Museums and Galleries
Kenneth Clark once remarked the he rarely saw the famous
paintings in his house because they had become familiar. Having
become familiar the paintings had become invisible. The same can
be said of museum stores, food services, galleries and other facets of
the art industry. Those who live close to the services often can't
see them. Museum and gallery visitors see everything, because they
are seeing with a fresh perspective. Some museum service or space
that has been good enough and become invisible for years, may look tired
and run down to a visitor fresh from seeing other museums and galleries.
Sometimes, it takes the piercing scrutiny of a consultant to uncover
invisible problems and provide solutions.
Because of the excellent work of museum directors around
the world, visitor expectations are constantly rising. Visitors
expect to see a well designed and presented exhibition, but there are
less obvious factors that determine the visitor's total satisfaction.
For example, I visited a famous NYC museum during a chilly December.
The museum coat room was overwhelmed by the number of visitors with
coats, shopping bags, and backpacks. The wait at the coat room was
half an hour each for dropping off and picking up coats.
Each visitor's time at the museum was finite. Most
of the visitors were at the museum to see one of several
585-670-9707exhibits. The priority of the visitor was to see their
exhibit. Other options such as visiting the museum store or the
restaurant were secondary. Knowing that an hour of their finite
time was going to be spent at the coat room, most visitors probably
skipped the museum store and restaurant. The boring experience of
standing on line for an hour also diminished the totality of their
experience. The amount of revenue lost to the museum store and
restaurant was likely more significant than ever showed up on museum
director's spread sheet or business plan. The tired museum
visitors standing on line at the end of their museum visit will likely
remember the experience when they are approached for donations during
museum fund raising campaigns and even then more revenue will be lost.
The problem was probably never recognized by the museum staff because
the coat room line is always long during cold weather and longer still
during special exhibits. The problem was invisible through
familiarity.
This example is one of hundreds of factors that
determine the overall satisfaction of museum and gallery visitors.
Some factors such as poorly appointed and serviced restrooms may
strongly influence visitors, but never show up in customer satisfaction
surveys or customer comment cards. Museum Web sites are
notoriously bad at meeting customer expectations. They are usually
too small, provide inadequate depth of information, and are infrequently
updated. Unfortunately, for many museums and galleries, the first
contact that a tourist may have with them is through their Web site.
If the museum misses that initial opportunity to market its self, it may
lose visitors. Many tourists are planning their entire trips using
the Web and how museums and galleries present themselves will strongly
influence whether they are visited or not. The role of the
consultant is find problems, but more importantly to offer solutions
that provide measurable return on investment and demonstrable customer
satisfaction.
If you would like to have your museum or gallery
evaluated, please call Max Lent at 585-670-9707 or send an email to
Max Lent. If you are a
museum professional, please read my article on the
Museum Store
Association member Web site in April 2002.
Services
-
Visitor experience analysis
-
Marketing
-
Web analysis and development
-
Public relations
-
Experience analysis
-
Customer relationship management
-
Aesthetics
-
Planning
-
Project development
-
Articles
|
