success guides visitor experience

Success Guides

SuccessfulVisitorExperience –Getting it Right

Success Guides

Successful Visitor Experience – Getting it Right

Victoria WallaceLeeds Castle

Front cover picture: Family visitors at Tintinhull Garden,Somerset (National Trust).© National Trust Images/John Millar

So getting the visitor experience right isvital. It will ensure your collections oryour site are better appreciated andunderstood; your museum or heritagesite is properly valued (by funders andby your community); and that morepeople visit, and are willing to pay fortheir experience, encouraged bypositive recommendation both by wordof mouth and from online review sites.Ultimately, a museum collection is a

pointless bunch of objects unlesspeople can see them, appreciate them,and learn from them.

Yet they won’t be able to do thatunless you’ve got the basics right; thevisitors can find you; they know whatyou are offering; and once on site, they feel comfortable, able to accesswhat you have, and are enjoyingthemselves.

3 AIM Success Guides

Successful VisitorExperience – Getting it Right

Much as we love our collections, a museum withoutusers is very unlikely to survive. It is also missing thepoint. Never before have consumers had as much choice,or as much money to spend, on their leisure. In theory atleast, we have far more leisure time and holiday than ourancestors, even if we feel ‘time poor’. Yet there is somuch competition for that time, and for our leisurepound. And standards are being driven ever higher. Notonly do you have to compete for attention before youreceive any visitors, you have to offer them somethingthat they perceive as worth leaving the sofa and TV for.

The public havebecome morediscerning in the waythey consume, and areless afraid to becritical.

Getting ready to tour Leeds Castle,Kent.

Learning to meet visitor expectationsand make their day will also ensureyour team and volunteers are positiveabout the challenges they face; makingpeople happy is something almosteveryone enjoys.

In this guide, I hope to help suggest:

a) How you can find out more aboutwhat your visitors think of you –without that knowledge, you haven’ta chance of getting it right

b) The steps you can take to giveyourself a ‘visitor experiencehealthcheck’.

Know your visitors

The experience of your museum beginswell before visitors even reach you.Unless they are tourists working out ofa guide book, most people will visiteither because they’ve heard aboutyou, or because they’ve looked online.So they already think they knowsomething about you. How much doyou know about your visitors?

We are blessed with an incredibleresource our predecessors did nothave. Fifteen years ago, if you wantedto know what visitors you had, andwhat they thought of you, you had tospend money on customer research. Asa result we imposed our own vision oncustomers, and were left rather in thedark if they didn’t come. Now, with ourability to capture information online, orto look at social media websites, wecan find out a massive amount. You cansee where people come from; whatthey thought of the experience; andhow they like other places. Tripadviser,Google, Twitter and Facebook shouldbe your best friends.

The public have also become morediscerning in the way they consume,and are less afraid to be critical. Theytell you – and others – about theirexperience. That can be scary for themuseum – all those opinions flyingaround, and with no ability to counterthem yourself – but actually, it’s themost amazing tool for you. Your

challenge is first how to engage thevisitors, and then how to channel thefree advice they give you after they’vevisited into improving the experiencefor others. Even if you think onlinereviews are rubbish, this is why youneed to take notice of them:

• 30% of people who read youradvertising material will trust itunquestioningly

• 70% trust online consumer opinion,BUT

• 92% trust personal recommendation(including via social media).

So you first want to get your staff,volunteers, friends and visitors talkingabout you, spreading the positivemessages. Then you want to try toinfluence – but emphatically not fake –online opinion, in order to get itlooking positive.

Think about how you respond tofeedback online. If you get negativefeedback, it’s easy to be reallydefensive. There’s also a real risk ofgetting into an online slanging match,or of being seen as insincere in anyapology. You want to try and show youare concerned, but not to get intoprotracted explanation online. There’sa real danger of breathing more oxygeninto the fire – if something is toxic, youwant to cut it off. We’ve found that by

Services Successful Visitor Experience – Getting it Right 4

The personal touch on arrival atLeeds Castle, Kent.

responding to negative social media bysaying something like: “We’re reallysorry to hear this – get in touch directand we’d really like to help sort thisout” it gets it out of the public eye, andcalms things down. And you may learnsomething by talking direct.

You can also be proactive. Make sureyou find ways of capturing contactdetails. This may be through feedbackforms; Gift Aid forms; competitions inwhich people have to give their e-mailaddresses. Then ask if you can stay in touch. A lot of people won’t opt out if they have had a half-decentexperience, and you promise not to share your data with others.Encouraging visitors to find you onFacebook, or to ‘check in’ and tweetabout their experience also gives you anew way of reaching them after theirvisit. It doesn’t need to be a major,expensive database – but simply amailing list you can grow.

If an issue arises in customer feedbackthat you’re uncertain of – you think it’sa one-off, subjective opinion, but youaren’t sure – you need to test it out withothers. You could use a focus group. Oryou could ask your visitors. Use yourdatabase – however small – and sendout a simple survey, which you canmake for free using Survey Monkey.

Don’t worry too much about thescience. It’s very easy to over-analyse,and to fret about whether you areasking the right questions. Marketresearchers will blind you with science,but that can often paralyse you. Askopen questions, or offer options, andyou will soon see a trend.

First things first – do you dowhat you say on the tin?

The first thing every attraction/museum/shop/public place has to do is to tell its users/customers/visitors


Impressive front entrance, whichshows exactly what you have cometo see, at the Heritage Motor Centre,Gaydon.

what it is. That way you attract theright customers, and they know whatto expect. And you can then meetthose expectations.

It starts with the name. There are somebrilliant examples of how names helppeople understand the attraction.

So, if you are a museum saddled withthe name of a little known Victorianexplorer, or a steam museum that getsfed up with being asked where thetrains are, is it worth thinking abouthow you can tweak your name, or adda strapline, to give people a better ideaof what – and where – you are?

If you can’t change the name, thinkabout your branding and imagery,whether on your website or on yourdoorstep. The fabulous Lyme RegisMuseum has lots more to offer thanjust fossils, but being on the site of theshop which Mary Anning established,they’ve got some pretty amazingspecimens. It was very clever to makethe paving outside the museum appearto be made of ammonites. Immediatelythe visitors know what they are likely

to find, before they head inside. TheRoald Dahl Museum’s website greetsvisitors with: “Welcome to our greatlittle award-winning and family friendlymuseum.” Brilliant. You know exactlywhat you are getting.

First impressions count

Okay, so you’ve got the customerscoming to you; they’ve found you, theylike the sound of you. You now have tomake them like the experience.

I recently visited a hugely expensivenew-build museum – part of aregeneration scheme – and wascompletely baffled. The outside told agreat story, with fantastic branding,really big exhibits. But inside was adifferent story. The visitor’s firstimpression was that they had walkedinto a conference centre – perhaps Iwas going to spend the day learninghow to sell cars, or maximise myrevenue, or book a Christmas event.But actually I was looking for someexhibits. I found a slot machine (not


Case Study – A Wizard Name?

The Warner Brothers much-awaited Harry Potter studio experience openedin Leavesden early last year. Early on, the management realised theyneeded to be really clear what they were offering, particularly as theywould be opening after the Orlando ‘Wizarding World of Harry Potter’theme park. Their experience was – to all intents and purposes – a museum;showing the artefacts, props and sets developed to make the film, andexplaining the many technical marvels which brought the world of Hogwartsto life. It isn’t massively interactive, but it is fascinating, as the visitor seesiconic objects, and can gain an insight into the detail involved in achievingauthenticity. But the key outcome of a visit is an understanding of exactlyhow the films were made. Eventually the team decided that the title shouldbe ‘Warner Bros Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter.’ It isn’tcatchy, but it does exactly what it says on the tin. And the place delightsaudiences, with exemplary feedback on Tripadviser, as audiences get exactlywhat they were told they will get. Imagine the difference if they had gonefor a more whimsical name, like ‘The Magic of Harry Potter’.

There are somebrilliant examples ofhow names helppeople understand theattraction.

working) which offered a video game. I found the shop. I eventually found adesk with a person sitting at it, whoonce prompted, offered a gallery guide.I found the lifts, the café, a picnic areaand the education centre – all before Isaw a single object.

They’d got a lot right – the place wasclean, it looked inviting from outside, itwas well signposted – but I was feelingpretty disgruntled by this point.

Key lessons for first impressions:

• Make sure people can find the thingsthey have come to see, easily

• Keep ancillary activities ancillary.Never make the visitor feel like asecond class citizen

• Make sure advertising etc is for yourmuseum, not for other things

• Get the welcome right.

People power!

Use your greatest resource – theenthusiasm of your staff andvolunteers for their subject, and fortheir museum. As Bernard Donohue,the dynamic Director of the Associationof Leading Visitor Attractions, recentlysaid, increasingly what makes thedifference to the visitor experience is“staff, not stuff”. If the welcome isn’twarm, your visitors will feel likeoutsiders, not guests.

The Disney way of thinking is worthconsidering here, even if your museumcouldn’t be further from the MagicKingdom in its subject matter. But theDisney core belief is that a happy team(or cast) member makes a happy guest,which delivers the whole vision. If yourvolunteers out front are enthusiastic


Visitors enjoying the custodian’sinformative explanation at Mendips,the childhood home of John Lennon,Woolton, Liverpool (National Trust).© National Trust Images/Amhel de Serra

and passionate, they will communicatethat to the visitor. If they are feelinghard done by, neglected, unwantedand pressurised, guess what? They’llcommunicate that too. A little TLC goesa long way.

Back to that big, new museum. It wasfree to the public, so there was noticketing process to engage with. So noobvious focal point for me to find – orto welcome me. The person I foundsitting at the desk was chatting to acolleague. She didn’t make eye contact.She didn’t greet me. I had to ask forwhat I wanted. She proffered noinformation. She didn’t give a toss.

That just isn’t good enough. I want theexperience I got at Science Oxford. Ayoung lad in a T- shirt bounced up tomy family. “Hi” he said. “Would thekids like to join our bubble workshop?Mum – you pay over there, then have acup of coffee – girls – go that way, bangthat drum, try out that magnet, thenthe workshop is in five minutes.”

We were all immediately swept up –welcomed, our needs met, ourafternoon sorted.

The staff costs for the two museumswere identical. The outcome for me as

a customer could not have been moredifferent.

We know the most important peopleour visitors will meet in the course ofthe day are our ticketing staff – as theyset the tone for the whole experience.Whilst it helps if your front of houseteam or volunteers are naturally sunny,happy people, do not forget that youcan teach warmth.


Elegant signage at ChatsworthHouse, Derbyshire.

Case Study – Customer Focus

Titanic Belfast opened last year and has been a resounding success. Theirstaff recruitment was exemplary, despite a not very promisingenvironment. They invited ‘cast members’ to audition. From the outset,they understood their role was to engage, entertain and welcome theiraudience – to be centre stage. They trained the team, before opening tothe public, using the World Host scheme used to train volunteers at theOlympics. The day before they opened, one 19-year-old lad participated inthe video they made, which they now use to recruit additional teammembers. He said with absolute passion and sincerity: “I’m just gagging towelcome a visitor.” It was enthusiasm you wanted to bottle. They use thefilm to inspire new cast members and to show to their funders, who cansee the pride and self esteem being generated by these new jobs.

Our caterers are frequently praisedbecause of their cheerful, friendlyyoung team. How have they found the20 members of Generation Y who cantalk to customers? Of course, theyhaven’t. They’ve trained them. Theyhave encouraged them to be warm.They’ve taught them to enthuse. Theyhaven’t spent any money. But they’veinvested time, they treat them well;and their enthusiasm for the wholeprocess, and for the castle, now shinesthrough. They greet every customerindividually, they aim to make peoples’day. They try to remember them. Andcritically, it isn’t just the hello – it’s also the ‘When will I see you again’goodbye that is really, really important.It’s an American programme that theyhave followed, but it translatesfantastically well for a young, Britishcrew who are engaging with amassively varied audience. Thefeedback is great – and we have neverhad a complaint that our team are toofriendly.

Not every institution has the means to put their whole team through acommissioned training programme –though it’s not impossibly expensive.You can train an in-house trainer andbuy all the material for the World Hostprogramme for under £4,000 whichmakes it a pretty low cost if you’ve got200 staff to engage. It’ll probably payback far more quickly than a newdisplay case. But for smallerorganisations, it’s worth thinkingwhether just one customer servicechampion could be trained, and thenasked to tell the rest of you about it.Training one person will cost you £95.

Show you mean business

There’s a lot of misunderstandingaround brand identity. Getting a reallycool logo will not in itself help yourorganisation. It only works if itunderlines everything you are about.But the greatest logo on the planet,


A smile at the counter makes all thedifference (The Lightbox, Woking).

printed on A4 and laminated, then leftin the rain and scrumpled up will notcommunicate the wonders of yourmuseum. Nor will anything chipped,dirty, or corrected. If a sign is wrong,take it away. Build the cost of re-doingthe signage into any development orchange project. You’d be amazed howmany organisations are insistent ontheir staff wearing name badges, butwho don’t clean their museum signoutside their front door. Anything withyour name or logo on it has to beimmaculate.

And signage is important for anotherreason. Whilst people do not alwayswant to be channelled in one direction,if they are lost, or can’t find what theyare looking for, or don’t know whatyour opening hours are, it’s afrustration which will impact on theirenjoyment of the experience. Get yoursecret shoppers, focus group or yourteam to walk the visitor route with thesignboards covered up. Ask them tonote as they go what they wanted toknow and when. Check you arecovering those points. You will besurprised. You’ll find signs that arecompletely unnecessary. And you’ll findsome missing. I found out yesterdaythat our public loos have two doors –one which says nothing, which Iassumed to be a store cupboard – andthe other which says ‘NO EXIT’. Hmmm.

And now, for the substance

Visitors to museums and heritage sitesare changing. When traditionalmuseums were conceived, visitorswere content to stand a respectfuldistance behind ropes and viewexhibits behind glass. But people areno longer prepared to do exactly whatthey are told, and experience a placeexactly as you want them to. They needa range of choices. They are moredemanding – they apply the standardsthey experience in movies and on TV,or at massively-funded nationalinstitutions, to everything they see.They have other ways in which theycan find out about things – particularlythe internet. They want to engage indifferent ways. They want experiences,rather than to listen or observe insilence. Generation X wants to pressbuttons. Generation Y needs to know‘why’. So the bottom line is, whateveryou are offering, you have to try andsee it through your customers’ eyes.

This is your bread and butter. You doneed to refresh it. You do need to makesure your customers like it.

You don’t necessarily have to spend afortune. But whatever you do, makesure you are using focus groups to‘road test’ not only your current offer,but new innovations, concepts anddesigns. The cleverest designers and


People are no longerprepared to do exactlywhat they are told,and experience aplace exactly as youwant them to.

Interactives aimed at families – butthey must all be working (TheLightbox, Woking).

curators working with the biggestbudgets can get this wrong; you onlyhave to look at Tripadvisor customerfeedback to see that some really big-ticket projects take a pasting.

There is not space or time here to gointo every element of what you can orshould do with content and display toenhance the visitor experience. Thebest book I’ve read recently on this isGraham Black’s The Engaging Museum– Developing Museums for VisitorInvolvement. But the key is tounderstand your audience, and listento their feedback. Unless you are

aiming at an entirely new audience,chances are, if your existing audiencelikes what you have done when youmake a change, new customers will likeit too. But do think about how you cantailor elements of your activity todifferent demographics. Back at mynemesis museum, I was impressed tosee on the gallery guide that there wasa daily programme of activity on offer.But I was less thrilled when I read it –everything was aimed at a semi-expertlevel, with nothing for older children orthe interested amateur.

Key points:

• Match your offer to your audiences• Give options and layer your

interpretation• Technology breaks down. Be careful

not to make broken kit theoverwhelming impression of yourmuseum. Design in a way thatenables you to remove (or at leastcover) things if they are notoperating

• Don’t assume that money and designwill automatically create a greatresult. Check before you spend thatthis is hitting the right notes with thepeople it is aimed at.


Judiciously-placed seating alwaysgoes down well (The Lightbox,Woking).

Catering needs to feel part of thewhole experience (Leeds Castle,Kent).

Get the creature comforts right

Back in my nightmare visitorexperience, by the time I got to thegalleries, I needed the loos. But then,inevitably, I couldn’t find them.Actually, they were back with thecorporate conferencing, down twoflights of stairs or via the lift.

Your visitors will not enjoy theirexperience, however excellent yourdisplays, if they are too hot or cold; iftheir feet hurt and there is nowhere tosit down occasionally; or if they can’tfind the loo – or if the loos are tiredand messy when they get there. Orthere’s no baby change facility, or high chairs in the café, or room tomanoeuvre with a buggy if there is no buggy park.

This stuff sounds so obvious it isastonishing we get it wrong. But it is sodamaging when people are notcomfortable.

Remember:

• On a wet day you will need to checkyour loos twice as often, and ensurethe floor is cleaned. Get managers tocheck, not just cleaners

• If it is cold outside, and you do notoffer a cloakroom for coats, turn yourheating down so that visitors don’troast. Better you provide your staffwith fleeces than your customerseither have to schlep around a pile ofcoats and scarves, or boil away. It’llalso save you money

• Check that wherever you are in themuseum or the attraction, you canfind some signage to the loos, or tothe way out

• If loos are dismal, hang somepictures in them, or even displaysomething relevant. You would athome, so why not here?

• If you want family audiences, getsome young mums to tell you whatthey need. And have some sparenappies behind the front desk

• If it’s hot, and you have an outdoorattraction, offer shade

• Provide lots of bins so people don’thave to litter. And empty them!

Do it well, or find others to do it foryou.

Retail and catering are difficult, and canmake or break an experience. If indoubt, don’t do it.


A clear tea-room sign at TintinhullGarden, Somerset (National Trust).© National Trust Images/John Millar

At the castle, we are fortunate to havea lot of visitors, all spending a long timeon site – so they need feeding, and liketo go shopping while they are here,whether to buy souvenirs or toassociate themselves with our brand.Or just to buy stuff, or to have a goodmeal, which are (after all) the mostpopular ways of spending leisure time.

This won’t be the case for everymuseum. If you are in a town centre,with lots of places for people to eatand drink, there is no need to providecatering as a public service; a cup oftea can just as easily be foundelsewhere. If the dwell time is under acouple of hours, people also don’tneed to eat.

I was rather stunned recently when thedirector of a local museum told methat his museum shop wasn’t reallythere to make money, and couldn’tpossibly compete with the (hundredsof) local shops – all selling pretty muchthe same stuff. He seemed to feel itwas there because ‘there had alwaysbeen a shop’. You will find it difficult toshift bought-in stock which looks likethe things you can find anywhere onthe high street, or which have yourlogo all over it – unless people feel verypositively about you. So don’t do it justbecause you think you should; use thespace for something you really want.

The point of shops and catering is tomake money for you. If you can getthem to do that, they also provide anopportunity to underline your keymessages. But don’t do it unless itreally does make money. Far better tobuddy up with the local café and pointpeople in that direction, or ask a localbookshop if they’d like you to sell theirstock.

We are extremely good at managingcastles. We know our stonework, ourhistory, and if you need a joustingdisplay, we’re your best bet. Butactually, those skills don’t much help uswork out how many sandwiches wemight need on a bank holiday whenthe weather is looking iffy. Catering is adifficult thing to get right. 50% of allrestaurant businesses fail. For 20 yearswe struggled on, generating plenty ofturnover – so selling lots of things. Butto do so, we had to keep a very highnumber of staff on board. Our cateringdidn’t actually make a profit.

So we found someone else to run it.People competed for it. If you have aviable number of visitors, you willalmost certainly find someone who isprepared to manage the café on yourbehalf, and carry the risk – and pay yousome kind of rent. It might be as simpleas the lady from the bakery down theroad who wants to be her own boss. Or


Case Study – To Thine Own Self Be True

You don’t have to look like a Michelin-starred restaurant to offer a worldclass catering experience. There’s a brilliant example of this in Lambeth,South London, at the tiny Garden Museum. Their restaurant has beennamed the 6th best museum restaurant in the world. Yet it works out of aspace less than 12 square metres; it offers a vegetarian, garden-themedmenu; it has only three staff. But it has absolute authenticity and sense ofplace; it is true to the museum’s values and it generates a ‘pull’ in its ownright. They didn’t set out with massive ambitions, but with clear valuesand a very strong sense of what they were, they’ve become world class.

Retail and catering aredifficult, and can make or break anexperience. If indoubt, don’t do it.

it could be any one of the manycommercial catering companies. Leaveit to the experts, and just gratefullytake the money they bring in (thoughyou’ll still have to police the quality).

Key lessons:

• Do it for the right reasons – profit!• Be true to your mission and values• Make sure it all positively reinforces

what you are doing.

Check your assumptions

You may be absolutely right that yourvisitor experience is excellent. Let meknow, I’d love to visit. But equally,please, test it out. If you can’t affordprofessional secret shoppers, or to joina scheme like VAQAS (Visitor AttractionQuality Assurance Scheme) or VisitScotland’s Quality Assurance Scheme,or in Wales the VAQAS Cymru, make

sure you ask friends and family to walk the customer journey, from carpark or bus stop, right the way throughyour museum. Or ask colleagues fromother AIM members, who will look at it with both professional and personaleyes.

Best yet, ask people who wouldn’tnormally visit you to try it out and letyou know what they think. You mayfind yourself surprised by what theyfind. Recognise that every view –however subjective, negative orpositive – is valid, and think about howyou can tackle issues they raise. Askthem about the concrete stuff (i.e. theloos, the pricing) but also some opinionstuff. Ask them about how it feels to bethere – an ‘ambience audit’. Ask themwhat messages they are picking up.This costs you nothing, yet can be thebest consultancy support you will everhave.


Summary – My Top Ten Tips

• Make sure people can find you, and know where and what you are – andget a good impression of you online before they come

• Provide a warm welcome and build a rapport with your visitors• Invest in training and making your team happy• Meet the expectations you have raised and managed – and make sure

everything works (or can be removed if it breaks down)• Make sure creature comforts are managed – directional signage, loos,

heating, seating• If you offer catering and retail, make sure they make money, and

reinforce your brand and values • Encourage visitors to join you on Facebook, tweet about their visit, and

to write reviews on Tripadviser. Then learn from what they write• Walk the customer journey from kerb to kerb, and challenge everything

you see asking ‘Is this the best we can be?’• Use professionals, or create a focus group or engage secret shoppers to

test out the experience and give you an independent review• Money is not the only investment you need. Don’t let a shortage of funds

be an excuse for not making the most of what you have. It’s more aboutattitude and action than about how much you spend.

Further support

Useful tips on marketing heritage –http://www.english–heritage.org.uk/publications/conservation-bulletin-64/cb-64-pp1-9.pdf

General information, particularly onretail –http://www.acenterprises.org.uk/

For a good online presence – http://www.roalddahlmuseum.org/

More on the visitor experience –www.alva.org.uk

For staff training – http://www.worldhost.uk.com/programmes

Free survey resources – www.surveymonkey.com

For visitor attraction quality assuranceschemes, in England –www.visitengland.org/busdev/accreditation/attractions/

or in Wales –http://wales.gov.uk/topics/cultureandsport/museumsarchiveslibraries/cymal/museums/vaqasformuseums/?lang=en

or in Scotland –http://www.visitscotland.org/pdf/J10-0274%20VS%20Criteria%20Visitor%20Attraction.pdf


Victoria Wallace has been ChiefExecutive of Leeds Castle inKent since 2004, after a careerin the diplomatic service. Thecastle welcomes over 550,000visitors each year, with 40%repeat visits. The charity has nopermanent endowment anddepends entirely on generatedincome to maintain andpreserve the castle.

A costumed interpreter enhancesvisitors’ experiences at theCoalbrookdale Festival, IronbridgeGorge for the London 2012 OpenWeekend.


AIM Association of Independent Museums3 Chestnut Grove, Ludlow, Shropshire SY8 1TJRegistered in England No. 1350939 | Charity No. 1082215

Copyright © 2013 Victoria Wallace and Association of Independent MuseumsAIM Editor – Diana Zeuner

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