Supercharging visitor insights with seamless data capture

Venues are having to collect more information from audiences than ever before -  to service a customer visit; to meet reporting obligations; and even to fulfil funding requirements. However if you take a closer look at the methods that many organisations use to do this, there are several common pitfalls…

1. Data capture is often restricted by the capabilities of systems to gather and record information in a streamlined or automated way. This can lead to confusing UX and disjointed data storage in insecure places.
2. Missing data collection opportunities all together which means we know less about our audiences than we could. At other times, we ask for far too much information (often at a time when users really want to be completing an ulterior action like booking a ticket).
3. Venues and attractions frequently ask customers to provide the same information time and time again. At best, this creates a small moment of annoyance for the user - at worst it can create an exclusionary barrier (particularly in relation to accessibility).

The starting point to answering these challenges is to refine the processes that collect, move and store information about your visitors. Amgueddfa Cymru (a family of seven national museums located across Wales) worked with Action Links to tackle this head-on in a way that streamlines previously manual workflows.

The challenge

With over 1.4 million visitors a year but no Box Office team and no ticketed admissions, Amgueddfa Cymru were struggling with data collection that helped them to understand their visitors. The most significant knowledge gaps included identifying access requirements amongst attendees, and capturing ‘shadow’ audience data from people engaging with the museums through community events, but who has never actually booked a ticket to visit the museum.

Their team had adopted Tessitura as their CRM system and were looking to embrace the data analysis and BI that Tessitura can provide, but needed to find efficient ways to start getting more audience data into Tessitura in the first place.

In many parts of the business staff were having to input collected visitor data into Tessitura manually (e.g. from paper forms or survey responses) so there was a clear need to digitise processes and minimise this manual handling. The museums also needed to ensure that any data collection touch-points were provided in both Welsh and English as a fully bilingual organisation who have a legal obligation to adhere to Welsh Language Standards.

The brief

Action Links worked with Amgueddfa Cymru to deliver a series of solutions to improve online data collection that could…

• Identify visitors who are also members of the Hynt national access scheme, syncing this information with their Amgueddfa Cymru customer record to unlock access benefits at the museums
• Capture missing audience data for users who attend drop-in community events, then store this automatically in Tessitura
• Cut down manual data processing for staff
• Improve the experience for visitors by offering users intuitive ways to self-serve online
• Provide all data collection opportunities in Welsh and English depending on the user’s preference

The solution

The first use case we tackled was delivering a way for users to tell Amgueddfa Cymru that they were part of the Hynt access membership scheme (a national access scheme for Wales). Visitors who belong to the scheme, are eligible to a free carer/companion ticket so we needed to identify these users in Tessitura in order to unlock the ability for them to book their free tickets via the Amgueddfa Cymru website. The team wanted an easy way for users to be able to associate their Hynt membership to their Tessitura customer record, without forcing them to complete hard copy forms or having to contact the venue (a barrier for customers and time consuming for staff).

To combat this, we created an Action Link form that asks the user to minimal data; name, email address and Hynt ID number. Using ‘context switching’ in Action Links we were able to provide this journey in both Welsh and English, allowing a user to toggle from one language to the other, without losing any data they’ve already inputted.

On submission, Action Links checks if a customer record already exists in Tessitura – if it doesn’t find one, it creates one. We then apply a Ranking to the record (to trigger a mode of sale switch to unlock access to free companion ticket price types) and stores the Hynt card number as an Attribute on the record.

Because of Action Links’ flexibility to write responses back to any of the 400+ endpoints in the Tessitura API, the  team were able to choose exactly where they wanted data stored at the point of submission (in this case a Ranking and an Attribute). There’s no waiting for overnight procedures to run meaning the user can immediately book their eligible free ticket in the ticketing pathway (in this case TNEW and no manual processes involved for staff.

The new solution makes the process of booking tickets smoother for customers and entirely hands-off for staff, and also increases reporting accuracy now that the museums can track the volume of access visitors. Customer comms and visitor experience can also now be tailored based on an individual’s needs (e.g. pre-visit emails with helpful access information; or FOH reports that allow operational teams to prepare for each visit).

The second area we explored focused on capturing data from ‘ghost or shadow audiences’. These are people who engage with your activity, but have not booked a ticket or created a customer record so have no presence in your CRM system. Amgueddfa Cymru identified their free community events as an untapped source to identify these prospects.

This includes an annual outdoor food festival - free for everyone, no ticket required. However, because of the lack of ticketing the team couldn’t predict attendance or capture data on who came and where they travelled from. This limited both future marketing opportunities and reporting. While £0 tickets could have been issued, the standard ticketing flow was lengthy and required a user to register for an account which can be a deterrent for new audiences who don’t feel ready to hand over lots of details about themselves.

Instead we created an Action Links form that acts as an indicator of attendance, asking the user to simply provide their name, email address and postcode. When the user submits the form, Action Links creates or updates the customer record in Tessitura, storing postcode as an Attribute. We also mark the customer as ‘attending’ a Special Activity event (alternatively this could book registrants a free ticket behind the scenes, bypassing the checkout entirely).

By capturing attendee email addresses, Amgueddfa Cymru can now communicate with these visitors in advance (e.g. send event reminders, or distribute important pre-visit info). Previously visitor satisfaction surveying was done manually in-person at the festival, whereas now the team are able to send digital survey links via email straight after the event. This has seen a 90% increased survey response rate than in previous years and provides the team with a much more robust dataset of feedback to draw insight from.

The impact

Amgueddfa Cymru are seeing great results from optimising their data collection and since launching with Action Links the museums have had over 28,000 visitors sign up to create a customer records in Tessitura - a colossal audience growth opportunity. The museum now has a complete, accurate picture of both ticketed and non-ticketed visitors enabling better reporting, marketing, and operational planning.