In my first two blogs, I wrote about our recent work with surveys and visitor tracking. In this column, we’ll take a look at what the data had to say about customer satisfaction.
In our first quick exit survey, we simply asked for an overall judgment from our visitors about their experience that day. We gave them a scale running from outstanding to dissatisfied and asked them to select one of the 5 gradations on the scale. Pretty shallow, but it provided a snapshot. The AASLH survey, however, asks many questions from a variety of angles to get at visitor satisfaction, value of the visit, quality of education and entertainment, the difference the visit made. We received valuable feedback, and much of it is also useful for marketing purposes and for donor/grant appeals. In 2009-10, we re-asked some of the AASLH questions on an on-line survey. Here’s some of what we learned from visitors to the National Museum of the Marine Corps:
When is came to overall satisfaction with their visit, 76% reported that the Museum was outstanding; 22% excellent; and less than 1% reported satisfactory, marginal, or unsatisfactory each. This rating is supported by the AASLH data; of a possible high score of 10, those surveyed gave the Museum a 9.5 as an overall rating.
When it came to visitor satisfaction with staff and volunteers, 71% reported it to be outstanding; 21% excellent; 5% satisfactory; less than 1% marked marginal and unsatisfactory each; 2% had no opinion. This rating is supported by the AASLH data; of a possible high score of 10, those surveyed gave the Museum’s staff and volunteers a 9.3 rating.
When asked if they would return for another visit, 81% indicated that it was very likely that they would do so; 15% said it was somewhat likely; while 4% said no. This rating is supported by the AASLH data; of a possible high score of 10, those surveyed gave the Museum a 9.3 rating for a return visit.
When asked if they would recommend the Museum to others, a very high 98% said that it was very likely that they would do just that! This rating is supported by the AASLH data; of a possible high score of 10, those surveyed gave the Museum a 9.6 rating when it came to making a recommendation to others.
Other AASLH data points of interest include a rating of 9.4 out of 10 for its unique learning environment and a 9.3 for the positive impact it had on visitors. We also learned that our “brand name” wasn’t very familiar yet; that people had difficulty once inside the Museum navigating from one gallery to the next and within the galleries; and most people heard about us by word of mouth (so is all that expensive advertising, rack card distribution, and other marketing efforts worth it?).
The on-line survey was by invitation as explained in an earlier blog, and we were not consistent in how we passed out our keepsake postcard invitations to Museum visitors. Our first game plan was for docents to hand out the card to every 5th visitor every day during mid-day hours until 250 cards had been passed out. Because of the variations in docent schedules and assignments, there is a revolving door of docents, students, and Marines at the information desk. It proved impossible to stick to our plan. For two early months, we under-executed our invitation give-aways. And then we ran out of cards because we weren’t paying attention to our stock, resulting in another few weeks in which we had little data. We spent most of the year-long cycle, passing out our daily allotment along with the Museum brochure as folks entered. And sometimes, over-zealous information desk staff passed cards out all day long, not just to the first 250. Thus, the exercise was not as scientific as we had planned.
And I was disappointed in the small number who responded on their computers once they got home, although our statically minded colleagues tell us that capturing feedback from even 2-3% of our visitors is “statistically relevant.” We did much better than that, but I was hoping for a 10% rate, not the 5 to 8 that we got.
The survey is still active on our site; we’re letting folks who find it on our home page take it, so that we continue to get a trickle of feedback around the clock. Survey Monkey is not expensive; the reported data is usefully presented; it leaves the heavy lifting to others (but we did have staffing support from the institutional assessment team at Marine Corps University, and it would have been much more labor intensive without them). You also have to know how to write the questions and portray the answers, so you get the data you’re looking for. I think this automated tool has much promise. Next time, I want to use terminals in our Museum itself for the survey, along with trained staff and volunteers who will direct traffic to the stations. But I think we’re asking the right questions. Take a look for yourself on www.usmcmuseum.org and tell me what you think.
And our visitors are not shy. I bet yours on just as vocal. On both the AASLH survey and the on-line instrument, we left opportunities for folks to give us their comments. And comment they did! And while the stats are valuable, the staff made greater use of these comments. We have gone over them periodically, spotting trends and repeat suggestions. Senior staff members are taking the lead on being responsive to these comments. We’ve tried new approaches to signage and way-finding based on the surveys; we’ve added benches; we have altered some of our information desk procedures to be more helpful to guests with special needs; and we have a growing list of suggestions for new exhibition topics (in spades!!). We definitely want to keep those comments coming (in addition to the comments cards available at the desk).
What have you done in the way of on-line or in-house computer-based surveys? What was the most useful suggestion you ever received? What was your worst mistake, one that we might learn from and avoid ourselves? I’ll let you know more as we continue at the Marine Corps Museum to get to know our visitors better. We are in the education business. But we are also in the business of providing customer service, and we’ll keep on trying to get better and better at both.
—Lin Ezell, Director, NMMC, and VAM Council Member.
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