Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museum Professionals

by Colleen Higginbotham Colleen Higginbotham

Overview

If a museum is trying to improve visitor satisfaction, grow and diversify their audience, or engage with their community, they must focus on the experience visitors have inside the museum. Unfortunately, some people don’t visit museums because they have had a previous negative experience, or they simply don’t feel museums are for people like them. Not only do we need to win back those who we haven’t welcomed properly in the past, we need to be sure we don’t turn off any more potential visitors.

Once you’ve decided to prioritize the visitor experience, you may discover that you don’t have the tools you need to truly implement change for your visitors. An Executive Director may support the concept but doesn’t have the time or specific expertise to implement a new program. A Visitor Services Manager may have been promoted from the front line and has great customer service and coaching skills but doesn’t have experience crafting institutional change.

Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museum Professionals can help these museum professionals design a program that is specific to their institution. Its Table of Contents shows how the book offers a step-by-step guide to doing just that:

Chapter 1: Focus on the Visitor Experience

Chapter 2: Understanding Museum Visitors and the Impact of the Visitor Experience

Chapter 3: Learning About Your Visitors

Chapter 4: Visitor Mapping: Charting Visitor Routes Through Your Institution

Chapter 5: Start with the Basics: Making the Museum Itself Welcoming

Chapter 6: Articulating What Service Means to You

Chapter 7: Determining the Structure of Your Front-Line Team

Chapter 8: Merging Security and Service

Chapter 9: Hiring Your Dream Team

Chapter 10: Training to Develop a Dynamic Service Team

Chapter 11: Building Strong Morale and a Professional Front-Line Team

Chapter 12: Developing a Culture of Service Throughout the Museum

Use this authoritative, practical guide from the American Alliance of Museums to help your museum create great visitor experiences.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538150221
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/15/2022
Series:	American Alliance of Museums
Pages:	140
Product dimensions:	7.17(w) x 9.99(h) x 0.34(d)

About the Author

Colleen Higginbotham is the Deputy Director for Visitor Experience at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, VA. She has over 25 years of customer service management experience and is passionate about creating individual experiences and matching the right service to the right visitor.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Dr. Erik Neil, Director of the Chrysler Museum of Art

Chapter 1: Focus on the Visitor Experience

Chapter 2: Understanding Museum Visitors and the Impact of the Visitor Experience

Chapter 3: Learning About Your Visitors

Chapter 4: Visitor Mapping: Charting Visitor Routes Through Your Institution

Chapter 5: Start with the Basics: Making the Museum Itself Welcoming

Chapter 6: Articulating What Service Means to You

Chapter 7: Determining the Structure of Your Front-Line Team

Chapter 8: Merging Security and Service

Chapter 9: Hiring Your Dream Team

Chapter 10: Training to Develop a Dynamic Service Team

Chapter 11: Building Strong Morale and a Professional Front-Line Team

Chapter 12: Developing a Culture of Service Throughout the Museum

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Colleen Higginbotham translates her years of experience and insights from the front lines into a blueprint for organizations looking to debunk that myth that museums can't be secure and welcoming at the same time. Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museum Professionals is a must-have volume for museums of every size and content area.

Incorporating the critical feedback of recent years as it pertains to the museum-going experience, this concise, practical guide offers step-by-step guidance for museum professionals tasked with designing and executing visitor services programs. Higginbotham draws on her 25 years of on-the-ground museum experience to explain the process of devising and deploying a visitor experience program that meets the individualized needs of an institution and its unique guest base. An excellent tool for the field, this volume is a necessary resource for libraries supporting museum studies and aligned programs. Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty, professionals.

The importance of seating, maps, and other visitor amenities! This book will quickly become an essential read for those new to visitor experience roles and fills a void in published materials of what is arguably one of the most important departments in museums. It's an informative blend of theoretical information and the tools or experiences museums need to make the visitor experience and staff experience thrive at their institutions.

This useful and practical guide for front-line museum professionals offers a framework for ensuring stronger museum experiences by illuminating the important touchpoints and opportunities for meaningful connections between visitors and staff.

From the Publisher

Colleen Higginbotham translates her years of experience and insights from the front lines into a blueprint for organizations looking to debunk that myth that museums can’t be secure and welcoming at the same time. Creating Great Visitor Experiences: A Guide for Museum Professionals is a must-have volume for museums of every size and content area.

Anne Corso

The importance of seating, maps, and other visitor amenities! This book will quickly become an essential read for those new to visitor experience roles and fills a void in published materials of what is arguably one of the most important departments in museums. It’s an informative blend of theoretical information and the tools or experiences museums need to make the visitor experience and staff experience thrive at their institutions.

Nicole Krom

This  useful and practical guide for front-line museum professionals offers a framework for ensuring  stronger museum experiences by illuminating the important touchpoints and opportunities for meaningful connections between visitors and staff.

Antoniette M. Guglielmo

Incorporating the critical feedback of recent years as it pertains to the museum-going experience, this concise, practical guide offers step-by-step guidance for museum professionals tasked with designing and executing visitor services programs. Higginbotham draws on her 25 years of on-the-ground museum experience to explain the process of devising and deploying a visitor experience program that meets the individualized needs of an institution and its unique guest base. An excellent tool for the field, this volume is a necessary resource for libraries supporting museum studies and aligned programs. Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty, professionals.

Choice Reviews