How a company excelled throughout the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic.
About Proinsight
Our first investment, the one that started our portfolio in 2014, was in Proinsight Research Ltd, a consumer insight company.
Over the last six years we have worked hand in hand with Dave Hopkins (Managing Director) since then to build the business organically. Successful sales strategies combined with operational excellence helped us to move it from complete start up to be the one of the UK’s leading mystery shopping agencies. And debt free.
What Happened in Lockdown?
The pandemic was a huge and immediate change for a company that makes most of its revenue from in-person store visits. The lockdown was a shock to the team but as the cliché goes it’s not getting knocked down, it’s how you get up.
The team quickly developed a strategy of how they would handle the communication and contractual element of client management. The other important piece was the handling the furlough and how to keep the team engaged and feeling they were cared for despite having to put them into the furlough scheme.
At the centre of the plan was the outflow of communication across different channels to different stakeholders. The company has a shopper panel of just over 30,000. A weekly FB live broadcast was developed and launched by the head of operations and that got great traction with the shoppers. The Instagram feed was also used to keep in touch and reassure the shoppers.
The LinkedIn page was used to push out reassuring messages that Proinsight was here for the clients. This morphed into ways Proinsight could help the opening up process when lockdown lifted.
The team also took the opportunity to refresh and rebrand the web site and improve a whole range of company documents.
When Lockdown Lifted
The company was ready to spring out of the blocks when lockdown lifted. The main competitors appeared to have taken a more passive approach during lockdown with all activities ceasing completely. This meant Proinsight really left them standing. Winning new business in lockdown also occurred due to the constant outflow of PR plus the PPC was left running.
It was an unprecedented situation but the team at Proinsight responded magnificently to the challenge.
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