THE PHILOSOPHY

We're often asked "Why offer ATHENA when SASSIE is so successful ?"

We began developing SASSIE in 1999 because we saw that the mystery shopping industry was rapidly outgrowing its makeshift technologies and needed a truly professional web system built specifically for mystery shopping.

It became obvious to us that smaller, more aggressive mystery shop providers could soon compete with the giants if they had software that could handle larger volumes, but could still be easily run with smaller staffs. SASSIE filled that anticipated need and now dominates the commercial market for mystery shopping software.

Not content to rest on our laurels, we recently hired a Boston consulting firm to forecast the next few years in our industry. The conclusions was clear :

• The mystery shopping industry has not reached full maturity and will be in a rapid state of flux over the next 5 years.
• There are currently more mystery shop providers than the market can support
• There will be a large amount of consolidation, as the strong, efficient, aggressive providers begin to eliminate or buy out the weaker, less efficient providers.
• One of the dominant deciding factors for a provider's survival: the use of technology to efficiently process large shop volumes and maximize profit margins (especially if a price war emerges).
• Another dominant factor: the provider's ability to deliver creative and flexible technologies to meet the more specific demands of the most desirable clients.

To prepare ourselves (and our customers) for the future of mystery shopping, we designed ATHENA, the world's first service for building customized mystery shopping systems. ATHENA essentially picks up where SASSIE leaves off, taking successful, profitable mystery shopping companies and giving them the tools to compete for the long term:

• ATHENA grows and evolves with your company -you'll never have to switch systems to remain competitive.
• ATHENA gives your staff the freedom to conceive and deliver creative solutions for your customer's demands - your services will be unique and you'll be able to charge a premium for them.
• ATHENA's pricing options are geared towards high-volume accounts - unlike SASSIE™, you can opt to pay a flat fee (NO per-shop fees) - your rates for high-volume clients can now compete with anyone's rates.
• ATHENA's code base can be purchased outright at any time, if your company reaches the stage where it can compete more effectively with modifications programmed in-house - an option not available to SASSIE subscribers.

Once again, we at SurfMerchants are looking ahead to give our customers the tools they need to succeed today AND tomorrow.