Thank you to all of our Mystery Shoppers

Retail Active is the most innovative of all of the UK’s Mystery Shopping Companies, but we know that a lot of our great reputation is founded on the hard work of our mystery shoppers all over the globe.  With this in mind, it’s that time again – time to say a brief Thank You to our star Mystery Shoppers.

Thank you to Keith from South Lanarkshire:
Your help, at the last minute, on our most recent new project has been greatly appreciated throughout the scheduling team.  You’re a star!

Thank you to Natasha from London:
You’ve only recently joined the team and you’ve already completed numerous visits, most of which were hard-to-allocate visits.

Thank you to Justin from London:
You always go above and beyond to be a great help ... especially with our new VM check project!

Thank you to Robert from Stockton-on-Tees:
You’ve been a shining star in an area that is hard for us to allocate visits in.  Thank you for trekking out in all weathers for us!

Thank you to William from Limerick:
You’ve been a great help with our recent project in Ireland.  Thank you, William.

Thank you to Sarah from Limerick:
As always, you’ve been happy to travel across the country for us, picking up visits en route.

Thank you to Nicola from Belfast:
Travelling far and wide to complete visits for us, you have been a great asset over the past month.  We are delighted to have you on the team, and now your husband too!

Last but not least ...
Thank you to all of our secret shoppers – you help to make Retail Active the leading British mystery shopping company.  You can find out what we can do for your company, or join our mystery shopping team at www.retailactive.com

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.