Brakspear invests in mystery customer scheme for tenants

May 25, 2010

Brakspear invests in mystery customer scheme for tenants

Brakspear is introducing a programme of mystery customer visits for its 145 pubs this month, as a way of helping its tenants to benchmark and improve the experience they offer their customers. The company’s annual awards, renamed the Brakspear Hospitality Awards, will reward the tenants who are most successful in the scheme.

Each pub will be visited twice during the year with the first wave starting this month. Mystery customers will score pubs on all aspects of their visit, from the tidiness of the car park and the welcome from staff, through to product knowledge, food quality and speed of service.  The estate has been divided into four segments, based on style of operation, so tenants will be able to compare their score against those achieved by similar pubs.

Commercial director Tom Davies said, “These reports are an invaluable tool for our tenants, highlighting areas of strength and weakness in their pub and providing a structure for their staff training and motivation.  The customer’s opinion of our pubs is the only one that really matters so we’re delighted that we now have a formal mechanism to access this regularly.”

The Brakspear Hospitality Awards will be given to two pubs in each segment: the pub achieving the highest score over the two visits and the pub making the most improvement between visits. Tenants from the eight winning pubs will be invited to a special Awards presentation and dinner later this year.

The mystery customer programme is being implemented by The Silent Customer, who are based, like Brakspear, in Henley-on-Thames.

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