers."

I found this statement by SAM to be particularly interesting, as it runs 100% the opposite direction of my opinion. No personal implications made, BTW...just showing how different shoppers value different things. The first two attributes are neutral to me, rather than what I would consider as positives. I personally place no value on dealing with a personal company. For me, MSing is transactional: they make an offer, I accept it, I perform it, they pay me. If they want to evaluate me for additional work, allow my track record to speak for itself...which they have the records of. The "on time payments" are not really a positive, as that's what any reliable company is SUPPOSED to do. Yes, it's good that they don't stiff people and don't drag out payments for months on end. But, that's not exactly commendation worthy either. The military doesn't award medals for not deserting your unit.

As for the not having "robotic, scripted answers", I personally would rather have a quick, impersonal conversation with an MSC. A scripted answer via email would be even better.

Huh? 1995? No way. At Maritz it's 1950.

Maritz is not a bad company to work for and they have a few jobs I like. I've enjoyed a decent relationship with them ..... although I admit that I dodge their phone calls. They pay right on time, I definitely like that.

I wonder if the dress code is 50s as well......

My main beef is that while personable, the people on the phone are powerless to make any decisions. It always has to go through "A manager" or someone else..... god forbid you have an issue with a client.

AustinMom, as someone who had the unfortunate experience of working for Maritz back in the 90's, I can say you are right on

I love Maritz - I do their bank shops, gas myster shop (audits are 10' pole) and FF.

OMG! I just performed my first - and last - gas audit for this company. Like a sucker, I printed out the 150+ page manual, all the forms, authorization letters and more and now I'm out of ink. Having done many (like, tons) of revealed audits for gas stations, I felt pretty confident that this would be a breeze.

Yikes, was I ever wrong! My first location, the address is wrong. There are 3 same-branded stations within 2km of one another. I'm having to guess which one it is. I confirmed I was at the right place thanks to the phone number given.

On the phone with Maritz, when the schedular was describing the job, I was told 10-12 photos were required + photos for "no" answers. Holy crap! How was I to know that nearly every item had something wrong with it? 25+ pictures later and I'm steaming!

Entering the report was really fun too. Major lag between each photo upload.... hit "submit" at the end only to wind up with 1/2 page of red text telling me I've answered some questions incorrectly.

I left the house at 8:15 and was finished entering my one-and-only (despite having 9 scheduled for today and tomorrow) at 11:18. Over 3 hours to get there - granted, it was heavy-duty rush hour-, do the evaluation, get back and enter the results. For the princely sum of $17US. I feel like a sucker! The evaluations I do for a competing gas company take 15 minutes to perform and less than 10 minutes to enter - those pay $20CDN.

Thankfully, as has been said, they're very easy to reach on the phone. I quickly picked it up and cancelled the rest of these 10' poles. No freakin' way!

Some of you actually do these regularly? How much are you getting paid?

MtlShopper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Some of you actually do these regularly? How much
> are you getting paid?

List price. Even as much as I kvetch about Maritz, they're still worth doing. And yes, the first audit you do will take forever. Now, after doing close to 50 of them, even if I come across a station with 10+ violations, I still can knock them out in 15-20 minutes, with 10 minutes for the upload. Trust me, you get MUCH faster at spotting what needs to be photographed over time.

I LOVE Maritz. They are easy to work with. As far as the revealed gas station audits go, I am in and out in 20 minutes, even if there are major problems. Yes, the first one took me so long the editor asked me to verify my time (1 hour and 45 minutes) but now they are a breeze. I traveled 90 miles last weekend to do a block of 10 shops and snagged a 4 star hotel shop in the same area (with another company), so it was sweeeet! My bad, however, I forgot to take a picture at one of the locations and I sure didn't want to drive back. They accepted a not so perfect shot from one of my other pictures. Great company to work with. They pay quickly and everyone is polite and helpful on the phones.

@ mtlshopper...why did you print your manuel?? They mail that to you.

It wasn't an option. The shops needed to be done today and tomorrow. Maybe the person who was originally scheduled to do them bailed?

You guys might be right that I gave up too quickly. However, I do this (MS/Auditing) for a living and have for many years. I may have gotten spoiled in that I never have to work that hard for so little money.

For those that do these, hats off to you.

Today I did a revealed audit station for Maritz that was 33 minutes on site. It pays $10 plus two gallons of gas ($7.38). I still have to do the report, but I'll do OK on this station. The more of these you do, the more efficient you'll become. You can enter all the photos at the end. You don't have to enter them at each camera symbol in the report. Answer all the questions and hit submit until you get a page that lets you enter all the pictures on one page. It's tough catching on to these stations when you first start doing them. I'm in my third year with them and I think I'm still learning and getting faster. I've been where you are, and you have my sympathy.

I'm actually finding this month's gas station audits are far less demanding than those of previous quarters. There seems to be much less to check and I've done so many that I know exactly what to look for as soon as I pull onto the lot. I've been averaging about 20-30 minutes on site, depending on compliance. The ones that I've been selecting are the ones that I know were mostly compliant from previous shops. There are a few that I've completed in past years that I will not do again. The two gallons of gas reimburesment is sweet and makes the shop value $18.00 +/-.

MDavisnowell Wrote:
> You can enter all the photos at the end. You
> don't have to enter them at each camera symbol in
> the report.

Just out of curiosity to see how others are doing these and the green, I have 2 quick questions.

On the yellow $10/2 gal gas ones, are you uploading 2 of each pic like the directions had you take...2 mid, 2 store, 2 overall....? I noticed when I went to do these they only had 1 upload box, whereas they used to have 2. On my first one in this round I forgot that I needed 2 and contacted them telling them I accidentally only uploaded 1 of each shot, but I had the others if they wanted them. They called and said the editor would put it on hold if they needed anything else...they never did. Wondering if all those extra pics are a waste of time.

Second on the $11 green/$6 gas shops if there are several infractions on one question...such as the Canopy has peeling paint and columns are rusty, canopy rusty, damaged...... do you go in an upload a pic of each infraction or just pic one to send in? I have a tendancy to hit the little camera icon and upload one for each infraction, then add more at the end with the ultimate pic upload. Sometimes I will have 4 pics for 1 question at the end just before I hit the final submit. Just wondering if you or anyone else wasted their time like I do. LOL.

Secretagentmom - When I first started doing the yellow/2 gallons of gas stations, I took everything from two different angles. Since they only had one entry slot, I stopped making shots from two angles, but I still make three shots on each picture I take. I'm not super steady with a digital camera, and I need the security of multiple shots. It doesn't take long to take three shots standing in one place. It's the moving around that sucks up time.