Welcome to Retail Active

We are a professional and experienced Customer Experience Measurement Agency, with core skills in Brand Auditing, Mystery Shopping & Training, delivering improvements in profit, culture & compliance for our clients.

We deliver improved customer loyalty and operational execution in our Client’s business performance through our mix of industry expertise, advanced data and insights, real cultural engagement from our people and tailor made programmes.

About Us

We were incorporated in 2000 and have enjoyed successful growth since then; this growth has been driven by our commitment to provide excellent service to our clients.

We are proud of the highly successful partnerships we have built with many of the world’s leading companies, due to our expertise, customer focus, continual innovation and the value we drive.

Our engagement with our people enables us to innovate, evolve and consistently deliver for our clients – with our values at the heart of driving great service.

We are a member of the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA) which aims to improve and stimulate the acceptance, performance, reputation and use of member services. This means that we have been externally assessed and proven to:
• Adhere to specific professional standards, specifically a Code of Professional Ethics and a Code of Professional Standards;
• Have earned a strong client and market place reputation, measured through a minimum of six verified client references from the past year and;
• Conduct business in a manner which complies with and enhances the established standards of service in the customer standards measurement industry.

We are an Advantage Smollan company

Retail Active is part of Advantage Smollan, the first and only global provider of innovative outsourced sales and marketing solutions for consumer goods companies and retailers.


This partnership between Advantage Sales and Marketing LLC and Smollan Group delivers a unified service agency solution throughout Europe which provides manufacturers with the best retail merchandising, technology and reporting solutions on an international scale.

Our People and Our Values

At Retail Active we truly believe that our people are one of our strongest assets and therefore invest heavily in the growth and development of our team. Our team is the foundation of our business; our product is people.

We have a mix of specialists leading our divisions and a rich blend of backgrounds and experience, all of which add value to our clients’ programmes. We also have clear progression routes for every member of our team.

We take time to ensure that our clients have the right people looking after their programmes and that there is a clear cultural match between our people and clients.

Created by our people, our values ensure that every member of our team has a voice and can affect the culture of our business.

We believe in:
• Being a great place to work
• Delivering an outstanding client experience, every time
• Focussing on how to be better tomorrow

Lucy Vallender
Lucy has 16 years’ experience in field sales and customer experience measurement. Lucy’s key expertise is in creating and delivering actionable insight for a variety of clients across the CPG, retail and automotive industry. Following many years’ experience of leading business units and teams, Lucy leads the Retail Active team to deliver and exceed against client requirements.
Lucy Vallender
Managing Director
Rachael Simmonds
Rachael has 18 years’ experience working in auditing, mystery shopping, field sales, training and consumer care lines. Rachael leads the account management team at Retail Active working across a diverse range of markets including automotive, retail and leisure. Rachael provides direction and leadership for her team working creatively to deliver high quality and efficient programmes with a constant focus on driving value and strategic insight for clients.
Rachael Simmonds
General Manager
Alisdair Smith
Alisdair has 16 years' business development experience and has worked for Retail Active since 2010. Prior to working within the consumer insight industry, he worked for The Tingdene Group who are Europe’s largest manufacturer of modular buildings. Having been involved within customer experience measurement for over 10 years, he brings a wealth of experience and has been involved in the setting up of numerous projects and new client programmes.
Alisdair Smith
Business Development Director
Steven Chaffé
Steve has 10 years’ experience focused on auditing services and brand awareness working across multiple industry sectors to deliver bespoke auditing and data collection programmes. Steve also has significant systems, data and insight capabilities, leading teams to provide the best solutions for client needs.
Steven Chaffé
Data and Systems Director

What our people say

Our people have told us that, to them, being a great place to work means:

Listen to me
Count me in
Believe in me
Acknowledge me

Our values awards and business culture reflects these behaviours for every person in our business.