Mystery Shopping – What is it and how does it work?

Mystery Shopping is a service offered by market research companies to measure the quality of customer service. Mystery Shopping began in the USA during the early 1940’s where it was then used to measure employee integrity, but these days Mystery Shopping is used to improve the quality of customer service and to evaluate the performance of their staff.

Today companies are using Mystery Shopping programmes to help improve their business and to get a more in depth view of how their staff interact with their customers.

Any company wanting to learn more about customer satisfaction, advocacy and operational execution can use a Mystery Shopping programme. Typical businesses using this type of consumer insight information are:

* Petrol Stations
* Restaurants
* Travel Companies
* Supermarkets
* Leisure Operators
* Automotive Companies
* Spas
* Banks
* Cruise Lines
* Many more

Customer service is an important aspect in any business as it lets the company keep up with its competitors. Ensuring satisfaction in every shopping experience is vital to success. Mystery Shopping facilitates your company to ensure that the efficiency of your customer service meets the requirements set out by yourselves.

Mystery Shopping not only looks at how well your staff are doing, but also at how you can maximise the strategic value of your business.

With each Mystery Shopping programme, mystery shoppers are employed and given an assignment where they collect information about your business in a professional and objective manner. The results are then recorded and used to create detailed consumer insight. This raw data is returned to the market research company where they will report the detailed findings back to the client. Often the reportage is created using sophisticated software to highlight information of a strategically important nature.

Mystery Shopping programmes can range from simple questionnaires to elaborate market research projects, supported by cutting edge metrics and business tools. Research can be captured using written word, audio or video recording depending on the requirement of the client.

A Mystery Shopping company that makes a real and lasting difference to your business is hard to find. One company worth mentioning is Retail Active.

Retail Active is a Mystery Shopping Agency with a difference. They will help you to define measures that will drive you and your people to do the right thing. Retail Active Mystery Shopping programme makes a critical business contribution to some of the world’s most recognisable brands. All of their clients have seen significant, measurable and cost effective improvements by working with them. Retail Active will help you take your business to the next level of success.

With Retail Active’s Mystery Shopping programme, the information gathered is extensive and can be gathered in a number of ways.

* Employee Satisfaction Surveys
* On-line Customer Satisfaction Surveys
* Video Mystery shopping
* Retail Audits
* Brand Audits
* Telephone Mystery Calls
* Facilities Audits
* Price Surveys
* Competitor Benchmarking

If you would like to know more about Retail Active Mystery Shopping Programme, you can visit their web site www.retailactive.com, alternatively you can contact them on 01235 438413.

Retail Active
Sequential Solutions Ltd
Start Electron
Fermi Avenue
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Oxfordshire
OX11 0QR
www.retailactive.com

Retail Active Pioneers New Mystery Guest Programmes Within The Hotel Sector

Exceptional levels of customer service are vital to the success of any leading hotel brand. Hotels need to continually monitor and evaluate the service their staff offer their customers and are turning to Retail Active Mystery Guest programmes as a means to measure that service.

The benefits of Mystery Guest Programmes within hotels are endless. Not only do the programmes measure and monitor the levels of service the hotel provides, but helps to improve sales and customer retention. Continual measurement ensures standards are constantly achieved.

As the hospitality industry moves toward achieving higher standards than ever, the measuring and defining of customer service standards is essential.

The customer journey can start months ahead of a visit and the initial contact is vital to set the right impression. Mystery Guest Programmes tend to cover every aspect of the hotel visit from a customers perspective. This can be from the reservation process right through to check out and in some cases after sales follow up. Advanced Mystery Guest Programmes also review the hotels website and advertised features and offers.

Increasing staff awareness about the importance of customer service for each department helps to ensure that staff are clear about the standards required and how to achieve them.

Many hotels use customer surveys and satisfaction questionnaires as a method of collecting customer data but find that this does not give them the whole picture of the service they provide their customers.

Every customer touch point should be measured against set company standards. There are a wide range of service elements that can be measured and evaluated in every hotel department.

Hotel Mystery Guest Programmes prove to be most successful when every member of staff is involved in the process.Organisations who ensure staff are trained to understand the expectations of the customers they serve are rewarded with improved sales and increased customer retention.

Mystery Guest Programme reportage should always be shared amongst all staff within every department. This is so staff can see how they are performing against the criteria set. It is vital that reports are presented in a positive manner and wherever possible staff are rewarded for their achievements.

Hotel Mystery Guest Programmes are sometimes referred to as Mystery Shopping, Secret Customer and even Mystery Dining Programmes.

Restaurant Mystery Shopping.

Restaurant Mystery Shopping can help turn complaints into opportunities, accelerate sales and motivate both customers and staff. Using the right Restaurant Mystery Shopping Company is essential and can really take your business to the next level of success.

Restaurant Mystery Shopping programmes are applicable to all types of restaurants whether it is a sit down meal, Family style meal, or a pub meal. In fact Restaurant Mystery shopping programmes can be used for any food and beverage business in the hospitality industry, especially those that depend and rely on their customer’s happiness for them to succeed.

For any restaurant business the most important job of all is to make sure that customers are getting the best service that they can get. This will not only keep existing guests happy but can often generate additional business for them. Word of mouth is one of the best means of advertising, by keeping your existing customers happy you are guaranteed to get a lot more business. Remember every satisfied customer will become an advocate, they can tell up to three people all about the fantastic service and experience they have had!

Retail Active is a mystery shopping company that has developed a Restaurant Mystery Shopping Programme. This programme has been put into place to help identify the key aspects of your business. It will help generate the greatest business benefit and create strategic value and equity. Their experience in Restaurant Mystery Shopping is extensive; they are also the only Restaurant Mystery Shopping Company in the UK to have won National Training Awards. Retail Active takes training very seriously and will develop tools and materials that will make a lasting improvement for your staff and restaurant business.

The Restaurant Mystery Shopping reporting systems that Retail Active use are the most advanced and proactive available. They will work with you to develop objectives and measures supported by industry leading balanced scorecards, to make a real difference to your Restaurant Business.
Retail Active offers their Restaurant Mystery Shopping Programme with a risk free trial and quality guarantee. For more information on this Restaurant Mystery Shopping Programme, you can log on to www.retailactive.com or you can call Retail Active on 01235 438413 to find out further information or services that they offer.

Video Mystery Shopping

Video Mystery Shopping is a specialist market research technique using trained Mystery Shoppers equipped with hidden camera equipment to assess the experience of company’s products and services.

Mystery shoppers pose as normal customers to perform specific tasks such as purchasing a product, asking questions or to make a complaint. For Video Mystery Shopping to work effectively it is essential that they are trained video mystery shoppers and they are fully prepared and briefed on the projects business objectives. It is also crucial that quality covert recording equipment is used to avoid poor visual and sound recordings.

Video Mystery Shopping is a very powerful method of accurately recording what is happening within an organisation. It follows an agreed scenario to measure the performance of the business. Video Mystery Shopping covers aspects such as business compliance, sales and service as well as business performance, where it is tested against the measures set by the organisation or company.

This type of marketing research can take your business to new levels of success. There are several Mystery Shopping companies that offer Video Mystery Shopping. One of the most notable providers of Video Mystery Shopping is Retail Active. Their approach and purpose is to work with you to identify the key criteria important to your customers. Retail Active seek to help convert your customers into promoters of your business, sighting that measuring key aspects such as your ‘Lost Opportunity Cost’ and ‘Net Promoter Score’ which will help towards achieving your goals.
You may choose to use video footage as part of a training and coaching toolkit. Retail Active are winners of the National Training Award and are one of a very few companies in the UK that have won this prestigious accolade.

Video Mystery Shopping programmes make a significant and positive impact to company and staff morale. They also give you the opportunity to see the strategic opportunities to sell your products and services.

Retail Active are experts in Video Mystery Shopping services. They will give you the tools and support to make a meaningful and lasting difference to your business.
Retail Active provides research focused on delivering genuine business advantage to clients. If you would like to know more about the Mystery Shopping services they offer visit www.retailactive.com or call 01235 438413. Make the Retail Active advantage your advantage!

Mystery Dining

Mystery Dining is a service that is available to all hospitality companies such as restaurants and hotels who want to achieve the best quality of service available for their guests. The hospitality industry depends on the customer’s satisfaction in order to succeed. This is never more true than when the establishment is a restaurant or a hotel catered towards dining. The most important job of all is to make sure that their customers are getting the best service, therefore resulting in more business. Many guests use these restaurants and hotels for personal use as well as business use, so it is important that they are given the best service possible.

In today’s world it is very important for these restaurants and hotels to provide outstanding customer service to their clients as well as providing good food and excellent venues.
With a Mystery Dinning programme, you need to ensure that you get the best Mystery Diners available who will rate or score a number of areas, from how the food was presented to the cleanliness and upkeep of the venue. With so much to lose, it is important for you to find out any areas that need improving to enable you to act on it straight away. By introducing a Mystery Dining Programme, you will be able to achieve your biggest and most important goal of all. Not only will you be able to give the best service but you will be able to set yourselves apart from your competitors.

This is the reason why so many restaurants and hotels are hiring companies like Retail Active to provide a Mystery Dining Service to all clients. Retail Active are experts in delivering Mystery Dining programmes for hospitality and leisure businesses. Unlike other companies they can add real support in this sector because they have spent their life working it, they know food & beverage business inside out!

The Retail Active mystery dining team (aka Mystery Diners or Mystery Shoppers) evaluate staff on customer service skills and knowledge. Once the visit has been completed they give you detailed reports and solutions either monthly or quarterly, so you can keep up to date with how your staff are treating your valued customers. Apparently the Retail Active mystery dining reporting systems are the most advanced available and enables you to drill down detailed and objective levels of information, regardless of how complex the programme criteria.

Mystery Dining can help turn complaints into opportunities, accelerate sales and motivate both customers and staff. Using the right Mystery Dining company is essential and really can take your business to the next level of success.

Retail Active are the only Mystery Dining Company in the UK to have won the National Training Awards, they offer a risk free trial and quality guarantee. More information is available about their services at www.retailactive.com or call Retail Active on 01235 438413 to find out about a Mystery Dining Programme for your business and reap the rewards.

Repeat Customers Spend 33% More Than New Customers

A customer research company has recently published findings that suggest repeat customers spend on average 33% more than new customers. Another key result from the survey is that referrals among repeat customers are 107% greater than non-customers.

The two facts combined reaffirm the long held view that operating a strategic customer retention plan is essential for business success. Developing your customer loyalty is a key part of any sales growth plan, especially as it can cost as much to gain ONE new client as to keep FIVE existing ones.

Building your customers advocacy is crucial especially when you look at the way businesses can lose customers. Incredibly 68% of customers leave because of what they perceive as indifference from the service provider. This level of indifference makes them feel unappreciated and taken for granted.

14% leave because of dissatisfaction with the current service and/or product
9% leave because of a better product/service or price
5% follow a friend's advice, these customers are passive and have been persuaded by a detractor.
3% move away from the area
1% of customers die

Retail Active the agency who compiled the survey information specialise in Mystery Shopping and Compliance Auditing.

Julian Chamberlain, Managing Director of Retail Active commented, ‘Before any company considers spending valuable time and money attracting new customers, they should consider these statistics. It is striking that even in such a tough economic climate loyal customers are still prepared to spend much more than those new to your business proposition.’

Retail Active provides research focused on delivering genuine business advantage to clients. If you would like to know more about the Mystery Shopping services they offer visit www.retailactive.com or call 01235 438413.

SALES GROWTH AND ADVOCACY WITH MYSTERY SHOPPING

Generating sales growth has everything to do with "advocacy", this can be explained as the willingness of customers to use a company’s products and services and then to recommend them to friends, family and colleagues.

Advocacy is a genuine and compelling loyalty towards your brand or services.
Advocates are much more than customers who return again and again. Advocates are customers who are prepared to argue your case, defend and champion your business against your competitors.

The more advocates a business has the stronger its sales growth becomes. Advocates are also often called promoters. Successful businesses have recognised the link between advocacy (promoters) and sales by communicating the strategic importance of advocates to their teams and by measuring the customer’s views through Mystery Shopping programmes.

Many companies make a substantial and lasting improvement to their business by gaining customer information and using it to make strategic decisions regarding the future of the company.
One Mystery Shopping company called Retail Active uses systems, processes and tools to measure the Net Promoter Score, often described as the customer health of check. The Net Promoter Score illustrates the rating of promoters, passives and detractors using the business.

Mystery Shopping is a very successful method of determining the customer advocacy levels of your business. Once you know the issues customers face then work to increase customer satisfaction, boost sales performance and build staff competence, resulting in increased profitability.
Retail Active Mystery Shopping helps identify the gap between the experience you seek to deliver and the actual experiences customers receive.

Their award winning business tools can be used to make a strategic and cultural change in your business at a fraction of the cost of other methods of change management.
If you would like to learn more about how customer advocacy can grow sales visit www.retailactive.com or call 01235 438413.

MYSTERY SHOPPING IN A RECESSION

Times are tough on the High Street and budgets are being cut, so is this the time to reduce your marketing spend, or is this the time to learn exactly what your customers needs and expectations are?

Making the right decision is going to be a difficult and critical choice. In every recession there are winners and losers. It is often said its not how you enter a recession it is how you emerge from it.
One of the most powerful ways to place your business in a winning position is to identify key measures that are strategically important to your future success.

To emerge from any downturn in good shape it’s important to consider the medium and longer term customer satisfaction and advocacy. Annual Mystery Shopping Programmes cost less than £1 per day per store/unit. Cutting this spend could give you a very short term cost saving but can backfire. When considering how to win in a recession it is essential to measure the right things. The customer experience you deliver each day, through every interaction, direct and indirect, either builds or destroys your brand.

Retail Active the Mystery Shopping Company are experts in turning pioneering research into measurable ways to improve business performance, quickly and with surgical precision.

The Mystery Shopping results gathered are expertly analysed to provide a new perspective on your business. Retail Active provides unequalled support to help turn objectives and strategies into reality with award winning training materials and business tools.

The Retail Active web based 24/7 reporting system is the most advance available and will guide you effortlessly to the areas on which you need to focus.
To learn more on about winning with Mystery Shopping Research in an economic slowdown visit www.retailactive.com or call 01235 438413.

At a time when customers are choosing where and what to spend their money on do you should be looking to use customer research to help you do the following:
Monitor Customer Service Delivery
Measure Brand Standards
Drive Sales
Reduce Complaints
Develop Customer loyalty and Advocacy
Motivate Your Team
Monitor Performance
Determine Strategic Goals
Set Tactical Objectives
Benchmark Competitors
Increase Employee Satisfaction
Protect Capital Investments and ROI
Determine, Prioritise and Measure Critical Customer Touch Points
Turn Complaints into new Opportunities
Protect and Build Brand Equity

Mystery Shopping Measures To Holistically Improve Business Performance

By measuring the right things you can analyse, develop, motivate, inspire and achieve substantial improvements. Measure the wrong things and all advantages may be lost.
Measurements should be simple. If they require a lot of explanation and definition, then collecting data and translating that data into actions becomes less powerful and possibly a waste of time and money.

If you measure what you do, your team can evaluate alternative approaches to be more effective (doing the right things) and efficient (doing things right).

Sharing the measurement information is essential; this gives the team feedback and focus. After all "What you can measure you can manage" and "What gets measured gets done".

Those businesses that succeed and make money constantly assess themselves and improve in all dimensions of their offer, it's essential when defining measures that the mystery shopping criteria is Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Timely
At Retail Active we measure and collate information about each and every part of the customer journey. We examine the customer experience from initial thoughts to their lasting impressions of your business.

Mystery Shopping is only one part of the holistic service we offer. Just as important is the powerful information we gain from:
Employee Satisfaction Surveys
On-line surveys
Video Mystery Shopping
Retail and Brand Audits
Compliance Checks
Telephone Mystery Calls
Facilities Audits
Price Surveys & Audits
Competitor Benchmarking
Understanding this data can be key to creating positive improvements to your brand and business.
All of our Mystery Shopping programmes are bespoke and unique. Each one is designed specifically for our valued clients. We are able to offer this detailed level of Mystery Shopping service because our systems are the most advanced and proactive available.

How Mystery Shopping Can Assess Your Customer Loyalty And Generate Better Profits.

The best predictor of customer loyalty for most businesses is how likely their customers would be to recommend your company to a friend or colleague? When customers are truly loyal they not only remain committed to the company but also actively recruit new customers on your behalf.
Every company can divide customers into three categories; these are Promoters, Passives and Detractors.

Promoters are loyal enthusiasts (advocates) who keep buying from you and are highly likely to recommend your company, again and again.

Passives are satisfied and likely to recommend the services and products you offer, BUT could easily be enticed by your competitors.

Detractors are your unhappy customers who would be unlikely to buy from you and may encourage their friends to use your competitors – These are dangerous customers and can wreck a business reputation.

By analysing your promoters, passives and detractors you can measure your company’s advocacy metric. Your advocacy metric is linked directly to your company’s revenue growth rate. It takes into account both the increased word of mouth marketing as well as the lost potential growth.
Retail Active, the mystery shopping company, specialises in guiding companies to measure and improve customer advocacy and profits. They use sophisticated tools to determine customer advocacy, by store, by region and brand. These analytical tools help determine the strategic options to increase the number of advocates supporting you.

The customer experience you deliver each day, through every interaction, direct and indirect, either builds or destroys your brand.

Retail Active are experts in turning pioneering research into measurable ways to improve business performance, quickly and with surgical precision.

If you would like to learn more about how Mystery Shopping can assess your customer loyalty and generate better profits, contact Retail Active on 01235 438413 or visit www.retailactive.com

Retail Active Becomes Official Supporter of National Customer Service Week

At Retail Active we are so passionate about delivering outstanding customer service that we decided to become an official supporter of National Customer Service Week, which takes place all over the UK between 6th and 12th October 2008.

We are positively fanatical about standards and customer service and are driven to help others to achieve flawless execution of their brand and business. Supporting National Customer Service Week is a fantastic opportunity to help raise awareness of customer service and the vital role it plays within business.

The leisure, retail and hospitality sectors are becoming increasingly competitive with customer service becoming a key battleground for success. Retail Active is the fastest growing Mystery Shopping Company in the prestige business sector and by working with you we can help increase customer satisfaction. The Retail Active approach is focussed to help boost sales performance and build staff competence, resulting in increased profitability.

The Retail Active Mystery Shopping service helps identify the gap between what you want to deliver and the actual experiences your customers receive.
Retail Active develops world class Customer Service Mystery Shopping and Training Programmes. Our award winning approach helps determine the key reasons why customers are satisfied or dissatisfied with the service and experience you provide. We help build a clear picture of the trends and opportunities to help establish a clear lead ahead of your competitors.
There are over 1,000 UK businesses and organisations joining in the celebrations for National Customer Service, for details about how you can join us in supporting this exceptional event visit www.nationalcustomerserviceweek.com

National Customer Service Week is promoted and supported by the Institute of Customer Service, an independent professional organisation for customer service.

Mystery Shopping amid the Credit Crunch

Just imagine for one moment the horror of having no customers visiting your business. Would you be satisfied that you have a successful venture? The answer is absolutely not!

Customers are critical to the success of every business, so it makes complete sense that the better you make the customer experience, the more successful your business will be. This is especially true in demanding times when all businesses are competing for every penny and every customer.

The current economic climate and Credit Crunch is a testing time where only the best companies will win. The unfortunate business reality is that your competitors are very similar to you. They will have a good location, a good product range, smart premises, easy parking and good staff. So the key to winning the loyalty of your customers is determining how you can persuade customers to come to your business rather than your competitors.

Mystery Shopping amid the Credit Crunch is more important than ever. This is not a time to ignore what your customers are thinking; it’s completely the opposite scenario. It is essential to understand your customer views and requirements so you can strategically outperform your competition and respond to customer requirements and trends. Never underestimate the importance of up to the minute real life customer information.

Retail Active (the mystery shopping company) develops world-class customer research programmes. These mystery shopping programmes help determine the key reasons why shoppers are satisfied or dissatisfied with the service and experience you provide. Retail Active helps build a clear picture of the trends and opportunities to help establish a clear lead ahead of your competitors.


The Retail Active service is bespoke for each client. They offer three levels of service.

· Mystery Shopping
· Mystery Shopping with the development of a bespoke in house training programme based on the consumer insight gained.
· Mystery Shopping with the development and delivery of a bespoke in house training programme based on the business intelligence gained.

Retail Active Mystery Shopping programmes are industry leading and are supported by sophisticated 24/7 online reportage. This enables you to drill down to the detail needed to help achieve the required understanding of your customers’ experiences.

Where Retail Active is different from other Mystery Shopping Companies is that they use their award winning training methodology to design and implement solutions to real life business challenges. This is a unique process using genuine consumer insight as the basis of training staff and management about service culture and where it needs to be.

If you would like to know more about the Mystery Shopping services Retail Active offers contact them on 01235 438413 or email info@retailactive.com. Alternatively you can contact us by post at:

Retail Active
Sequential Solutions Ltd
Start Electron
Fermi Avenue
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Oxfordshire
OX11 0QR
United Kingdom

Mystery Shopping and Automotive Audits at Car Dealerships

One way automotive manufacturers measure the performance standards of dealerships is by using Mystery Shopping and Brand Audit companies to conduct visits to check against defined criteria.

There are a few Mystery Shopping companies that specialise in this type of service and one of the best is Retail Active based in Oxfordshire.

Retail Active is the leading automotive audit provider throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, they deliver monthly and quarterly audits for both manufacturers and dealerships. They provide a wide range of automotive Mystery Shopping and Brand Audit services including:

Face to face mystery shopping exercises
Facility Standards Audits
Car Showroom Audits
Dealership Compliance visits
New Dealership Applicants
Service Centre Applicants
Demonstrator Audits

The purpose of their automotive audits is to help the manufacturers raise and maintain the operational delivery of their car dealership brand and showrooms.

Each of the programmes is specifically developed to help increase dealership performance, standards and sales. Retail Active claim their service is the most advanced and proactive automotive check system available, which is certainly backed up by an impressive range of premium clients.

To sum it up this is an ideal opportunity to compare the visual, financial and physical performance of your car dealership. It also allows you the opportunity to generate performance accountability at every level within your business.

Think about it, full visibility of your car dealership and brand portfolio, hmmn that really could work!

Retail Active can be contacted on 01235 438413 or at www.retailactive.com

Does Mystery Shopping really improve customer service?

It’s vital that we remain close to what our customers want, but how do we know what they want if we don’t listen to what they say? Is it also true that listening to what customers say and responding positively to their comments will ensure we stay ahead of our competitors?

One company that asserts this is absolutely the case is Retail Active the leading mystery Shopping and Brand Audit Company. According to Retail Active we need to assess the level of service we are delivering to identify where we are performing well and not so well on our customer service delivery. Only when you assess the attributes of the experience your customers see as important, can see how to improve your service delivery of these attributes.
The leisure, hospitality and retail sectors are facing tough trading conditions and the need to evaluate the service they offer is more important than ever. Whilst evaluating your own service delivery it is important to bench mark against your competitors so that you can understand what impresses your customers about the service they experience from them.
Each of the Retail Active mystery shopping programmes is unique and designed specifically for the client. This is absolutely essential so always ensure any mystery shopping company is able to offer this detailed level of service.

Retail Active Mystery Shopping Programmes have many distinct benefits such as:

• Providing management information at your fingertips
• Helps significantly raise standards and behaviours, permanently
• Generate a common understanding of your brand standard within your business
• The mystery shopping process is transparent throughout
• Successful mystery shopping programmes save substantial management time and money, not to mention enhanced customer retention

There is one benefit that is often overlooked when considering if Mystery Shopping works and that is the positive impact it can have on embedding important processes and systems to eliminate inconsistency. So to answer the question, does Mystery Shopping really improve customer service? The answer is a very positive YES!

Retail Active, the Mystery Shopping Company can be contacted on 01235 438413 or at www.retailactive.com

Customer Service Training and Mystery Shopping

The new trend of using specific customer information to help design powerful and engaging training programmes is fast catching on in the UK.

Senior executives looking to make a real and lasting change in their organisation are turning to specialist Mystery Shopping Companies to provide consumer insight about real customers’ experiences. This information is used to create dynamic and participative training sessions to improve the customer experience, staff behaviours and profits.

Companies such as retail active are at the forefront, being one of the most reputable and fastest growing Mystery Shopping and Training providers who offer award winning customer service training.

If your objective is to deliver outstanding customer service and substantially grow sales then Retail Active can help your team gain a real understanding of the customer service challenges. Their objective is to show how world-class service can flourish within your business.

Each time the Mystery Shopping, Customer Service Training programme is used, it will take you on a journey of the customer service experience and pinch points in your organisation. This will help determine not only the customer service issues you may face, but critically it will enable you to determine a plan of action to affect a change in customer service culture.

The Retail Active Customer Service Training programme is totally unique and unavailable from any other source. Once experienced you will have a clear understanding of how effective this method of training is, as well as having the competence and skill to deliver world-class service, again and again.

By the way their Mystery Shopping service is pretty good also!

Mystery Shopping Companies - Choosing the Right Provider

Things to look for when choosing a Mystery Shopping and Brand Audit Company

Choosing the right company to measure your service and performance levels is a HUGE decision. Get it right and there is opportunity to make a step change in profits and success, get it wrong and you could just waste a fortune and miss a golden opportunity.

When you are looking to engage a Mystery Shopping and Brand Audit partner, make sure you look for companies that offer:

Capability to provide thorough and substantive evaluations
Professional help in setting up your programme from a trained team of experts Detailed online reporting and trending available 24/7
Client portfolio of world class, household name companies
Credible and robust quality control processes
Understanding and empathy of your industry and needs
A proven success record
A risk free trial
A full service guarantee
Dedicated client support team
Specialist in your sector
A dedicated switching service designed to make your move “hassle free”
An award winning training process that trains every Mystery Shopper
An award winning and proven method that takes raw consumer insight and uses it to effecting a real and lasting change for the better in your business.

We believe that only the very best Mystery Shopping and Brand Audit companies will even get close to these criteria.

The more you look the more you will notice the superior differences that companies such as RetailActive.com offers. We strongly believe that you can get more service and results for the same budget you already spend.

RetailActive.com is the fastest growing mystery shopping and brand audit providers in the prestige business sector, offering sophisticated 24/7 web based reportage and business intelligence for discerning clients.

Local Authorities benefit from Mystery Shopping

More and more Local Authorities are using Mystery Shopping programmes to measure customer service. Service levels are being measured for all communication channels with service users, face-to-face, telephone, letter and email.

When major changes take place within local services the local authorities implement mystery shopping programmes to measure the effect of the change on staff and users of the services they provide.

Some local authorities recruit their own shoppers for specialist services but most are turning to mystery shopping companies for their expertise. Setting up internal mystery shopping programmes can prove to be expensive and time consuming. Employing a professional mystery shopping company allows an impartial, consistent and constant approach. These companies employ and train local residents to be able to carry out visits inconspicuously and report in a fair and unbiased way.

Most local authorities use the published customer service standards as a basis for their assessment criteria, however some work with the mystery shopping companies to benchmark what they measure against other non-government sectors.

Mystery shopping not only identifies strengths and weaknesses but also highlights training needs. Changing behaviours is difficult in every organisation, however it is proven that where mystery shopping is used as an improvement programme, change can be achieved in a shorter timescale.

Mystery shopping can be used not only to provide vital feedback but in a proactive way to reward staff who are doing a great job. Managers can use feedback as a way of raising issues, action planning and praising staff for a job well done.

For success to be achieved mystery shopping programmes should be actively sponsored at all levels of the organisation and communicated well to every member of staff. Objectives must be clear and staff well briefed before programmes commence to ensure full participation and buy in. It is best to present to staff, managers and union representatives as part of the set up process and consult with them at each key stage.

Local authorities have achieved high levels of satisfaction from the mystery shopping programmes that they have implemented and gained useful feedback.

Mystery Shopping within the Hotel Sector

As the hospitality industry moves toward achieving higher standards than ever, the measuring and defining of customer service standards is essential.

Exceptional levels of customer service are vital to the success of any leading hotel brand. Hotels need to continually monitor and evaluate the service their staff offer their customers and are turning to Mystery Shopping Programmes as a means to measure that service.

The benefits of Mystery Shopping Programmes within hotels are endless. Not only do the programmes measure and monitor the levels of service the hotel provides but improves sales and customer retention. Continual measurement ensures standards are constantly achieved.

By increasing staff awareness about the importance of customer service for each department ensures that staff are clear about the standards required and how to achieve them.

Many hotels use customer surveys and satisfaction questionnaires as a method of collecting customer data but find that this does not give them the whole picture of the service they provide their customers.

The customer journey can start months ahead of a stay and the initial contact is vital to set the right impression. Mystery Shopping Programmes tend to cover every aspect of the hotel visit from a customers perspective. This can be from the reservation process right through to check out and in some cases after sales follow up. Advanced mystery shops also review the hotels website and advertised features and offers.

Every customer touch point should be measured against set company standards. There are a wide range of service elements that can be measured and evaluated in every hotel department.

Hotel mystery shopping programmes prove to be most successful when every member of staff is involved in the process. Organisations who ensure that every member of staff is trained in the service level standards set and understand the expectations of the customers they serve are rewarded with improved sales and increased customer retention. The Mystery Shopping Programme reportage should be shared amongst all staff within every department. This is so staff can see themselves how they are performing against standards set. It is vital that reports are presented in a positive manner and wherever possible staff are rewarded for their achievements. Hotel Mystery Shopping programmes are sometimes referred to as Mystery Guest, Secret Customer and even Mystery Diner Programmes.