FAQ's

We are part of the ‘Quest’ sport and leisure facility quality scheme, so should we still consider RealityCheck^®?

Yes. We are committed to the principles of Quest and believe that this is an excellent tool to assist you as you strive for continuous improvement. However, Quest only incorporates a single mystery visit per year. Our view is that mystery visits should be a regular feature of your service evaluation and therefore RealityCheck^® can compliment Quest and can help demonstrate to Quest assessors that you take continuous improvement and self assessment seriously. RealityCheck^® can potentially improve your Quest score.

What do telephone, email and website evaluations consist of?

As a guide:
Telephone calls – we assess:
a.Response time
b.Level of friendliness/welcome
c.Knowledge about an element of the service
d.Problem solving/ability to think on their feet
e.Sales ability

Email – we assess:
a. Response time
b. Tone of response
c. Consistency with house style, grammar, signatures and spelling
d. Success in resolving the issue/query.

Website – we assess:
a.Ease of finding facility information on your website
b.Overall design/presentation
c.Level of detail (as a minimum opening hours; prices; range of facilities; activity programme; contact details;)
d.How up to date is the information
e.Are all links working?

What does a ‘workshop’ consist of?

We can facilitate workshops at the ‘front end’ i.e. before we have carried out a site evaluation and/or present the findings of the report to your frontline team and help build an action plan for improvement. This workshop is also useful in identifying other barriers to excellent customer service which may not have been picked up during our site visit.

We will tailor the actual content to your requirements however as a guide...

Pre evaluation workshop

• Situational analysis: quite simply what is your perception of where you are now?
• What does success look like?
• Perceived performance across service areas
• Plans to address any shortcomings
• Identify additional service areas for review
• Conceptual agreement of the RealityCheck^® process by your team
• Next steps.

Post evaluation workshop

• How you measured up - What we found
• How did these compare to your perceptions before hand
• Moments of magic – things we found that were exceptional
• Identify areas that can be improved
• Develop action plan for improvement.

What is the value to us in running a workshop?

The decision on whether to run a workshop is up to you, however there are real advantages to this approach:

• No baggage or personality clashes
• Team members can see that there is no hidden agenda
• Professionally facilitated sessions can in themselves identify many areas for improvement
• Secure buy in at the start and commitment to improvement after the site visit.

What does it cost?

Projects of this kind require an investment of time and money, however we sincerely believe that by implementing an action plan that remedies any identified weaknesses, your outlay will be recouped many times over. A one off RealityCheck^® mystery visit starts from just £370.

Why do we need RealityCheck when we already carry out customer satisfaction surveys?

Customer satisfaction surveys can be useful tools to help you assess how your service is regarded, however reliance on this tool alone has several shortcomings:

1. Generally it is the management team choosing the questions not the customer! Can you be sure that the questions accurately reflect what the customer ‘feels’ about the service?
2. Invariably these surveys are carried out once per year. In such a dynamic industry is this sufficient?
3. Such an approach does not seek to understand the level of advocacy of your customers – that is are customers likely to recommend your service to others? Word of mouth is arguably the biggest single influence of customer behaviour
4. Customer satisfaction surveys tend to focus on existing customers but do not capture the first and lasting impressions of new customers
5. Customer satisfaction surveys do not generally result in ‘actionable outcomes’ that is a series of actions that the operator should implement to bring about improvement.

How do I become a mystery visitor?

Simply contact us and we will arrange an informal interview and set up a trial mystery visit. Assuming we like you and you like us we will start to offer you assignments straight away.

If you are interested in becoming a mystery visitor, simply contact us using our enquiry form.

Fees for assignments can vary depending on the complexity of the facility and the time involved on site. You will normally be paid and reimbursed one month after the site visit.

Remember that your status is ‘self-employed’ and as such we do not employ you. You must make your own arrangements for on-site safety, tax and National Insurance contributions.