May 13 2010

Watch out the Spy’s are coming… 

Canberra Family Business Australia member, SpySee – The Customer Experience Experts, is putting all businesses on notice.  Sisters Carolyn Queale (CEO) and Rachel Power (COO) have landed a contract with the Canberra and Capital Region Department of Tourism to explore tourists’ response to visiting the region.

Thanks to the Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards, Canberra will see an influx of interstate and local Customer Experience Assessors anonymously conducting Visitor Appraisals on entrants in the Awards. 

At the official launch of the 2010 Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards, Minister Barr commented that “…this year’s national tourism awards will also feature a customer appraisal system developed by Canberra firm SpySee.”

“For a number of years local firm SpySee has rated the customer experience provided by tourism operators for the Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards,” he said.

“This year SpySee has won the tender for a trial in the Major Tourist Attraction and Tourist Attraction categories at the 2010 Qantas Australian Tourism Awards. This is great recognition of an innovative Canberra company.”

SpySee brings a number of tourists to Canberra to assess entrants and the experience they offer their customers. 

“From hotels and restaurants to tours and attractions, our Assessors are gearing up to be a Spy for a Day and tell us exactly what they experience within the entrant’s businesses.” Said Rachel Power, Chief Operations Officer of SpySee.

“We use roughly 60% Assessors from interstate to complete assessments and choose those who have never been to Canberra, or not for a long time.  We also choose people who rate Canberra not very high on the desirability scale as a tourist destination, or have no opinion at all.” She said.

“Over the last two years, every Assessor who has worked with us on the Tourism Awards has left rating Canberra as high as possible on that same scale, begging us to come back next year.

Of the Assessors who are locals, we make sure we send them to attractions, tours and places that they have not been to before. We love the reactions like this one,” said Rachel referring to the comment below about Lake Burley Griffin Cruises, winner of a Visitor Appraisal Award in the 2009 Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards.

“We can't understand why we have never been before but we will certainly be going again...” When this person heard that the call for Assessors was going out again she commented   “The Lake Burley Griffin Cruises I assessed last year was a truly wonderful experience... I was so pleased they won an award. It is such a great operation and he was such a character.” (SpySee Customer Experience Assessor who wants to remain anonymous so she may continue to assess businesses for the Awards!)