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.