Douglas Stafford is proud to be celebrating its 20th anniversary in August 2009. From the company’s humble beginnings back in 1989 when the current Chairman Nigel Cook set up the company in Northamptonshire, Douglas Stafford has prided itself on providing the highest levels of customer service to its wide ranging client base. Working in partnership with them to be profitable businesses, providing the highest standards of customer service as well as providing them with a platform to train and develop their staff to excel and become market leaders within their industries.
Douglas Stafford has pushed from day one to be the champion of the performance improvement industry through its Mystery Shopping, Training and Development Services. Leading by example and being at the forefront of its industry providers by introducing the latest technological developments to conduct Video, Telephone and On-line Mystery Shopping as well as providing intuitive state of the art results feedback mechanisms, through its on-line reporting results portals.
Key Milestones in the Life Story of Douglas Stafford
1989 – Douglas Stafford completes its first Mystery Shopping Programme for its first ever client Chelmhill Motors Ltd.
1996 – Douglas Stafford relocates to the Isle of Wight on the South Coast.
1997 – Douglas Stafford was the first UK Mystery Shopping consultancy to develop covert Video Mystery Shopping facilities to the industry, rolling out a programme of 50 Video Mystery Shops in the UK.
2000 – Douglas Stafford opens an international overseas office in North America to service the North American and Canadian market, running a National Mystery Shopping programme for BMW North America.
2001 – Douglas Stafford launches the first on-line reporting results feedback tool for efficient management of results to its client base with the introduction of DSInsight™, developed in house by its team of programmers and web developers.
2002 – Douglas Stafford becomes the first company to upgrade its covert video mystery shopping technology with a switch from Hi-8 recording devices to mini DV cam based equipment, substantially reducing the size of the covert equipment to reduce detection as well as provide a much higher quality recording and end product for its clients by switching from old VHS video tapes to high quality DVD production.
2003 – Douglas Stafford introduces the ability to provide its telephone and audio recorded mystery shopping results directly through its on-line reporting website DSInsight™, through a click and listen/download function, significantly reducing the turnaround times of feeding results back to its client base, in turn allowing its clients to be much quicker to respond to their programme results and findings.
2004 – Douglas Stafford expands and relocates to Enterprise House in Portsmouth to increase its team of high quality staff.
2005 – Douglas Stafford are the first to develop new, in-house lead management, email and on-line Mystery Shopping products and services to cater for the development and worldwide change in culture, as the internet continues to grow and become an everyday part of businesses and customers buying habits.
2006 – Douglas Stafford develops a specialist Accredited Performance Coaching Programme new to the Mystery Shopping Industry to train managers how to effectively coach and de-brief evidence based, recorded Mystery Shopping Programmes to ensure that its client base gain maximum value out of their investments in Mystery Shopping Programmes.
2006 – Douglas Stafford upgrades its DSInsight™ on-line reporting tool with increased functionality of its reporting facilities to provide its client base with more intuitive results and trend analysis as well as increased flexibility for its clients to bespoke their own individual reporting requirements.
2007 – Douglas Stafford upgrades its video mystery shopping technology with a switch from mini DV cam based equipment to the latest hard drive/SD Digital recording technology, further increasing the quality of its video mystery shopping services.
2008 – Douglas Stafford leads the market by developing and introducing the ability of providing its video Mystery Shopping services and results recordings through an on-line video streaming and download service via its DSInsight™ on-line reporting tool. Drastically reducing the turnaround time in feeding back results to its client base as well as reducing its carbon footprint by the reduction of producing DVDs and needs for postage and packaging of results.
2009 – Douglas Stafford relocates to state of the art offices at 1000 Lakeside on the outskirts of Portsmouth providing its staff with the highest quality working facilities as well as providing a firm platform to further grow its business into the 21st Century and service its ever increasing client base.
