Embracing the Ordinary

July 18, 2016

In a recent interview for a possible article for the Museum Store Magazine, I was asked about the importance of providing an excellent customer experience during the holiday season.  Yawn.  Was I about to write another blur of words regurgitated by almost every retail store about how they give “outstanding customer service” by offering up what almost every other retail store does?  When “everyone” is doing it, it makes it rather ordinary, I thought.

Museum stores have an edge on traditional retail, as we have a built-in goodwill of all of our profits going back to the museum, but are we truly standing out in creating an excellent customer experience for holidays or any time of year?  What is it that we do “ordinary” like free gift wrap or cookies and cider that we can step-up in each of our institutions and really bring the wow-factor?

For me, my ordinary is certainly not a unique concept by any means, but it’s consistent year-round and we’ve taken the added step-up of empowering my sales and admission staff to do the same action:  “Ordinary” is the rapid, same day response to any questions, issues, or comments by email, phone calls, or in the institution.  Empowering staff to make decisions without waiting for a manager to follow up gets the situation handled right away, plus my staff knows I’m going to say “yes” anyway, so let’s let them be the good guy.  Ordinary.  But we’ve received countless words of gratitude from customers who seem to indicate that this is pretty rare.

What else do we do rather ordinary, I thought to myself – Kids.  Kids in store.  Seems MSA museum store managers are split half for them, half against.  It might surprise you I am a fan of them in the store, even though we aren’t considered a children’s museum and we treat them rather ordinary.  That is, we make them feel welcome and important, even if they don’t have money with them.  We’ll show them how to use a maritime tool and explain how it was used to navigate the waters centuries ago.  Sometimes it’s their very first purchase on their own, and we treat them like we would any adult; it makes for a memorable museum experience, one we hope they’ll bring their children to in twenty years.

In 2014, Raymond McKenzie, Manager of Retail Operations for the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and I were fortunate to present to the MSA and to the American Alliance of Museums on the importance of working with kids in your museum stores, and our wrap-up had these tips, all rather ordinary:

• Look at your floor plan for the optimum use of space; open it up to welcome shoppers, not block the traffic flow
• Designate a Kid’s Zone, even in small stores – just a corner nook can make a difference
• Encourage kids to handle items, and show them how to use it
• Curate your volunteers – be sure they like kids
• Thank kids for coming in and invite them back

It’s not likely I’ll be around to see the 7 year olds come back as parents of 7 year olds, at least not as the store manager.  But I do hope my replacement, and my replacements replacement will embrace the ordinary.

And what will you do this season to create an excellent customer experience?  You can send it to me at Anderson@crmm.org or post it on Shop Talk to share with others.

Blue Anderson, Pacific Northwest Chapter President, Columbia River Maritime Museum