The art is not enough

Your organization thrives on presenting exiting art. But is that enough? Ironically, by focusing all energies on the art on stage or on the walls and by neglecting all other aspects of customer service, many arts organizations make the artistic experience feel like work. One can witness many cases of 'audience abuse': disturbing arrogance of the staff toward the customer, inflexibility of ticket exchange policies, unannounced seasons, last minute changes in schedules, ticket issuing mistakes...

It is all the more regrettable that those aspects are controllable (one can hire (or find volunteers) and train customer friendly staff, make sure that queries are answered promptly, etc.), whereas the reaction of the audience to a new play or exhibition is not.

Poor customer service can ruin the overall experience of your customers, decrease their satisfaction and ultimately tarnish your company's brand image. Good customer service can set a company apart from the competition and enhance customer loyalty. It will translate directly to your bottom line.

11 Tips to enhance customer experience:

1. Don’t turn your back on your audience: your mission is not just to create great art, but as importantly to share it with the public. Develop a culture of customer service and make sure that every employee sees customer service as part of your organization’s culture, and not as an afterthought or worse, a necessary evil.
2. Don’t take your patrons for granted: over the past decade, customer service has vastly improved in every industry. Consumers have grown accustomed to good service, and are more demanding than they used to be. Don’t test your patrons’ loyalty, and strive to retain their clientele.
3. Think total experience: every interaction between your audience and your organization - whether by telephone, on the Internet, in the parking lot, at the box office, during an event or during the lodging of a complaint - enhance or negate your consumers’ satisfaction.
4. Script the experience: create a logical, seamless and agreeable path through which customer will go before, during and after attending your play or exhibition. Make your guests happy the moment they get in. Make sure that every aspect of their experience sets their mood and prepares them to enjoy the spectacle that is about to unfold before them.
5. Recruit and train the right people: Good customer service is a matter of attitude and aptitude. Hire people who are personable yet not easily rattled. Teach them how to interact with the public and to answer any query.
6. Allow people to break the rules: There are exceptions to everything. All your front office employees should understand the exceptions and have the autonomy to ignore procedures if it is necessary to accommodate a patron. Flexibility always lowers the number of complaints.
7. Over inform: Be very clear about what you deliver to your customers, what they should know about the show and what you expect them to do. Tell them everything they need to know to come and enjoy the experience, and then tell them again, as they will forget.
8. Use a personal touch: your guests have to think of their experience with you as more than an anonymous retail exchange. Identify them by their name when they come to see you. Surprise them by communicating with them when they don't expect you to, just to find out how they're doing. For instance, you could greet every new subscriber with a welcome card placed on their seat for their first visit.
9. Don’t operate blind: Listen to your customers and to your front office staff. It’s the best way to understand what need to be done to improve the audience experience. Develop a mechanism to capture the voice of customers, collect their complaints and track their satisfaction level. If you don’t measure it, you can’t change it.
10. Follow up and through: Don’t let customers feedback fall into a black hole. Address their concerns, fix what they say is not working and let them know you fixed it.
11. Be a customer yourself: go regularly through the process of buying and attending your own shows. It’s the best way to understand how customers experience your product.