Insight6

Background

Insight6 is a UK customer experience agency that runs mystery shopping evaluations across retail, hospitality, healthcare, and legal sectors. With a network of over 800 mystery shoppers conducting thousands of evaluations monthly, their old platform was struggling to keep up. Reports took too long to generate, the mobile experience was poor for field evaluators, and clients lacked real-time visibility into their results.

The company needed a modern platform that could handle the full evaluation lifecycle, from assignment and data collection through analysis and client delivery, while maintaining the 48-hour turnaround guarantee that set them apart. The system also needed to support newer evaluation formats including video, phone, and live chat assessments.

Technical approach

We built the platform on PHP with the Laravel framework, using its ORM, queue system, and authentication scaffolding to accelerate development. Vue.js powered the frontend, providing a reactive interface for both the evaluator mobile app and the client portal.

MySQL was the primary database, with carefully designed indexes to support the complex reporting queries that aggregated thousands of evaluations across multiple dimensions: location, time period, evaluation type, and performance metrics. AWS hosted the infrastructure, with auto-scaling groups to handle the spike in evaluation submissions that typically occurred on weekends and holidays.

Implementation details

The evaluator-facing application was a progressive web app optimized for mobile use in the field. Evaluators could complete assessment forms offline and sync when connectivity returned. This was necessary for in-store evaluations where network coverage was unreliable. GPS verification confirmed evaluators were physically present at the assessed location.

The workflow engine automated the entire evaluation pipeline. When a client requested an evaluation cycle, the system matched available shoppers based on demographics, location, and experience. Completed evaluations passed through automated quality checks before routing to human reviewers. Approved results were immediately available in the client portal.

The client dashboard provided real-time access to evaluation results with drill-down capabilities. Clients could compare performance across locations, track trends over time, and benchmark against industry averages. Custom report templates allowed each client to focus on the metrics most relevant to their business.

We integrated video evaluation capabilities that let mystery shoppers record interactions discreetly. The platform processed and securely stored video alongside structured evaluation data, giving clients a complete picture of the customer experience. Phone and chat evaluations followed a similar pattern with call recording and transcript analysis.

Outcomes

The platform now processes over 23,000 mystery shops annually for more than 500 UK brands. The automated workflow reduced the average report delivery time from 48 hours to under 24 hours. Evaluator satisfaction improved with the mobile-first approach, and completed evaluations per shopper increased by 30%. Clients gained real-time insights through the dashboard. Many reported measurable improvements in customer experience scores within the first quarter of adoption.