By Aimee Chanthadavong
Marketing and communications group STW Communications Group has entered into a joint venture with customer experience tracking and mystery shopping service provider Feedback ASAP.
Chris Savage, STW chief operating officer, told Retailbiz that this is another step for the company to broaden its footprint in the marketing sector through helping shape strategies for in-store auditing and customer service feedback.
“Currently, we offer mystery shopping and customer auditing through HOED and CBS that both help provide customer experience insight but they’re a bit historical in nature. For instance, shadow shoppers will assess store performances and experiences by giving in a report but usually the retailers won’t receive the feedback for another month. But the reports are very useful,” he said.
“However, we realise our customers needed mystery shopping for longer and required faster insight, particularly if the retailer is just holding a three week promotion in-store, we can’t make them for after the promotion to find out what the shoppers think as we need the feedback so our customers know whether to change strategies which is why we have Feedback ASAP.”
Feedback ASAP uses a mobile phone technology to track customer satisfaction and loyalty that provides immediate feedback from the mystery shopper, according to Savage.
“For instance, if I’m a mystery shopper and I go into a store, I speak to the sales person but I don’t buy the TV, we can find out the reason why so and so many people didn’t buy the TV through the immediate feedback. And using this message that is received through the technology we can give immediate feedback to the salesman the next day on how he can improve his sales.”
The 40 per cent investment is another addition to STW’s joint venture agreement with international field marketing leaders Smollan, which was announced in July this year and the purchase of marketing and merchandising company Quality National Team (QNT) in May.
Feedback ASAP currently services organisations from the insurance, appliances, health club, car rental, call centres and retail sectors. It also provides services to companies operating loyalty programs.