Contact us today 1300 400 716 | info@abovebenchmark.com.au
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About Us
At Above Benchmark, we live and breathe Mystery Shopping. Our core admin team were all working with various Mystery Shopping providers and programs long before Above Benchmark was launched.
We’re all aligned with the vision of being Australia’s favourite Mystery Shopping provider. Quite simply, we want to have the happiest clients and the happiest mystery shoppers. We don’t want to be the biggest, we want to be the best.
We help clients Australia-wide, from any industry and of any size. If you care about your team, your customers and your service and want to do better, we can help.
Once upon a time we were a small company doing big things for small clients. Now we’re a well established company doing big things for clients of all sizes.
Why do we love this industry so much?
If you thought Mystery Shopping was complicated, boring and used only by industry giants to catch staff doing the wrong thing – please give us a moment to change your mind. Here at Above Benchmark we’re on a mission to prove the exact opposite of those common misconceptions.
Mystery Shopping is a fantastic tool that can be used by businesses of any size. It’s designed to improve customer service and increase sales, making it perfect for smaller businesses who want to grow. It identifies gaps in the service which are also opportunities to improve.
While there can be a lot of moving parts to Mystery Shopping, it doesn’t have to be complicated. It just needs to be expertly designed and professionally executed by a team who cares and who understands your business.
We’re crazy-passionate about Mystery Shopping. We keep things simple by focusing on what’s important. We care about our clients and we want them to love their Mystery Shopping program as much as we do.
About Jen Wells
CEO and Founder
I’m one of those entrepreneurs who saw an opportunity, left their safe job, jumped off a cliff and built a parachute on the way down. Over 2 decades later I’m still building and I absolutely love it!
20+ years in business has taught me the importance of having the right people around me. From our team, to our clients and business partners, we all have to be aligned and have the same vision and values.
I take immense pride in shaking up our industry and being that company that raises the bar and improves the reputation of Mystery Shopping. We value our Mystery Shoppers, we pay them fast (the fastest in the country) we remove hurdles for clients, we believe in keeping things simple but still deliver exceptional value.
Every day I get to do amazing things. I help my clients grow their businesses, I lead an incredible team and I provide flexible work for people who need it. Every day I get to do what I love.
A snapshot of our history…
2013
2014
2015
2016-17
2018-19
2020
2021-23
2024
2013
We launched our very first mobile phone APP! To combat the ever-increasing email spam and delays in messages, our developers created an APP so shoppers can be notified of job releases directly to their phones, wherever they are.
2014
We launched our new Customer Satisfaction services, the best way to find out exactly how our clients’ customers rate their service. Mid-year we launched our all new and improved reporting system. New features, including fully customised and personalised reports and automated delivery without the need to sign-in to the reporting software, means our clients can stay up to date wherever they are and on any device.
2015
We kicked off the year by customising our service structure, now allowing us to work with clients of ANY size! This was possibly one of the most exciting changes to our company. We also updated our mystery shopper payment system and can confidently claim we have the fastest payments in the country. While some of our competitors make shoppers wait up to 3 months for their payment, we pay within 7 days.
2016-17
We increased our admin team to provide even more personalised client care and reporting support. We launched our completely new and fully responsive website and published our first blog to keep both client and shoppers in the loop and up to date. We also opened our Instagram account aiming to inspire small businesses to monitor their customer service and create more loyal customers.
2018-19
We partnered with several new clients in the quick service/fast food industry and increased our support team. Then we celebrated our 16th Birthday and updated our corporate branding. We kicked it off with a new logo that incorporated the visual aspect of achieving above a benchmark.
2020
We were set to have our biggest year on record right before Covid-19 hit. Thankfully our strong relationships with our clients and services that help them grow, meant we only had a short pause and were back to normal in no time. We used the downtime to perfect more systems, step up team training and launch this new shiny website!
2021-23
We survived Covid, lockdowns and industry shake-ups. Throughout this time, we simplified more systems, grew our business and expanded our admin team.
2024
We kicked off the year by launching our new “Happy Customer Program” which combines 4 key services into one ‘done for you’ package. Our tech team also released an SDK allowing our software to link with our clients mobile apps for enhanced feedback and in-app customer tasks.
Meet the team
At Above Benchmark we are in the Market Research industry, but it’s our fantastic team and their passion and dedication that contribute to our success. In an industry that focuses heavily on numbers, we put quality before quantity and hire real people to achieve real results.
The Above Benchmark Admin Team has combined skills including: entrepreneurial leadership, management expertise, retail experience, undercover security experience, HR Management, former expert Mystery Shoppers, and probably one of the best chocolate-chip cookie makers in the country. In all seriousness, it’s our combined experience and passion for our business that drives us to constantly review, change and improve our systems and policies to continually grow our business and exceed our client’s expectations.
We have an awesome team of shoppers at Above Benchmark. We are an equal opportunity employer and our team of shoppers have diverse backgrounds. We have students, retail experts, police officers, airline stewardesses, demonstrators, merchandisers, CEOs, school teachers and SES volunteers, to name a few. When we hire a new mystery shopper we look at their character, their report writing skills and their reasons for wanting to be a Mystery Shopper. Our shoppers are individual contractors, they aren’t full-time employees and we don’t treat them like numbers; something all too common in our industry. We only hire real people to write real reports.
The Above Benchmark Admin Team has combined skills including: entrepreneurial leadership, management expertise, retail experience, undercover security experience, HR Management, former expert Mystery Shoppers, and probably one of the best chocolate-chip cookie makers in the country. In all seriousness, it’s our combined experience and passion for our business that drives us to constantly review, change and improve our systems and policies to continually grow our business and exceed our client’s expectations.
We have an awesome team of shoppers at Above Benchmark. We are an equal opportunity employer and our team of shoppers have diverse backgrounds. We have students, retail experts, police officers, airline stewardesses, demonstrators, merchandisers, CEOs, school teachers and SES volunteers, to name a few. When we hire a new mystery shopper we look at their character, their report writing skills and their reasons for wanting to be a Mystery Shopper. Our shoppers are individual contractors, they aren’t full-time employees and we don’t treat them like numbers; something all too common in our industry. We only hire real people to write real reports.
Think outside of the office! Creativity, productivity and quality work are best achieved when team members are working in their ideal environment and away from their individual distractions. We offer very flexible working conditions to our Admin and Shopper Teams and we are very supportive of their own working environments and hours. Less travel means greater productivity and not being confined by the four walls of our office allows us to hire people for their skills, not their address.
We are passionate about clear communication, feedback and recognition for a job well done. We are easy to contact if a shopper has a question and we are always open to feedback and suggestions from our shoppers as to how we can continually improve our on-line reporting platform to ensure it is user-friendly. We send a thank you to each shopper after submitting their survey and include any positive observations or tips for next time. We process survey payments quickly, within 7 days of a report being submitted, and we have a “Mystery Shopper of the Month” award with Gift Vouchers and various prizes up for grabs.
Think outside of the office! Creativity, productivity and quality work are best achieved when team members are working in their ideal environment and away from their individual distractions. We offer very flexible working conditions to our Admin and Shopper Teams and we are very supportive of their own working environments and hours. Less travel means greater productivity and not being confined by the four walls of our office allows us to hire people for their skills, not their address.
We are passionate about clear communication, feedback and recognition for a job well done. We are easy to contact if a shopper has a question and we are always open to feedback and suggestions from our shoppers as to how we can continually improve our on-line reporting platform to ensure it is user-friendly. We send a thank you to each shopper after submitting their survey and include any positive observations or tips for next time. We process survey payments quickly, within 7 days of a report being submitted, and we have a “Mystery Shopper of the Month” award with Gift Vouchers and various prizes up for grabs.