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Exciting Mystery Shopping Opportunities


How would you like to get paid for doing the things you love? Visit high street shops, luxury hotels and holidays or sample the delights of your favourite pub?

Retail Active is the leading British mystery shopping company, sending thousands of mystery shoppers each week to sample and test our client’s brands and products. We are growing fast and are always looking for real customers like you to join us to help assess customer service and make a real difference to standards of retailing, leisure and hospitality.

You can sign up on our site for free at retailactive.com or find us by searching mystery shopping jobs on your search engine. You will be asked to complete a short test via our mystery shopper academy and should you successfully pass we will invite you to apply to join our panel.

You will be paid for you time and in return will be required to complete an online survey explaining your thoughts, together with any other feedback you can provide.

Tough market conditions mean companies from all sectors are having to fight for every penny and the standard of customer service is a vital ingredient in winning and holding on to business.

The importance of customer service has an increased relevance in today’s marketplace. More and more companies are turning to Retail Active for advice on how to improve their business performance.
Being a mystery shopper can be tremendous fun and very rewarding.  Its worth noting, however only to  apply to reputable Brand Audit  and Mystery Shopping Companies such as Retail Active mystery shopping.  Never be tempted to apply for mystery shopper positions without being able to telephone the company directly.

For more information on the exciting opportunities available please visit retailactive.com

Retail Active research featured in top rated ITV programme

Retail Active has been working with ITV’s top rated “Tonight” programme, which investigated consumer spending in the run up to Christmas 2010.

The programme, “Christmas or Bust”, reached a prime time audience of more than four million and looked at how Christmas shoppers were responding to economic uncertainty.

Retail Active carried out a special survey and the results were featured prominently in the programme.

Retail Active also helped the producers to find a couple who had decided times were so tough – they were going to cancel Christmas altogether this year.

Retail Active’s managing director, Julian Chamberlain said: “We were able to help the programme makers with our expertise and with the use of our considerable resources, which allows us to contact thousands of shoppers instantly.

“The results of our poll, gave precise details of ways in which families were planning to economise on their Christmas spending.

“The findings were fully supported in the programme by financial experts, retailers and shoppers. This shows the accuracy of our research methods in generating a true picture of what is happening in the economy at any given moment and in determining the attitude of shoppers.

“Our experience as one of the UK’s leading business intelligence and mystery shopping companies was able to put the producers in touch with the mood on the High Street and produce figures, which could be used confidently in this prime time programme.

“Thanks to our survey, we were also able to find a Scottish couple who had cancelled their Christmas because of job uncertainty and who gave an excellent interview.”

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.