Company Overview: Corporate Research International, or Cori, was acquired by Stericycle earlier this year and their offices were moved from Findlay, OH to Indianapolis, IN.
Their registration is relatively straightforward at http://www.mysteryshops.com/.
Personal Experience: CoRI was one of the first MSC’s I had registered with. I had my first two shops to do for them, when a family member passed away. I emailed to cancel, explaining the circumstances. One of the shops was cancelled, the other they said I flaked on, and I haven’t been able to request any shops from them since.
Let it also be noted they did not respond to several emails regarding this matter. This occurred in September, 2012, well before their acquisition by Stericycle.
What Others Have to Say: Shoppers are almost universal in their compliments about how quickly CoRI pays.
Keeping in mind that there is a transition since Stericycle has purchased CoRI, there are reports of communication problems with CoRI. Some of the more common complaints involve the time frame in getting replies to questions, with replies coming after the deadline for a shop has passed.
Another fairly common complaint involves CoRI wanting reports submitted using IE 6 or 7 when IE 10 is the standard now. Several shoppers have emailed me directly with this complaint. There have also been complaints of the character count for comments not always being active for all shops.
While there will always be problems whenever there is a corporate merger, it appears, based on shopper comments, that there may be an effort to allow some problems to fester, as a means of discouraging certain shoppers. While this would seem to be counter-intuitive, it appears that it is happening to some degree.
To learn more about what other’s are saying about this company, browse the discussions on MysteryShopForum.com
Overall: I attempted to call the 800 number on their website in order to give CoRI the opportunity to respond. The receptionist who answered the phone had no interest in assisting me. I called as I started writing this article, was put on hold, and was still on hold some 30-plus minutes later when I finished this article.
I give CoRI an overall grade of C. There are obviously shoppers who are having good luck with CoRI, but there are also shoppers who’s luck seems to be no better than that of a crapshoot. There’s an old saying from carnivals…”You pays your money and you takes your chances.” In this reviewer’s opinion, that is what the shopper who needs assistance faces when working with CoRI.