About Us
ABa is a group of happy, passionate and proactive people who are united by a genuine belief that what we do makes a big difference for our clients, their customers and (we hope) makes the world a little bit better as well. We know many organisations would say that their difference is their people; with us, our people are our everything – they make us who we are and create the difference we offer to our clients.
Our points of difference
- In house Tech Team
- Hand-picked, well briefed & fully equipped field-team
- Personal, experienced & committed project management
- Always available to offer our Assessors advice & support
For every assessment, we…
- Pay our Assessors a fair fee (exclusive of any purchases required)
- Evaluate performance & provide tailored feedback to our Assessors
- Encourage open lines of communication with our field-team
- Make a donation to charity
Our mission
In all we do, we strive to make our world a happier one – for us, for our customers and for our customer’s customer. We achieve a step change in service one assessment at a time, knowing that each improvement, each development and every act of kindness has a positive impact on the lives it touches. We deliver a service, and much more: we build successful partnerships and client relationships that evolve over time.
Our history
The way we are, and the way we design CX measurement programmes, come from the same place and the same philosophy: that people can come together to create wonderful experiences and exceptional work. It’s something that was dear to the heart of our founder, Alan Butterworth, who established ABa in 1990 to offer Mystery Shopping Services in the Leisure Sector. In 1995, we placed our first (and to date, only) advert, secured our first client in the Retail Sector and from then on, we haven’t stopped.
ABa has stayed in the family since then, with MD Kate – Alan’s daughter – her husband Conrad and mother Mary maintaining our close-knit, friendly and family ethos. We believe that taking care of the people in our business is the most important thing we can do to ensure that our business and work keep improving.
Kate
Managing Director
Chewie
Head of Barketing
Conrad
Director of Technology
Our culture
We embody and encourage a spirit of friendliness, and real empathy for everyone in our client environments. Our way of working is about driving a love of discovering new ways to do things and true proactivity. We believe there’s always something you can do to improve and learn, and always something you can do to make your clients’ lives easier and better.
That spirit is what binds every one of us in our Head Office, and which is communicated and spreads to our diverse teams of Assessors around the country.
It’s this binding culture that ensures that our knowledge of customer experience continuously improves. It supports our technical and programme design innovation to be more creative and compelling. All of which helps our collaboration with our clients to consistently grow. Which is why our clients say the great things they say about us and stay with us for many years of partnership.
Our values
Progressive
We do not stand still, we continuously strive to create innovative, efficient solutions and improve on everything we do.
Active
We step up, we take responsibility, add value and find ways to delight our customers and colleagues.
Nurturing
We are positive, compassionate and kind, we help our customers, each other and ourselves to grow.
Our brilliance
Professional standards
From our beginnings, we have challenged the standard approach to mystery shopping, typically choosing to use smaller teams of professional, well-briefed Mystery Shoppers, cementing our name as synonymous with the highest standards in our field. We play an active and central role in shaping professional standards across the industry.
- We’ve driven our passion for quality through our involvement as founding members of the European chapter of the Mystery Shopping Professionals Association (MSPA) in 2000. (The MSPA was set up in North America in 1996 to regulate standards within the Mystery Shopping industry.)
- We currently hold Elite member status with MSPA, which is applied for annually and awarded to those organisations who are actively involved in upholding, promoting and improving professional standards.
- We hold ESOMAR membership, members of our Senior Management Team are NPS certified, and our company owner is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS)
- We are long-standing members of the Institute of Customer Service, and form part of the judging panel at their annual conference & awards evening.
- We are fully accredited in ISO14001, ISO9001, ISO22301 and ISO27001, and our entire team is actively involved in understanding, delivering, and maintaining these professional standards.
Whilst we adhere to the codes of conduct and professional standards across all the above institutions, we go further than the ‘minimum requirements’, placing ‘quality’ at the heart of everything we do.
