Company Overview: Based in Omaha, NE, Customer Service profiles is a full-service research organization with over 25 years of experience helping their clients gain knowledge from customer surveys that “provide actionable analysis to ultimately improve the customer experience and improve sales activity.”
While they don’t have a list of clients on their website, as some MSC’s do, and they don’t list what sectors they service, all the testimonials come from banks and financial service businesses. Additionally, the language on the site seems geared towards the financial services industry.
Registration is at https://csp.clientsmart.com/. Registration is fairly simple and they run on the Clientsmart platform. Finding shops in, and out, of your area is fairly straightforward.
What Others Say: The reports on www.mysteryshopforum.com are generally positive about Customer Service Profiles. They are praised for their prompt pay, the ease of their reports, and the corresponding pay scale. A few shoppers have criticized the $15 report fee as being the “new norm for bank shops” but, given that the shops won’t normally take more than 10-15 minutes, assuming no wait, and the reports are mostly yes/no and multiple choice with minimal narrative, the fee seems to be in line for the work required. I’m a two-fingered typist and I can complete their reports in about 15 minutes. There is also one complaint about the website being hard to navigate and the shopper being unsure if the report was entered and the business card uploaded. As it’s the sole comment in this regard, it can probably safely be ignored.
Personal Experience: I have done many of their bank shops and have generally been pleased. I ended up opening an account at the bank so I could get additional shops. Part of it was due to the ease of the reports and part was due to the people I encountered at the bank. I’ve actually been able to build reasonably profitable routes with their South Carolina client. On the rare occasions when I’ve needed to talk with the scheduler, I’ve found emails are quickly answered.
I have only experienced one problem and that was on a route of 24 shops I did in May of this year. Two of the shops were not paid. When I inquired, the response was the reports were not received. Because of the way I keep a spreadsheet on these routes, and check off each shop when I’ve completed the report, I know they were done. When I asked why I did not receive a notification as to the shops not being completed, I was met with dead silence. Additionally, I checked my job board and the shops showed as completed. I view this as a minor glitch and, given the overall good experiences I’ve had with this company, I decided this wasn’t a battle worth fighting.