Our Story
At insight6, we talk a great deal about transformative journeys, not just because they are at the heart of how we help businesses embrace the power of Customer Experience, but also because our own history is very much one in itself!
From mystery shopping…
Our founder, Jonathan Winchester, started his career as a management trainee in Harrods, where part of his work was mystery shopping at other major London department stores. He worked for a number of other large companies before moving to Australia in the early 90s. A visit to a particularly badly run supermarket in Perth brought him back to his Customer Experience (CX) roots and he approached the manager about the benefits of mystery shopping.
Conducting the shops entirely by himself, the manager saw the immediate positive effects of Jonathan’s efforts and asked him to return every month. Word soon spread, and Jonathan was invited into more and more businesses, eventually taking on his own team of mystery shoppers. Their success snowballed and Jonathan set up Shoppers Anonymous and grew the business across Australia and New Zealand delivering high-quality mystery shopping programmes to SME’s, large chain supermarkets, cinemas, and hotel groups. It was not long before Shopper Anonymous became the biggest mystery shopping company in Australasia.
…to redefining the future of Customer Experience
When he and his family decided to return to the UK, Jonathan’s original experience was mirrored during his first trip to a UK supermarket in many years. It was clear that the business model he had worked so hard to develop in Australia and New Zealand also had huge potential in the UK, and Shopper Anonymous was born.
However, the new company was to become a significant evolution of the original concept, elevating the traditional mystery shopping model to a new level. Jonathan and his new team developed a unique model which not only included customer review programmes but also a whole range of feedback tools, training and coaching programmes in a comprehensive end-to-end service.
Over many years of successful trading, Jonathan began to notice a significant shift in his customers. Retail started out as their main customer base, but more and more different professional industries began to take an interest. So, in 2018, the company rebranded as insight6 – named after its innovative six step programme which could provide exceptional CX insight to all manner of brands. One which was more effectively positioned to serve the wider professional sectors which were increasingly engaging with their CX expertise.
insight6 now serves more than 600 clients in the UK and Ireland, and is seeking to add new partners to its expert network in order to meet the ever increasing demand for their unique services.
