1. Visitor Enjoyment
Alex Auden
Operations Manager – Chedworth Roman Villa

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

3. Why the big
focus on VE?

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?

8. Measuring VE

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?

12. Questions