Monthly Archives: April 2012

BMW prepares Olympic Torch for London 2012

The BMW Group’s Energy and Environmental Test Centre in Munich has been put to work testing the Olympic Torch ahead of its 70 day Olympic Relay around the UK.

 

The Test Centre which brings some of the world’s most extreme weather systems into one building is normally used to examine the performance of BMW Group vehicles. The three wind tunnels and two climatic test chambers are able to imitate hostile environments from around the world in one single laboratory. With a temperature range of -20C to +55C, BMW can replicate the Arctic Tundra and the Sahara Desert, while the wind speeds of up to 280 km/h are greater than those generated in most hurricanes.

 

BMW, as the Official Automotive Partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and an expert in efficiency and state-of-the-art testing, was an obvious choice to house a bespoke range of tests developed by LOCOG and the engineering partner of the Olympic Torch, Tecosim.

 

As the Olympic Torch travels around the UK, it will have to stay alight in all British weather conditions including freezing temperatures at the summit of Snowdon, winds on the Shetland Islands and the summer heat of the South coast of England, not to mention the inevitable summer shower. The Olympic Torch will be more than prepared to deal with all weather conditions. The Torch stood up to some extreme weather conditions at the BMW facility, enduring -5C to +40C temperatures, +50mph winds, snow and rain. The Olympic Torch stayed lit throughout.

 

Mystery Shopping and Performance Improvement Company, Douglas Stafford, have been working in partnership with BMW for over 10 years and are proud to be associated with the company. Douglas Stafford are in full support of BMW and their Sponsorship of the 2012 Olympics.

Audi AG acquires Motorcycle Manufacturer Ducati

 

Volkswagen‘s Audi arm has bought Italian motorcycle firm Ducati for an undisclosed sum.

 

Audi AG is acquiring Italian sports motorcycle manufacturer Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. The purchase will be completed when approval from the necessary regulators is received. Ducati is known worldwide as a leading brand in motorcycle manufacture, with outstanding expertise in engine development and lightweight construction. Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management for Audi AG, said: “Ducati is known worldwide as a premium brand among motorcycle manufacturers and has a long tradition of building sporty motorcycles. It has great expertise in high-performance engines and lightweight construction, and is one of the world’s most profitable motorcycle manufacturers. That makes Ducati an excellent fit for Audi.”

 

Peter Mosch, Chairman of the General Works Council of Audi AG, explains that the employee representatives of AUDI AG support the Company’s growth strategy. “We must use the opportunities offered by globalization for Audi – and that’s exactly what we’re doing. Everyone at Audi is looking forward to working with our new colleagues from Ducati,” he said.

 

Ducati is a globally active company and has manufacturing operations at its headquarters in Bologna and at its own factory in Thailand. In 2011, Ducati sold around 42,000 motorcycles and generated revenue of around €480 million.

 

Mystery Shopping and Performance Improvement Company Douglas Stafford, has been working in partnership with Audi since 2005. The addition of Ducati will strengthen the German manufacturer’s stronghold on the market, and is another building block and expansion towards the company’s growth.

Beaulieu’s Fifties Diamond Jubilee Celebrations

In celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu is holding a 50’s themed family event from 2nd – 5th June.
 
Over the four days there will be a drive-in of 50’s vehicles at the event including cars, motorbikes, commercial and agricultural vehicles. Visitors will be able to see these vehicles displayed at Beaulieu parkland and watch them driving in a cavalcade around the attraction. All owners of 50’s vehicles are invited to join the drive-in free of charge, but must apply for a place in advance. There will also be 50’s funfair rides, such as a carousel, dodgems and swing boats. Live music will also add to the atmosphere, with jazz duo Riverboat Days playing over the four days, and the whole attraction will be decked out in Great British themed decorations, including bunting and flags.
 
The museum also has an exciting new attraction BOND IN MOTION, running for one year only, which celebrates another very British anniversary – the 50th year of James Bond films. The exhibition displays 50 original vehicles from the James Bond films and visitors can also watch exclusive behind-the-scenes footage and clips of the most memorable vehicle stunts from the franchise.
 
Advance tickets can be bought online at www.beaulieushop.co.uk
 
The event is open from 10am every day, with plenty of free parking available.

Fitness First putting their Performance Improvement first

Fitness First is putting customer service firmly at the top of its list of priorities. Since February this year, a new senior management team has been in place, ensuring that customers receive the best level of service possible.

 

More than 190,000 members joined Fitness First in the last 12 months and internal surveys by the company showed the majority of people are satisfied with the administrative process of joining and leaving. But the company now wants to make sure everyone is happy with the process, and now insists membership consultants undergo extensive training.

 

Included in the training is specific guidance on the regulations that protect consumers, which the company says is now encouraged and expected to be followed by all Fitness First employees.
Making sure customers receive the best possible service is something the company is eager to focus on more than ever.

New improvements to the service include a ten-day cooling off period for members, improved billing systems and easier to understand terms and conditions. Fitness First has also recently worked with The Plain English Society and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to re-write contracts to make sure all communications are clear and not misleading. Customer service is a huge part of business and Douglas Stafford is helping to improve the service from Fitness First in a number of ways.

Mystery Shopping and Performance Improvement Company, Douglas Stafford, has helped to improve customer service by introducing a new certification process consisting of training and development programmes to ensure thousands of staff are equipped with the required skills, knowledge and behaviours to meet the requirements of Fitness First. Numerous mystery shopper activities have also occurred, and will continue to take place.

 

Feedback from customers has proved important and Douglas Stafford is working in partnership with Fitness First to ensure they are performing to the best of their abilities.

Skoda’s Success

Skoda have recently stolen first, second and fourth place in the 2012 Auto Express Driver Power Car Ownership Survey.

 
“Skoda’s advertising says that it’s the manufacturer of happy drivers – this year’s Driver Power survey shows it’s right,”  said Auto Express editor-in-chief Steve Fowler. He also commented saying: “We know car buyers are seeing in-car technology as an increasingly important part of their car and car buying, while car makers are putting more efforts into gadgets and gizmos.”

 

This year’s Car Ownership Survey Awards had a new category in which car buyers had to rate the standard and quality of their in-car gadgets.

 
Skoda’s success was led by the Yeti SUV in first place, followed by the superb family car as runner-up and the Octavia in fourth.

 
The Performance Improvement and Mystery Shopping Company Douglas Stafford would like to congratulate their partners at Skoda on their recent success at the Auto Express Driver Power Awards.

Eggcellent Result for Douglas Stafford Girls

Over the Easter period employees here at Lakeside were getting into the Easter spirit.
 

An Easter Egg Decorating competition was organised by 1000 Lakeside and held in the building’s main cafe.  Some of the Douglas Stafford girls entered as a team and included Kathleen Field, Jo Morgan, Madelaine Cook and Andrea Moth. The competition had group entries and single entries all taking part. The task was to decorate a chocolate Easter egg as creatively as possible. The Douglas Stafford girls created an Easter egg family called the Sugar snaps and to their delight actually stole first place in the competition.  The girls were later awarded with a bag of Easter Chocolate each.
 

The Performance Improvement company has taken part in many competitions and events over the years and believes that they have contributed to team building within the company.  Douglas Stafford’s employees work very closely together and competitions such as this only enhance that.  Let’s just hope the girls shared that chocolate.

What’s Ahead for the High Street?

Despite the rise of internet shopping and out-of-town shopping centres, 45 per cent of people in the UK still prefer a visit to the high street.

 

But who can blame them? Shopping online doesn’t compete with a day out at the shops with friends or family. If retailers don’t take action to encourage shoppers to make purchases in real life stores, the high street is at risk of becoming little more than a platform for window shopping for buyers to compare prices to online deals.

 

Retailers need to focus on making the experience of shopping on the high street more compelling towards the general public. They need to look at other more innovative ways of enticing people to come to stores and part with their hard earned cash.

 

Performance Improvement and Mystery Shopping Company Douglas Stafford have worked with many retailers including Claire’s and French Connection to help them improve their levels of customer service. Douglas Stafford can conduct On-Site Mystery Shopping, Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Training Schemes and Performance Coaching Programmes.

 

Performance Coaching is designed to assist your managers to raise both sales and customer service performance and consequently the scores on all future mystery shopping activities involving their team. This enhanced performance will result in improvements in morale, conversions, sales, customer satisfaction, quality of sale and profitability. This programme is based on the premise that no matter how dazzling or damning the evidence, its value lies in what is done with it.

 

Contact Douglas Stafford on 0800 783 1913 for more information.

Kia Appoints New President and Chief Executive Officer

Kia Motors is welcoming home its chief operating officer after a successful spell working at the company’s European base in Frankfurt.

 

Paul Philpott will become president and chief executive officer of Kia Motors UK and Ireland. It is the first time a non-Korean has been appointed to such a role at any Kia subsidiary in Europe and follows on from Tony Whitehorn’s promotion to president and chief executive officer of Hyundai UK in November last year. Mr Philpott was managing director of Kia Motors UK from 2007 until he moved to Frankfurt in 2009 and will return to the UK site based in Weybridge in July 2012.

 

Announcing the move, Brandon Yea, president of Kia Motors Europe, said: “The Kia brand is now Europe’s fastest growing thanks to Paul Philpott and he knows very well that we are determined to strengthen local management at all our subsidiary companies in order to become a truly global automotive organisation.”

 

Kia UK managing director, Michael Cole, said: “Having worked with Paul in the past at Toyota and having succeeded him in this role in the UK I am delighted that he is coming back to help us continue the major task of taking Kia to our longer-term vision of 100,000 sales per year in the UK.

 

“Paul’s understanding of the relationship between manufacturer and dealer network is unrivalled and his efforts to construct a strong, inspirational and attractive business proposition for our partners can only contribute positively to the remarkable growth we have enjoyed in the UK.”

 

Douglas Stafford, the Performance Improvement and Mystery Shopping Company, have been working alongside Kia since the beginning of the year and are proud to be in partnership with the company. Douglas Stafford would like to congratulate Mr. Philpott on his new role and wish him every success in the future.

Audi’s pushing The Boundaries

Audi has revealed a glimpse into how its engineers are looking to develop light technology on future models.

 

New ideas by the German manufacturer include the use of lasers, wipe-action indicators and speed-sensitive swarms of organic LEDs. Audi’s lighting engineers are looking to further push boundaries by developing systems that will be capable of reacting to environmental conditions and surrounding road users.

 

The most dramatically different of these is the OLED swarm, which differ from LEDs in that they are formed from an organic material rather than semiconductor crystals. Movements of the red dots take their orientation from movements of the vehicle, so when a right turn is made, they flow to the right, and when the car is braked they flow rapidly forwards. OLEDs have potential for many other applications, as proven by the recent A2 concept, which features a thin band of OLED light connecting its headlights with its tail lights.
 

Audi is also developing advanced indicator lights that appear to perform a wiping movement from the inside outwards, and matrix beam headlights that obtain information they need from a camera, from the navigation system and from additional sensors.  Engineers are also developing a rear fog light that uses a laser diode to project a bright, clear red line onto the road surface if visibility is moderately good.  This is just one of many ways Audi is working with its clients to improve its features and the service it provides to customers.

 

Mystery Shopping and Performance Improvement Company, Douglas Stafford, have been working with Audi since 2005 and like Audi, Douglas Stafford have consistently been at the forefront of technological advancements through their years of business.

 

Our in-house Information Technology team provide clients with the very latest in on-line reporting tools and the option of digital HD quality video mystery shopping. Douglas Stafford invests over £200,000 per year in the development of its I.T. systems. This investment has enabled us to be first to provide video mystery shopping, on-line interactive reporting and on-line video and audio streaming. These benefits and our commitment to excellence in everything we do make Douglas Stafford the preferred provider for performance improvement.

 

Ford Focus Takes Starring Role

The Ford Focus ST takes centre stage in its starring role in new film blockbuster The Sweeney at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this summer. Stunt drivers will take the place of famous Flying Squad detectives Jack Regan and George Carter as their black Ford Focus ST is pitted against a Jaguar XFR up the famous Goodwood hill climb in an exciting chase sequence preview ahead of the movie’s release in September.

 

Ford has been a major sponsor of the Goodwood Festival of Speed since 1993 and is supporting this prestigious event again over the weekend of June 29th – July 1st. The Festival of Speed is Europe’s premier historic motor sporting event held in the grounds of Goodwood House, the Earl of March’s ancestral home in West Sussex. Visitors will see a variety of famous Fords on display at Goodwood.

 

Director and co-writer, Nick Love, whose previous films include The Football Factory and The Firm, said: “It was important for me to collaborate with Ford on The Sweeney as their legacy with the original TV show is so strong – they’re the perfect partner. I like the Ford Focus ST so much, I want one!” Ford’s link with the 1970s Sweeney TV series saw Regan, Carter and their Flying Squad colleagues using a string of Ford Granada, Consul and Cortina models to make the streets of London a safer place.

 

Mystery Shopping and Performance Improvement Company, Douglas Stafford, have worked with Ford for over 8 years. They have a national network of specialist mystery shoppers and customer researchers operating from regional hubs across the UK.

 

During their 22 years of business they have consistently been at the forefront of technological advancements. The in-house Information Technology team provide clients with the very latest in on-line reporting tools and the option of digital HD quality video mystery shopping.

 

For more information on the services Douglas Stafford provide, contact them on 0800 783 1913.