We choose to work differently with our Mystery Shoppers

“Our people are our everything – they make us who we are and create the difference we offer to our clients.”

We know many organisations would say that their difference is their people; with us, we know that our Mystery Shoppers (who we like to refer to as Assessors) are just as important as anyone else in the business. That’s why we do things a little differently to the industry ‘norm’ - we don’t see our Mystery Shoppers as just names in a database, we seem them as an extension of our ABa family. After all, their hard work, professionalism, dedication, and accuracy in reporting is the foundation of everything we do.

Here’s what we do differently:

We hand-pick our Mystery Shoppers.

We don’t prescribe to the fastest finger first approach when allocating our clients’ assessments – we pick the best profile fit from our large pool of Mystery Shoppers and typically work in smaller focused teams. We invest in our Mystery Shoppers, and in their education of our clients’ requirements, standards, policies, and culture. This ensures the quality of our Mystery Shoppers’ reports are precise, relevant, and actionable.

We are always available to offer our Mystery Shoppers advice & support.

Every active mystery shopping programme operates with two dedicated lines of support - this ensures someone is always on hand to help. If the dedicated point of contact is unavailable, we also offer an emergency phone line, even at weekends! We know how tough it can be in the field, and if our Mystery Shoppers need support, they know a friendly voice is always available to help guide them through. We openly encourage our field-team to get in touch with us on any subject, even if they just want a chat in between assessments.

“One of the benefits of working with ABa is you really feel part of a team. I am quite remote from the office as I live in Devon and in the 20 years I have been associated with ABa I’ve never felt isolated, there is always someone to help with an enquiry and offer reassurance/ assistance. I feel ABa have given me the tools to become a better Mystery Shopper. This includes clear instructions and literature to carry out assessments, post assessment feedback to improve reporting and live training sessions at Road Shows. To ABa I know I’m not just a name on a list, an unknown personality to pick for the next job. When I phone the office there is always a friendly voice on the end of the line. Compared to some other companies I have worked for in the past ABa has always stood out for their professional approach to Mystery Shopping and a great team management.”

We pay our Mystery Shoppers promptly.

We commit to paying all invoices within 13 days of receipt – with payment often received earlier than the 13-day target. Our Mystery Shoppers will never have to wait longer than 2 weeks for payment, and for any high value purchases we arrange payment within 7 days to help maintain steady cashflow for our team.  

We pay our Mystery Shoppers fairly.

When it comes to our fees, we don’t believe it is enough to simply offer a token gesture of recompense, but instead we consider both time and expenses as part of the payment equation. Fair pay is a key aspect of our social responsibility policy, and despite the squeeze on client budgets and rising costs, we strive to offer fair pay to our Mystery Shoppers.

“My go-to mystery shopping company. Fees are better than average, all staff are brilliant and always ready to help, and they have some great clients. Briefs are comprehensive and very clear, with full explanation of scoring criteria for each assessment. Reports can be input online or via the app. Something I really appreciate is that you don’t have to save your report every few minutes as you do with most companies. You’re prompted to raise an invoice as soon as you’ve completed your report and payment is quick and reliable. I’ve been an ABa assessor for many years and look forward to being so for many more. HIGHLY recommended!”

We evaluate their performance & provide tailored feedback.

When an assessment is accepted, we begin a working partnership with clear expectations of what we expect for our client. Regular feedback and support are provided to our team, with all our Mystery Shoppers adhering to our Code of Ethics and delivering the highest standards of work, with many of the team regularly going above & beyond in the level of insight provided. We are very confident our working practices ensure our clients benefit from the most detailed and actionable reports in the industry.

And finally… we donate to charity for every assessment completed.

As a team we all help to make to make a little difference, not only with our clients’ customer experience, but also our wider communities. To make the world a little bit better, a portion of each visit fee is added to our annual charity donation pot.

It’s increasingly important for all organisations to put social responsibility, ethical operations, and supply chains at the heart of their business. As you might expect, our company ethos comes not from doing what is expected, but from doing what is right; caring about individuals, the environment, and genuinely trying to make the world a better place.

To find out more about our expertise in customer experience measurement programmes that deliver a better customer experience, please get in touch with ABa via the details below.

Danielle Sones Managing Director danielle@aba.co.uk / 0161 431 1234