Lonergan has successfully completed two acquisitions, further strengthening its mystery shopping and qualitative recruitment offering. 

Melbourne based Prime Auto Mystery Shopping and full-service qualitative recruitment agency Ava Research have both joined the Lonergan Group of Companies, boosting mystery shopper numbers to 40,000 nationally, and supersizing the organisations’ qualitative database to over 70,000 respondents. 

The Ava Research acquisition is set to shake up the recruitment industry. “We know how important it is to researchers to have participants turn up on time, on spec, every time. The processes we use at Lonergan are built from decades of experience, coupled with the size of our database we are now the pre-eminent qualitative recruitment supplier in Australia, offering a professionalism and ability to deliver which has been lacking in the qualitative recruitment industry.” Chris Lonergan, CEO and Founder of Lonergan said.

Lonergan have been operating Mystery Customer for a decade. “For years we have been able to deliver projects across Australia and New Zealand that no other Mystery Shopping company found feasible – including coverage across regional and remote parts of Australia. The acquisition of Prime has further boosted our shopper numbers and provided a wealth of new skills in the automotive and regulatory compliance sectors.”

Prime Auto Mystery Shopping, established in Australia in 2003 and recently extended into the New Zealand market, is the regions flagship automotive mystery shopping company, with clients across automotive manufacturers and importers, dealer groups and individual dealers.

The Lonergan Group of Companies also includes:

• Mystery Customer: Mystery shopping experts, focused on the food and beverage, retail, travel, hospitality, local government, and telecommunication industries. Mystery Customer also delivers complex price check, quality control and service compliance audits. Operating since 2001.
• Lonergan Crowd: High quality recruitment services for the government and research industry. Operating since 2012, now incorporating Ava Research (operating since 2015). Professional group room available in Sydney
• Lonergan Fieldwork Services: CATI facilities and face to face interviewing nationally, including an indigenous fieldwork team. Operating since 2012.
• Lonergan Research: Independent strategic research consultancy encompassing qualitative and quantitative research, big data/data science, data journalism and complex research projects.  Operating since 2009