Measuring & improving the customer experience

As one of the first (est. 1990) UK providers of Mystery Shopping, ABa Quality Monitoring is an industry-leading agency and one of the most advanced creators of bespoke CX measurement programmes.

We offer all types of CX measurement tools, and we specialise in (operationally focused) Mystery Shopping programmes that drive positive change.

Our Services

Mystery Shopping
Compliance Audits
Voice of Customer
Satisfaction Surveys
Customer Experience Measurement
Structured Customer Reviews
Colleague Training
Customer Experience Dashboards

Talk to us

We create end to end bespoke programmes for organisations of every kind. Get in touch to find out how we can help.

Get in touch

Join our team

Our mystery shoppers come from every walk of life and background. Apply here to become an ABa Mystery Shopper.

Apply now

Our Services

Every company, customer or experience is unique. So, it’s not a surprise that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach that delivers a way to measure CX across every organisation. At least, we don’t think so, and our clients agree.

Mystery Shopping

Through coordinated programmes of in-person visits to our clients’ customer facing facilities and sites, as well as telephone, email and online interactions – we deploy hand-picked Mystery Shoppers to measure service at the frontline. We work in any industry sector and have extensive experience within Retail, Leisure and Financial Services.

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Compliance Audits

Whether checking health & safety in public houses, measuring queue times, checking POS compliance and marketing layouts, or cross-referencing online orders within instore product availability, we design programmes that meet our specific clients’ requirements.

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Customer Experience Measurement

Customer Experience Measurement is a catch all term that covers a wide range of tools that capture customer-centric data relevant to an organisation and/or industry. The insight gleaned from this data allows organisations to interpret and analyse how customers perceive and interact with their products, services, and brand.

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Voice of Customer

In the same way as our Mystery Shopping programmes, we work in partnership with our clients to design, implement and manage a bespoke Voice of Customer programme that is best suited to their individual business. We use a range of customer metrics, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (C-Sat) and Customer Effort (CES).

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Satisfaction Surveys

As part of our complete CX measurement toolkit, we design, build, and manage a range of different customer satisfaction & employee satisfaction surveys, either as stand-alone projects or as an enhancement to an existing Mystery Shopping programme.

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Structured Customer Reviews

We developed our unique Structured Customer Review programme (SCR) to address the need to assess more challenging service situations where Mystery Shoppers cannot be used at all, or where they cannot be deployed in desired volumes.

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Customer Experience Dashboards

Our CX dashboards provide a one stop shop for information and trends on all customer measures within each client’s business, helping our clients put the customer at the heart of everything they do. The dashboard can display a wide range of different data streams, and we work with our clients to understand who needs to see what, and how best to show the information for ease of use, understanding and engagement.

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Colleague Training

Most frequently, we offer this as a complementary service to an existing CX measurement programme, where we have identified a need for additional frontline engagement and support. The training itself takes many different forms, and just as we do for each programme, we devise a structure that best suits each organisation and need.

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How we can help your business...

To find out how we can help you better understand and improve the customer experience you offer, please get in touch with our Experience Team

Get in touch

Testimonials

Retail Training Manager UK & Eire

Luxury Beauty

I was recommended to ABa from a colleague as I needed a partner I felt was capable, could advise and support with our Mystery Shopping needs, starting with a small cohort, progressing to the whole of the UK with the potential for global partnerships. ABa has successfully achieved this and more - the whole team have been so professional diligent and helpful, and it has been a real pleasure to partner with their knowledgeable team. I highly recommend ABa.

Director of Retail

Luxury Retail

Danielle and her team at ABa provided meaningful actionable data to map an overview of store performance against clear key service metrics. We then worked in partnership with ABa to develop a clear service cycle with dashboards and insights that are continuing to help our Retail teams identify wins and learn across service, week in week out, with practical support to help improve performance. Service scores have risen year on year and the customer experience is continuing its positive journey with their help. In everything that ABa has worked with us to achieve, they’ve embodied not only an understanding and commitment to exceptional service, but also a spirit of collaboration and partnership.

Senior Compliance Manager

Post Office Insurance

We’re delighted with our ongoing relationship with ABa Quality Monitoring; they continue to deliver a high-quality mystery shopping service across our UK network and have recently worked closely with us as a critical friend, contributing key intel and practical support into a successful change project.

Mystery Shopper

Anonymous

Fantastic team to work with. I’ve been a mystery shopper with ABa for several years now working with a couple of specific clients. The briefs are always clear, and the team know about the client’s requirements and is always on hand to support me in my assessments as required. Would highly recommend them for those looking to pick up work or seeking support as a client.

Head of Insight

Retail Client

ABa provide an invaluable missing link between successfully carrying out programme deliverables and really engaging the end users of the programme. This engagement is key in driving positive change within any organisation. My experience of working with ABa is extremely positive, with every member of the ABa family offering complete commitment, dedication, professionalism and personality - the cornerstones of any beneficial, long-lasting clientagency partnership.

Retail Manager

Health & Leisure

We have now been working with ABa for a couple of years, and I cannot imagine how we went through our in-house customer service program without their supportive data and feedback for so long before hand. The service provided is totally tailored to our business’ ever-changing needs and range, and the information we get on a monthly basis gives us the insight we need to progress towards our goal of providing our loyal and new customers with excellent service and unforgettable shopping experience.

Director of Audiences

Sales & Marketing, The Lowry

ABa Quality Monitoring has supported us to better understand the end-to-end customer experience across our website, contact centre, theatres, dining, bars, retail shop and art galleries for the last 4 years. They continue to work closely with us in ensuring a measurement programme that includes our core standards with a focus on the customer journey and our customers’ experiences. The team are always on hand, flexible and supportive, with the outputs being open and honest with clear, actionable detail to help us to drive further improvements across our business.

Head of Customer Experience

Rail Transport

I thoroughly enjoyed working with Dawn and Laura on developing a complex customer experience insight programme. The ABa team well understood our needs and worked quickly to set up and deliver the work with an attention to detail. I was particularly impressed at how closely they were eager to work with us to ensure we genuinely got everything we wanted from the exercise.

Chief Operating Officer

Gravity Active Entertainment

Gravity Active Entertainment have had the pleasure of using ABa’s services to assist our company improve our customer experience for over 4 years. The quality and depth of the information provided to allow our managers to focus on the area’s most needing improvement is excellent with the online portal provides a variety of tools to help our team manage action plans and review scores and historical information being second to none. I would recommend ABa to any business that takes customer experience seriously.

Marketing Director

Global Professional Services Business

We have been working with ABa for a number of years and from the outset the level of service has been at a consistently very high standard. Dawn and the team are extremely professional and thorough, and always go the extra mile to ensure that they deliver on our research needs.

Learning & Development Manager

Retail

ABa have worked closely with us to understand the detail of our service delivery and the required measurement around this. Dawn and Laura met with our Retail team in store to see service in action and understand each step of the customer journey in order to help design the Mystery Shop programme. The care and attention that ABa put into building our client relationship certainly elevated the onboarding experience. The project was executed ahead of time and feedback from all stakeholders is extremely positive.

Operational Excellence Lead

Retail & Hospitality business

Working with ABa has enabled us to unlock a global set of programs, that ensure we are consistent in our brand standards around the world. The functionality to measure performance is important, but what is even more pivotal is that we have a system that collects intelligence from the front line, and supports us in steering business strategy and improvement centrally. Along with world class feedback and action planning to support an agenda of continual improvement. ABa has been flexible, accurate and pioneering in developing what we require as a business.

Mystery Shopper

Anonymous

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. 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!

Head of Customer Experience

Financial Services Client

ABa have been supporting our organisation for the last 8 years, providing our mystery shopping programme: call listening; reviewing letters to customers and monitoring compliance in store. They have supported me in pulling together annual plans and are always very adaptable to last minute requests and thorough in everything they do.

Mystery Shopper

Anonymous

My experience of working as a mystery shopper, on behalf of ABa Quality Monitoring, is excellent. They are always really friendly, helpful and professional and always offer a great service. They pay your invoices really quickly too. They also offer first refusal to me if I have completed a job for them in the past, which always makes me feel valued as a contractor working on their behalf. I’d definitely recommend them to others based on my experience.

Marketing Director

Global Professional Services Business

We have been working with ABa for several years and from the outset the level of service has been at a consistently very high standard. Dawn and the team are extremely professional and thorough, and always go the extra mile to ensure that they deliver on our research needs.

Head of Customer Experience

Supermarket (Big 4)

ABa has a great team ethos delivering objective and compassionate mystery shopping research that can support change both in the operational delivery as well as the strategic customer journey offer. They are easy to work with and have a true partnership approach, always seeking to understand the culture and priorities of the business and become an extension of the internal team in my experience, which is rare. As such they are always flexible to support in any way they can but are also challenging to ensure they give the external view to seek improvement.

Retail Manager

Health and Leisure

We have now been working with ABa for a couple of years, and I cannot imagine how we went through our in-house customer service program without their supportive data and feedback for so long before hand.

The service provided is totally tailored to our business’ ever-changing needs and range, and the information we get on a monthly basis gives us the insight we need to progress towards our goal of providing our loyal and new customers with excellent service and unforgettable shopping experience.

Join Our Team

Our mystery shoppers come from every walk of life and background. Apply here to become an ABa Mystery Shopper.

Apply now

ABa Pulse

Our committed Mystery Shoppers go above and beyond their normal roles by providing us and our clients with valuable ‘real time’ industry data. All of the ABa Pulse data is taken from non-client assessments captured by our Mystery Shoppers whilst they’re out and about, across the whole of the UK.

Latest Net Promoter Score

Automotive


Automotive

1st
NPS: 50
Financial


Finance

1st
NPS: 50
Retail


Retail

1st
NPS: 50
Telecommunications


Telecomms

1st
NPS: 50