Video Mystery Shopping with Retail Active

Retail Active is one of the market leading Mystery Shopping Companies in the UK and we are undertaking a new venture for one of our existing clients. Due to the number of Video Mystery Shopping opportunities coming up, we need to expand our team of registered Video mystery shoppers.

Do you have experience in VIDEO MYSTERY SHOPPING? We would love to get you involved!  Please contact us on 01235 438 413 and let us know what equipment you have. You can also edit your Shopper Homepage to detail the equipment you own, to ensure that you are offered Video Mystery Shopping jobs.

We can only offer Video Mystery Shopping work to our registered Mystery Shoppers so if you're interested, join the team online at www.retailactive.com

We already have a great team of Video mystery shoppers on our panel so if you’re looking for a Video Mystery Shopping company, please email us on info@retailactive.com to see what Retail Active can do for your company.

Service Hero of the Month - December 2012

Retail Active is the leading British brand auditing and mystery shopping company and we like to recognise service excellence not just by providing clients with our acclaimed mystery shopping reports, but from accepting nominations for our Service Hero award.

We are delighted to award this month’s Service Hero to Sharon, a valued colleague at the Glossop branch of Wickes.

Sharon has been nominated for recognition as a Service Hero due to her excellent Customer Service skills, noted in a recent mystery shopping visit.  She takes the trouble to explain the services that Wickes can provide and does so at the right level for her customers to understand. 

Our mystery shopper said, “I felt that she was interested in my needs, not just in a sale, and as a result I felt a valued customer and would have been more likely to buy as a result.”

If you want to nominate someone for our Service Hero of the Month, please email shoppersupport@retailactive.com with your nominee’s name, the company they work for and the reasons for your nomination.

The nomination doesn’t have to come from one of our mystery shopping visits or brand audits.  The nominee could work at your regular coffee-stop or supermarket – we are happy to receive all recommendations.

Please include your contact details in the email, just in case we need to get in touch for more information with regards to your nomination.

If you’re interested in seeing how we can help you to improve Service Excellence and Customer Experience within your business, please email info@retailactive.com for more details.

Fight the Monday Blues!

It’s Blue Monday – the most depressing day of the year. What’s even worse is its snowing and Britain is coming to a halt around us. The winter feels like it’s here to stay and the first day of spring feels a million years away.

If you’re feeling glum, we have a few ideas that might help;

1. Try a new hobby!

Taking up a new hobby is often rewarding and socially exciting, which is especially welcome through the notorious doldrums of January. We, of course, suggest joining mystery shopping companies as a great idea to get interested in!

2. Get some sun.

Sunlight helps our bodies produce Vitamin D and Vitamin D is great for helping to boost the immune system. Do you find yourself with the winter sniffles through January? Even just getting out in the winter sun can help, especially if you’re walking through town on a mystery shopping trip!  'Seasonal Affective Disorder’ has also been linked to the lack of sunlight, so it could bring you out of the blues too.

3. Get your finances in check.

Now is the time to address the accumulated debt from the holidays. One of the keys factors in the January blues is worrying about debt. We pay our mystery shoppers for completing work for us as well as reimbursing them for purchases, so now would be the perfect time to complete some visits, get yourself a treat and give your credit card a break!

If your company’s customers are feeling under the weather, we could provide insight into why.  For information on our services, please email info@retailactive.com.
  
If you are looking for mystery shopping jobs or are looking to become a secret shopper, please sign up through www.retailactive.com.

Mystery Shopping Jobs in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland

We are looking for genuine, reliable and articulate mystery shoppers to join us in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Over the next few weeks we have some very exciting assignments on offer; jobs where we pay you to shop and you get paid for doing something you really enjoy!

Retail Active is one of the leading Mystery Shopping Companies in Europe and we are growing fast.  Companies employ us to check out the service offered at their stores, hotels, restaurants and resorts.   We are on a drive to help improve the quality of service and standards for consumers and by working with us, you will play a very valuable part.

If you are interested in joining us and are looking for mystery shopping jobs, sign up at www.retailactive.com or telephone 0044  1235 428413 for more information.

Service where it matters

Businesses rely on ensuring that their customers and clients keep coming back. As a mystery shopping company, our entire business is set up around this fact. We keep our clients coming back by helping them keep their customers. Because we spend a lot of time thinking about this, we can sometimes be quite startled when others don’t appear to agree. A recent experience particularly got us thinking about how a business gets (and keeps) new customers. There are a myriad of techniques employed to get new customers into your business, but once there, they’ll only stay if you provide a service that is good enough.

Our experience went like this: we decided to get pizza.  Because one member of the group did not want to get pizza from the usual company, we tried a different pizza company. A simple quirk of fate has got us through their door, a good opportunity for them to win some new repeat customers (or not). When we arrive to collect our pizza, our name was already listed as being ready, which pleased us.  Unfortunately, we then experienced a series of customer service 'do-nots' that had us wondering whether they had any customer service training at all. The short list being:

• They did not acknowledge us. This may not appear to be much of an issue, but certainly exacerbated the problems which were to follow.
• They left us waiting for 10 minutes while they took phone orders.  This, again, wouldn’t matter so much if we had received the acknowledgement, but instead just made what was to follow worse.
• They did not have the pizzas ready.  This was pretty bad, but mistakes like this happen and how you handle them can occasionally win you life-long customers.  This did not happen though.
• They misled us.  Two of our pizzas were ready, while one had either been forgotten or accidentally given to another customer.  Instead we were told that it was “nearly ready”, whilst we watched the preparation from start to finish.
• They did not acknowledge or apologise for our extended wait.

As might be assumed, we decided to never again venture from our usual pizza place. However, this had very little to do with the initial mistake, we’ve waited for pizza before and were hardly in a rush.  Instead, it was to do with the apparent attitude of the staff towards us.  The feelings a customer has towards a company define whether they will return.  If a customer feels undervalued or unwanted, then they are very unlikely to come back.  Of course discovering how your business makes your customers feel can be very tricky, but then this is where selected mystery shoppers can make a world of difference. So, when in doubt, call the experts at Retail Active Mystery Shopping.

Happy New Year from all at Retail Active

New Years Day is a time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future.  2012 has seen our business grow and it has been a pleasure helping you reach your goals.

To all of our clients, employees and our worldwide panel of mystery shoppers, auditors and interviewers, our success in 2013 depends on all of you.  Thank you and we wish you all and your families our best wishes for happiness and prosperity in 2013.

Happy New Year!