What If You Evaluated EVERY Part Of Your Museum Every Day?

What if you evaluated EVERY part of your museum every day?  That was the question I asked myself after reading this NewYorker magazine article about the Finnish company HappyOrNot.

These "frictionless" 4-button terminals let people leave feedback without even breaking stride. And HappyOrNot's terminals have already been installed in more than a hundred countries and have registered more than six hundred million responses --- in airports, gas stations, shoe stores, you name it.

While this happy/sad button approach seems incredibly simple (if not downright simplistic) the article is filled with direct business changes and improvements that were made due to the data generated by the HappyOrNot terminals.

And again it makes me wonder what would happen to a museum if you scattered these 4-button wonders throughout your exhibit galleries and near your gift shop, your bathrooms, your cafe?
And if not HappyOrNot terminals how can cultural institutions generate more real-time visitor feedback to improve visitor satisfaction?

Does this seem like an interesting idea or a hare-brained pipe dream?  Are there any museums currently using HappyOrNot terminals.? Give us YOUR feedback in the Comments Section below!



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Which Stupid System Haven't You Changed Yet?

Not every system is a good system.  We set up procedures to more easily deal with recurring maintenance problems or customer service challenges or billing situations so that we can address things in fair and efficient ways, and then move on without another thought.

And then something like the horrible situation on United Airlines happens where, instead of employees thinking more carefully about a procedure or policy that has gone awry, they just blindly follow along until a paying customer gets dragged off an airplane, bloody and battered.

I was thinking about this just the other day when I dropped off an envelope at a local FedEx location on Long Island where I live. Inside was a visa application and my son's passport, so I was a little concerned, but the visa service company I was working with had provided a FedEx label for me to print out that was addressed to their offices in New York City.

Just a quick geography check here --- the FedEx store I dropped the envelope off at is located in Lynbrook, NY about an hour away by car or train from mid-town Manhattan (as you can see, on the map below.)

So you would think that a FedEx truck would pick up the envelope on Long Island, drop it off at a depot somewhere in Manhattan, and it would be delivered the next day, right?

Well, you might think that, but FedEx has a system that says when a package is marked "Express" it needs to first go to a regional FedEx location before it gets delivered. So instead of merely being driven from Long Island into Manhattan, my son's visa application merrily traveled from Long Island to Newark, New Jersey to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania to Memphis, Tennessee before being pointed toward an office building in the middle of Manhattan.  (Spoiler alert! The package did not get delivered the next day, but I did get to make the cool Google map at the top of this post showing its progress. )

In a modern world filled with algorithms, you would think something or someone in the FedEx system would have flagged this waste of time (and airplane fuel!)

While it's easy to shake our heads at the goof-ups of big companies like FedEx or United, what outdated or downright crazy systems are lurking inside our own smaller businesses?  And how can we get rid of (or change) those systems before we upset another customer, stakeholder, or loyal employee?


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Customer Service 101 from the Disney Institute

What does customer service have to do with exhibitions?

Everything!  

Even if your museum has the world's greatest exhibits, if visitors' interactions with staff are lacking, you will create unhappy and dissatisfied customers.  Here are some comments from a colleague's less than stellar experience from a recent family visit: "I was actually quite underwhelmed by the new museum. A lot of broken stuff: broken keyboards in Maker Space. Piece #9 missing in catenary arch. Floor staff talking to each other, looking at phones. Hey folks, hate to bother you but got a spare #9 in the back?"

OUCH!  My friend and her family couldn't use an exhibit because a piece had gone astray, and she felt like the floor staff didn't even care.  Interacting with museum visitors is a tough job that requires dedication and training to do well.  But many, if not most, museums don't have the staff or resources to provide high-level, consistent training in interacting with museum guests.

Fortunately, I've found that the Disney Institute (the part of Disney's empire that offers professional, business, and customer service training) provides a wealth of free online information with great tips about providing exceptional and memorable customer interactions.

A recent article from the Disney Institute mentions a number of their foundational principles regarding customer service, but one of my favorites that can be applied to museum (and exhibit design!) work is "purpose trumps task."

Disney helps their employees recognize that it is ok to be "off-task" if you are "on-purpose."  If you and your employees can anticipate the needs of your customers, you can far exceed their expectations.

A recent example from my own exhibit design work involved making an interactive for a small museum that seemed really anxious about the maintenance needs for a digital tablet component. During our conversations, I offered a low-tech alternative that both the museum client and project designer liked better, and that was less expensive on the front-end to produce, and less expensive on the back-end due to minimized maintenance and replacement costs.  I purposely listened to the museum client's needs and offered a collaborative suggestion that recognized their concerns, instead of merely completing a task that everyone had initially agreed to before I was brought into the job.

(Another fun example of being on-purpose is the story of "Captain Pizza" an airline pilot who ordered pizza for an entire plane delayed on the tarmac.)

There are many other actionable Disney Institute gems like "Listen Beyond the Obvious" and "Why Satisfaction is Dangerous" that can easily carry over to museum/exhibit/design work.

So click on over to the Disney Institute website to find some customer service tips that you and your staff can put into action.



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.  And if you want to create amazing exhibit experiences that lead to increased customer satisfaction at your museum contact Paul Orselli and POW! today.

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