August 2009           Brittany Travel would like to know what their customers think...

Brittany Travel have commissioned Customer Maze to carry out an ongoing customer feedback survey during the summer months of 2009.

The main aim of the survey is to gather valuable feedback and opinions from customers that have recently returned from a holiday with Brittany Travel. 

Customer’s are contacted by Brittany Travel once they’ve returned home and they are asked to provide feedback about their stay in Brittany by completing an online survey. All customers that had holidayed with Brittany Travel throughout the summer months of 2009 will be contacted and their feedback will be collated.

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July 2009                   Mystery Shopping for the 2009 Northwest Regional Tourism Awards

Following the mystery shopping success for the Cumbria Tourism Awards, Customer Maze Ltd have been commissioned by the Northwest Regional Development Agency to undertake a range of visits to 25 tourist attractions and accommodation providers across the region.  

The purpose of the programme is to support the judging process of the Northwest Regional Tourism Awards, which will take place in September 2009.  The tourism awards recognise excellence across the tourism sector in the region, which comprises of Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire.

5 finalists from each of the following categories will be mystery shopped during July and August:

• Large hotel
• Small hotel
• Bed and Breakfast
• Large attraction
• Small attraction

Mystery shoppers from Customer Maze Ltd will spend at least one night at each of the finalists within the accommodation categories and each of the attractions will receive an onsite visit.

Gary Lowthian, one of Customer Maze's Directors has been selected to be a member of the judging panel and will present all of the findings from the mystery shops to the other judges on the panel early in September. The winners will be announced at the Northwest Regional Tourism Awards, which are being held at Blackpool’s Tower Ballroom on the 28th September.

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June 2009         The Gateway Project - Inbound Passenger Survey

Lancashire and Blackpool Tourist Board [LBTB] have commissioned Customer Maze Ltd, on behalf of the Gateway Project Group, to carry out research analysing the movements of in-bound visitors, primarily from Ireland, travelling into and through Blackpool International Airport.

The research will highlight data such as intended destination and the geographical area travelled by visitors and will provide valuable information for future campaign planning. The research will run until November when the results will be collated and presented to the Gateway Project Group in early December.

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June 2009        The 2009 Carrier Group Conference: Innovative Marketing, 16th June, The Belfry

The 2009 Carrier Group Conference at The Belfry certainly went with a swing!

Managing Director Bob Carter welcomed delegates and industry partners before handing over the reigns to Tim Manson, Operations and Policy Director of Marketing Birmingham who gave an inspirational opening address.

Delegates then took part in workshops covering five core topics; Destination Management, Consumer Data, E-mail Marketing & SEO, Social & Viral Marketing and Market Research, presented by a host of knowledgeable experts. Additionally, one to one advisory sessions were available throughout the day, offering new marketing concepts and practical advice.

Gary Lowthian of Customer Maze presented two well received workshops on Market Research during the day, with a lively question and answer session to close each workshop. Jennie Lowthian was also on hand, offering valuable tips on conversion research and mystery shopping.

Early feedback from our delegates indicates that the day’s events were incredibly productive and memorable, with many delegates already putting into action marketing tips they picked up on the day.

For a full overview of the conference, to see images of the event or to download conference notes please visit our event web pages.

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March 2009        Mystery Shopping for Cumbria Tourism Awards

Customer Maze Ltd have been commissioned by Cumbria Tourism to mystery shop all of the finalist of the 2009 Cumbria Tourism Awards.

3 finalists from each of the following categories will be mystery shopped during March and April:

• Large hotel
• Small hotel
• Bed and Breakfast
• Large attraction
• Small attraction

Mystery shoppers from Customer Maze Ltd will spend at least one night at each of the finalists within the accommodation categories and each of the attractions will receive an onsite visit. In addition to this, each finalist will also receive two mystery shopping telephone calls. Customer Maze will then present all of the findings to the judging panel in April to help with the judging process. The winners will be announced at the Cumbria Tourism Awards in late April.

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September 2008 Hillthwaite House Hotel

Hillthwaite House Hotel is a 3 star hotel, with a silver award in Cumbria that is committed to providing a consistently high level of quality and service and as such are keen to receive regular feedback from their guests.  Customer Maze Ltd has set up an online survey that can be emailed to guests after their stay asking for their feedback. Hillthwaite House Hotel now contacts their guests on a monthly basis asking them to complete the online survey. Customer Maze then collates and analyses the results on a monthly basis and

feeds them back to Hillthwaite House Hotel, together with guest comments

and feedback.

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August 2008       One North East commission Customer Maze Ltd again...for the 4th
                               year running

Customer Maze Ltd has been awarded the One North East Mystery Shopping Programme for the fourth year running. The mystery shopping programme for 2008 involves 38 Tourist Information Centres who will all receive one mystery shopping visit, telephone call, email and postal enquiry. Scores will be collated for each TIC and comparisons will be made with previous years to see how and where developments and improvements have taken place. The project is due to be completed by mid-October when the winning TIC will be informed by ONE.

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May 2008               The Big Day Out in Kent

The Big Day Out was developed to encourage local residents of Kent to experience all that the county has to offer them, their friends and their relatives by offering thousands of free tickets to a wide range of places to visit. Customer Maze Ltd were commissioned by Visit Kent to carry out an online survey of the Kent residents that took part in the 'Big Day Out'. This involved setting up an online survey, emailing the participants and offering an incentive to encourage them to complete the questionnaire. The aim of the research was to establish how successful the event was and to gain an idea of the resident's perceptions of the area.

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March 2008             Yorkshire Moors and Coast Holiday Guide Research

The Yorkshire Moors and Coast Tourism Partnership commissioned Customer Maze Ltd to carry out qualitative research examining how visitors to the area used the Moors and Coast Holiday Guide. The tourism partnership wanted to know how visitors used the guide for booking accommodation and also how they responded to the style of the guide, its layout, content and style etc. Customer Maze conducted a series of focus groups using a script that was devised specifically for this project. Attendees were asked a series of questions about the holiday guide by a trained focus group moderator and they were asked to express their opinions openly. Findings were then reported and presented to the Yorkshire Moors and Coast Tourism Partnership to aide them with future

guide production and development.

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18th January 2008     Scarborough Mystery Shopping Programme

Scarborough have recomissioned Customer Maze to undertake the mystery shopping programme for 2008 covering all of it's Tourist Information and Customer First Centres. Scarborough Borough Council are looking to monitor the performance of their Tourist Information Centres, Customer First Centres and Call Centres in terms of customer handling; this will involve an annual visit to each of the TIC's and Customer First Centres in the borough, monthly telephone and email mystery shops and, the generation of reports/recommendations for each. Customer Maze have conducted the Mystery Shopping programme in Scarborough since 2005 and are delighted to continue with the programme.

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20th December 2007  Conversion Research Projects to Date

During November and December Customer Maze completed several conversion research projects.  These have consisted of detailed research into how effective the relevant holiday guides have been during 2006 and 2007, along with how the different media groups perform in generating business for the said areas.  

Research has been completed for the following areas:

• Worthing
• Visit Herefordshire
• Western Lake District
• Pembrokeshire                                          

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15th November 2007  How's Business in Birmingham?

Marketing Birmingham has commissioned Carrier Direct Marketing and Customer Maze to to carry out research to establish ‘How’s Business?’ for their members in 2007. This involves interviewing Marketing Birmingham members in and around the Birmingham area and identifying how they feel Marketing Birmingham supports their businesses.

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31st October 2007      Great Yarmouth Re-commission Customer Maze Ltd

Customer Maze has recently completed a large conversion research

project for Great Yarmouth. This involved detailed research into the effectiveness of the visitor guide, with particular emphasis on evaluating the performance of the media campaigns. A similar project is currently underway for Worthing Tourism and will see completion shortly.

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1st October 2007           One North East TIC Winners

Congratulations to Rothbury TIC for winning Gold in the Tourist Information Centre of the year award at the North East England Tourism Awards.  Sunderland TIC picked up silver and Peterlee won the bronze award. To read more about the event please click here.

The highest scoring TICs for the following categories were:

Telephone performance:   Gateshead Central Library

Email handling:              Sunderland, Gateshead Quays & Gateshead Central Library

Onsite visits:                       Rothbury

Postal enquiries:                Rothbury

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