2. Agenda
• What is VE and why is it so important?
• The VE journey at Chedworth Roman Villa
• Measuring VE
• Refining VE at Chedworth Roman Villa
• VE resources
4. The happy visitor
I
Chedworth
Catering and
retail spend
Love of place
Signing up for
membership
Free marketing –
social media
Potential volunteer
Repeat visitor
££ Support for our work ££
Curiosity sparked
Bringing friends,
family, school
Emotional
connection, local
ownership
Secondary
spend
5. Visitor Enjoyment – the KPI
• The number one priority for the Trust
• What does VE stand for?
• How visitors rate the overall quality of their experience
• Measured at 210 properties each year through visitor survey
(paper and online)
• ‘How would you rate the time you’ve spent here today?’
• 5 point scale: ‘disappointing’ to ‘very enjoyable’
• Trust KPI = % ‘very enjoyable’ visitor surveys returned
• 2012 target: 75%
• 2012 actual: 62%
• 2013 target: 65% nationally (regional/ property variations)
• Why not measure % enjoyable + very enjoyable combined?
6. From 32% to 64% VE
• 2011 – a challenging year for Chedworth Roman Villa…
• 2012 – £3million later, fantastic new facilities!
• A strong coherent story: from audio guides to site guides
• Focus on service: Service Leadership pilot property
• Mystery shopper in-depth visitor experience assessment (£650)
• Daily huddle introduced
• Operations: Duty Manager checklist and walk around
– Presentation and facilities: getting the basics right
– Chatting with visitors and volunteers
• Cross training: a flexible staff team
• Shouting about our work with schools
• Staff and volunteer journey (recruitment, induction, training)
• Constant improvement, monthly analysis and action planning
7. More than a score…
how else can you find
out if your visitors are
enjoying themselves?
9. Measuring VE
• The visitor survey and MI dashboard
• School feedback forms
• Comment cards
• Trip Advisor
• Facebook and Twitter comments
• Repeat visit rate
• Listen to visitors!
• Don’t forget – it’s more than a score!
10. Refining VE at Chedworth
• Visitors supporters advocates
• Culture of feedback: confidence in giving it and asking for it
• Focus on our main segments
• Whole site programming: linking events with catering and retail,
and national events
• Touch point mapping
• VE KPIs woven in to all staff objectives, and shared by all
• Service training for all new starters
• Growing flexibility amongst volunteer team
• All HoDs report monthly and action plan for VE
• More costumed interpretation
• Engaging visitors in our conservation and archaeology
11. VE resources
• Not a one-man job: everyone’s responsible!
• Regional VE consultants
• VSM/ property manager for MI dashboard
• VE pages on the intranet
• VE wiki forum
• Visit high performing properties: what are
they doing that you could do?
Internship networking day – Heelis (event being held in three big downstairs meeting rooms – Avebury, Workhouse and Powis) Ideally join for lunch at 12.30, 1.15 start, 2.00 finish (inc. Q&A)
Ask interns – obvious benefit to the visitors in having an enjoyable time, but what are the benefits to the property and the Trust?
Why are we doing this? Why the focus on telling the story of Chedworth, bringing it to life, and trying to create advocates? Core aim of the National Trust: “growing the nations love of special places” – starts with telling the story of our places and with creating a very enjoyable experience of their visit (from who they meet, what they learn and experience, how they are treated) If people have a positive experience they are more likely to: Sign up for membership of the NT Spend in the shop and café Spend elsewhere (second hand books, raffle tickets, activities, tips for tours etc.) Spread the word – free marketing (esp. social media/ Mumsnet etc. – VERY powerful) Potentially volunteer with us Come back for more, and ideally bring their friends, family, school (if a teacher) or recommend us to others All of this adds up to more monetary support for the work that we do.
All about hooking people in – finding people’s individual motivations for delivering great VE: Receiving great feedback Being part of team Competition against other sites Individual interactions with visitors Self promotion
Easy to focus on the score (and relatively easy to manipulate the score with targeted questionnaire distribution) but really what we want is for all visitors to have a genuinely enjoyable time, not just for us to have a score which says this. So, looking beyond the KPI, what other means could we use to assess visitor enjoyment?
Seek feedback, welcome unsolicited feedback, see all feedback as positive, RESPOND TO FEEDBACK!
Feedback culture is key – seen must be seen as positive, whether motivational or developmental
VE – everyone’s responsible. But there are specific places/ people who can help.