A lens on the customer experience

When Adam Lindop joined Prezzo Italian as group operations director in early 2025, the business was, he notes, “not in a strong position”. Eighteen months on, revenue is up 7.4 per cent, EBITDA profit is up 155 per cent and the brand’s in-year Google score has climbed from 4.02 to 4.74 – a turnaround Lindop credits in significant part to the discipline and insight Proinsight’s mystery shops have helped bring to the business.

“Over the last 10 years, the business had been through massive change and hadn’t found stability,” he explains. “There were wide-ranging inconsistencies in standards, while customers viewed the business differently from the way it was perceived internally. It needed a lot of work.”

What the business was not short of, he is quick to stress, was effort. “We had lots of great people who were really, really hardworking. They just hadn’t been given the right standards, direction or focus.”

This is the gap that newly arrived CEO James Brown, Lindop and the wider senior team set about closing.

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Three lenses, one picture

Early on, Lindop identified a fundamental blind spot: nobody was systematically listening to the customer. “Nobody ever talked about what customers were telling us online. It was also hard to find complaint data, hard to find what customers were actually saying about us.”

His response was to build what he calls a trio of lenses: Google reviews, complaints and compliments, and mystery shopping.

“I wanted the broadest view I could get. Google, because there’s so much rich feedback there. Complaints, because you have to face into what customers are telling you and, where there’s repetition, identify trends you may need to address. And mystery shopping, which tells you whether your teams are actually doing what you’re asking of them.

“You can’t be selective. You have to look at all of these to get the full picture.”

It was this thinking that brought Proinsight into the business, working closely with Lindop to embed his newly-created Steps of Service and his new standards guide – respectively known as Connection and Impression – into a mystery diner programme.

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Embedding new standards

When Lindop first joined the Prezzo Italian businesses, he had discovered a customer journey overloaded with process and light on hospitality.

“Just as one example, there were lots of questions the moment a customer reached our door – questions about allergies, bookings, vouchers. We dubbed it passport control!” he laughs, adding: “We needed that first impression to be much more welcoming.”

Launched at the business’s summer conference in May 2025, Connection reset the customer journey. The allergen question, for instance, moved from the door to the table. “That’s more personable. That’s when the server’s there – someone who can look after you.”

Drink and food delivery timeframes, manager check-backs – all the things customers expect from a great restaurant, but which had never been formally set out, also went into the new guidelines.

Now, every one of Prezzo Italian’s 96 restaurants is mystery shopped twice a month to monitor the execution of these customer service requirements, as well as standards – in cleanliness, tidiness and so on – and food quality.

Not every marker carries equal weight. The allergen question, for example, is upweighted – “we need confidence that our teams are handling this matter safely” – as is the goodbye at the end of a visit, an area Lindop notes is often the most poorly delivered stage across hospitality generally.

Other points are of more obvious commercial value to the business: upselling, for example, has improved since mystery dining began, contributing towards the group’s revenue growth. But it’s primarily about excellence in hospitality, stresses Lindop: “We look at every question and work out what’s important to the customer. If it’s inconsequential, it’s low on the scale. If it really matters to them, it gets a higher weighting.”

Crucially, the expectations being monitored by Proinsight are consistent. “Dish focuses might shift month to month as new menu items launch, but we don’t flip-flop on our Steps of Service. They’re locked in and everyone is judged the same. That transparency matters, ensuring teams always know exactly what’s being asked of them. They trust that the bar isn’t shifting beneath them.”

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A journey to compliance

For Lindop, mystery shopping’s real value isn’t in forcing wholesale business change. It’s in perspective: “Is a particular service requirement being adhered to – and if not, why not? What’s happening? The data allows us to have better conversations about where we’re at and where we still need our teams to get closer to the customer.”

It’s why he particularly values the structure of Proinsight’s reporting: “It isn’t just binary ‘yes/no’ questions. There are also open questions for deeper feedback, as well as advice from the mystery diner who is, of course, also a customer.”

“What mystery dining gives you is an honest answer: have you actually landed the change you’re looking for?”

Adam Lindop, group operations director, Prezzo Italian

Yet for Lindop, there’s one thing he prizes above all else in Proinsight’s reports: the photography. From waiter stations to food presentation to first impressions at the entrance, images allow Lindop and the wider teams to see – not just read – exactly what’s happening on the ground.

He confirms: “With 96 sites, each trading around 70 hours a week, none of us can be there all the time. Regular mystery diner reports give us all – regional managers, senior leadership, even general managers – genuine insight across different day parts and, where relevant, sites that we wouldn’t otherwise get.”

And that perspective matters, because good intentions don’t automatically translate into delivery. “Just because you’ve said something once, produced a booklet, done some online training – it doesn’t mean everyone understands it and that you’ve achieved 100 per cent compliance. That’s just not how the world works.

“What mystery dining gives you is an honest answer: have you actually landed the change you’re looking for? Are people delivering what you’re asking of them? It clearly shows you how far along the journey you are.”

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Steering the refurbs

Nowhere has that mattered more than in the chain’s refurbishment programme – almost 30 refurbs and new openings since February 2025, with “lots more to come next year” – where mystery diner data is used to confirm a site’s readiness for investment.

“If a restaurant’s last four mystery diners have told us a particular element is missing, we know there’s still work to do before any refurbishment begins. I can even brief our front-of-house trainers and food director’s team on the specific points their training should focus on when they go in to prepare that site,” explains Lindop.

“We want every investment to be genuinely worthwhile, not just a fresh coat of paint over the same gaps. And so our restaurants have to reach required standards before we refurbish them, not afterwards.”

Yet it’s also vitally important to Lindop that mystery shopping isn’t used purely to catch faults. “It’s really easy to look at any feedback and pick on the negative, but what our partnership with Proinsight also allows us to do is congratulate teams.”

Mystery diner reports land first thing in the morning and are simultaneously sent to sites, regional managers and the senior leadership team. Says Lindop: “I read them immediately. If something’s not quite right, we can adjust it straight away. But equally, if a site’s just had a brilliant mystery shop, I don’t want to miss the chance to give the team a high five.”

He continues: “There’s a certain score that, if a team gets higher, I write to them personally to congratulate them. I also write if a score drops below that benchmark, but it’s important to acknowledge both sides.

“I don’t tell anyone what that benchmark score is, though, because I don’t want teams to be focused on ‘passing the test’ of a mystery diner. I want them to deliver amazing hospitality, creating magic moments for our customers, with a great mystery diner score simply a byproduct of that.”

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Agility & understanding

Lindop is careful not to attribute the turnaround of the business to any single factor, but is unequivocal about the contribution of mystery dining.

“Proinsight is a key partner. I see businesses that naively look through only one or two lenses – or worse, only those that judge them favourably. You have to have the humility to take things on the chin. That’s the only way you learn.”

“I firmly believe mystery shopping has had a big hand in our rise to 4.74.”

Adam Lindop, group operations director, Prezzo Italian

And learn he and his team have, as the latest revenue and profit figures show. Specifically on Google ratings, Lindop is clear: “These are critical and I firmly believe mystery shopping has had a big hand in our rise to 4.74.”

Meanwhile, Net Promoter Score – a score out of 10 that indicates customers’ likelihood of recommending Prezzo Italian to friends, family or colleagues – rose six points between May 2025 and February 2026. More striking still is the detail beneath that headline, with a +18 per cent movement from Passive (those scoring 7–8) to Promoter (scoring 9–10).

“This is commercially significant, as Promoters spend on average 20 per cent more per visit and are five times more likely to recommend Prezzo Italian to others,” confirms Deborah Jones, senior client success manager at Proinsight.

Lindop credits CEO James Brown – who had worked with Proinsight previously – for bringing the partnership into the business and describes the onboarding as immediate. “We had one conversation, I sent over what I was thinking on Steps of Service, Proinsight did a couple of test runs and we were up and running within days.”

He singles out senior client success manager Jones for her ability to quickly understand the business and translate it into a working mystery diner programme without lengthy scoping sessions. “That agility mattered enormously, because we were launching a lot of things at once and simply couldn’t afford to be slowed down by process.

“It’s also the case that, working in hospitality as I do, I also judge others on their hospitality. Proinsight passes with flying colours, making this a partnership we’ll continue for a long time to come. It’s easy to work with good people.”