Open Forum

Hi Everyone,

I am reaching out to you today as the only paid employee of the museum that I work for. We are strictly volunteer supported. We have a core group of volunteers of about 10-15. We are a fairly small children's musing that is growing in foot traffic since I have started here (last year we had 15,000 visitors). 

The vast majority of our volunteers are of course retirement age. They kindly volunteer their time to keep our museum staffed and we typically do not have any issues with them. However, I have noticed that we have a few that have issues with how the modern family structure is compared to what the modern family structure was when they were kids in the 50s. I have had issues where I have needed to set down and discuss why it is not appropriate to tell parents how to raise their children. That comments of how children are so reliant on their cellphones and such are not appropriate etc. How we should not be telling single moms that they need a male influence to help support the kids. I have also struggled with some of the volunteers having ethnocentric mindsets and expressing them to me. The opinion from my superiors is that we desperately need these volunteers so any kind of real discipline is limited. 

Unfortunately, my museum does not have a customer service training program. I am trying to initiate that with no budget or available funds. What resources (free or cost efficient) are there available for my use? I really am hoping that with a proper system in place we can reduce this type of mindset or that I can better instruct our volunteers with regards to their behavior. 

Again, we have a great core group of volunteers but this behavior troubles me immensely. 

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
Brittany Wedd
Operations Director
Discovery Station at Hagerstown, Inc.
Hagerstown MD
------------------------------

Hi,

I work with volunteers in the Discovery Room at the American Museum of Natural History with a similar staff structure of usually one paid staff person present with the rest being volunteers working with family/intergenerational groups. Our volunteers range from high school interns to retirees, and we focus our training on making sure the volunteers understand their roles as facilitators of the space. While we have just a few rules (no eating/drinking/chewing gum in the space, limit cell phone use, and touch objects carefully returning them after you are done) many of them find it difficult to be flexible on these particularly the cleaning up when done part.

We recently did a training where we had the supervisory staff act out short skits presenting scenarios we've had in the Discovery Room that involved good customer service and focused on facilitating in the space as an educator rather than on enforcing rules.  What we most often hear from our volunteers are things along the lines of "how can that caregiver (mom/dad/grandma/nanny) let the child behave in such a way?" and the response is that it is not our job to teach the caregiver how we'd like to see them parent/oversee the child. Our job is provide them with a fun, educational experience. If the behavior exceeds normal limits, we ask them to get the staff member involved and let them handle the behavioral issue. 

We do offer visitors the option of completing a written complaint form if it gets to that point. We made sure to point out in the training that if a complaint like that is registered against them, some form of disciplinary action will be taken.

Happy to speak with you further via email if I can be more helpful with actual examples etc. 

Sarah

------------------------------
Sarah Moshenberg
Program Coordinator of the Discovery Room
American Museum of Natural History
NEW YORK NY
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-17-2017 12:01 PM
From: Brittany Wedd
Subject: Volunteer Behavior Question

Hi Everyone,

I am reaching out to you today as the only paid employee of the museum that I work for. We are strictly volunteer supported. We have a core group of volunteers of about 10-15. We are a fairly small children's musing that is growing in foot traffic since I have started here (last year we had 15,000 visitors). 

The vast majority of our volunteers are of course retirement age. They kindly volunteer their time to keep our museum staffed and we typically do not have any issues with them. However, I have noticed that we have a few that have issues with how the modern family structure is compared to what the modern family structure was when they were kids in the 50s. I have had issues where I have needed to set down and discuss why it is not appropriate to tell parents how to raise their children. That comments of how children are so reliant on their cellphones and such are not appropriate etc. How we should not be telling single moms that they need a male influence to help support the kids. I have also struggled with some of the volunteers having ethnocentric mindsets and expressing them to me. The opinion from my superiors is that we desperately need these volunteers so any kind of real discipline is limited. 

Unfortunately, my museum does not have a customer service training program. I am trying to initiate that with no budget or available funds. What resources (free or cost efficient) are there available for my use? I really am hoping that with a proper system in place we can reduce this type of mindset or that I can better instruct our volunteers with regards to their behavior. 

Again, we have a great core group of volunteers but this behavior troubles me immensely. 

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
Brittany Wedd
Operations Director
Discovery Station at Hagerstown, Inc.
Hagerstown MD
------------------------------

Hi from the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas, 

I've seen my institution make great strides in this area in the past few years and I'm very proud of our leadership here at the Stark Cultural Venues (starkculturalvenues.org) for re-aligning our tour programming with these kinds of customer service issues in mind. I'll admit we've lost a few of our seasoned tourguides with the changes, but overall I feel our tours are much more visitor-friendly. I'm happy to share them with you. First, for our school groups we reached out to local schools for more specific alignment of tour content with their classroom curriculum, plus we added songs and games for the younger folks; what this has done is make our tour time frames so content-packed there's simply no time for the tourguide to interject personal opinions of the nature you're mentioning.

Also, if your institution does not encourage visitors to fill out tour evaluation forms, I'd suggest you draft one. Our visitors (especially classroom teachers) are strongly encouraged to complete tourguide/tour content evaluation forms so that we can "improve our programming and make for a better tour experience for all." There are categories for the tourguide to be evaluated on a 1-10 scale in terms of relating well with the group, time management, knowledge of the material, etc. As you can imagine these aren't always the most popular with our tourguides. A negative evaluation is frustrating, but at the same time the data can be tallied and presented to the volunteer as gentle way of helping them to see their own opportunities for personal growth in the area of customer service. This way, you personally are not the bad guy delivering the bitter pill. Surely all volunteers will agree we want our visitors not only to enjoy our collection but to want to come back.

Colleen Dilenschneider's Know Your Own Bone blog has a great post on Entertainment vs. Education (7-31-2013) which talks about visitor-serving organizations (VSOs) and data which has been collected on what the visitor wants/expects from a visit to any one of these types of venues, whether it be a museum, zoo, aquarium, theater, etc. This blog post might be a jumping-off point for a discussion on specific conversation topics which aren't customer-friendly. My last suggestion is a wonderful book put out by the Disney Institute called Be Our Guest. An astounding fact is that the Disney VSOs score a whopping 70% customer return rate!! We're a small museum too, and of course we're nowhere close to Disney's foot traffic, but the book is packed with ideas to help the employee re-think their customer interaction style. 
Know that your concerns are very valid and timely, but also know you aren't alone in this struggle. Be of good cheer. We've seen some really positive changes in our group. Be Our Guest says "you CAN give people effective training to support the delivery of exceptional service."

Best of luck,
Sherrill


------------------------------
Sherrill Porterfield, Museum Educator
Stark Museum of Art
Stark Cultural Venues
Orange TX
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-17-2017 12:01 PM
From: Brittany Wedd
Subject: Volunteer Behavior Question

Hi Everyone,

I am reaching out to you today as the only paid employee of the museum that I work for. We are strictly volunteer supported. We have a core group of volunteers of about 10-15. We are a fairly small children's musing that is growing in foot traffic since I have started here (last year we had 15,000 visitors). 

The vast majority of our volunteers are of course retirement age. They kindly volunteer their time to keep our museum staffed and we typically do not have any issues with them. However, I have noticed that we have a few that have issues with how the modern family structure is compared to what the modern family structure was when they were kids in the 50s. I have had issues where I have needed to set down and discuss why it is not appropriate to tell parents how to raise their children. That comments of how children are so reliant on their cellphones and such are not appropriate etc. How we should not be telling single moms that they need a male influence to help support the kids. I have also struggled with some of the volunteers having ethnocentric mindsets and expressing them to me. The opinion from my superiors is that we desperately need these volunteers so any kind of real discipline is limited. 

Unfortunately, my museum does not have a customer service training program. I am trying to initiate that with no budget or available funds. What resources (free or cost efficient) are there available for my use? I really am hoping that with a proper system in place we can reduce this type of mindset or that I can better instruct our volunteers with regards to their behavior. 

Again, we have a great core group of volunteers but this behavior troubles me immensely. 

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
Brittany Wedd
Operations Director
Discovery Station at Hagerstown, Inc.
Hagerstown MD
------------------------------

Hi Britanny,

The best source of information about all aspects of volunteers and volunteer programs is the American Association for Museum Volunteers.   They have a great website (www.aamv.org) with lots of resources and even more available if you join.

------------------------------
Janice Klein
Executive Director
Museum Association of Arizona
Tempe AZ
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-17-2017 12:01 PM
From: Brittany Wedd
Subject: Volunteer Behavior Question

Hi Everyone,

I am reaching out to you today as the only paid employee of the museum that I work for. We are strictly volunteer supported. We have a core group of volunteers of about 10-15. We are a fairly small children's musing that is growing in foot traffic since I have started here (last year we had 15,000 visitors). 

The vast majority of our volunteers are of course retirement age. They kindly volunteer their time to keep our museum staffed and we typically do not have any issues with them. However, I have noticed that we have a few that have issues with how the modern family structure is compared to what the modern family structure was when they were kids in the 50s. I have had issues where I have needed to set down and discuss why it is not appropriate to tell parents how to raise their children. That comments of how children are so reliant on their cellphones and such are not appropriate etc. How we should not be telling single moms that they need a male influence to help support the kids. I have also struggled with some of the volunteers having ethnocentric mindsets and expressing them to me. The opinion from my superiors is that we desperately need these volunteers so any kind of real discipline is limited. 

Unfortunately, my museum does not have a customer service training program. I am trying to initiate that with no budget or available funds. What resources (free or cost efficient) are there available for my use? I really am hoping that with a proper system in place we can reduce this type of mindset or that I can better instruct our volunteers with regards to their behavior. 

Again, we have a great core group of volunteers but this behavior troubles me immensely. 

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
Brittany Wedd
Operations Director
Discovery Station at Hagerstown, Inc.
Hagerstown MD
------------------------------

Brittany,

I just came across this workshop from the Virginia Association of Museums that might be helpful for you...

Customer Service that Shines
June 5
Richmond, VA

Good customer service is more than telling employees and volunteers to smile and make eye contact. It's ingraining a culture of compassion at your institution where your employees truly care about every person who walks through the door. Speakers from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and NOVA Parks plus the Community College Workforce Alliance will share their successful plans for customer service programs that create exceptional customer experiences.  John Houser of NOVA Parks will present a program based on Service Purpose and Service Standards that provides consistent customer service at all 32 of their agency operations, where over 1,000 employees have already trained.

https://vam.site-ym.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=868854&group=

https://vam.site-ym.com/?page=WorkshopSeries


Best,
Wendy

------------------------------
Wendy Hancock
Association of Science-Technology Centers
Washington DC
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-17-2017 12:01 PM
From: Brittany Wedd
Subject: Volunteer Behavior Question

Hi Everyone,

I am reaching out to you today as the only paid employee of the museum that I work for. We are strictly volunteer supported. We have a core group of volunteers of about 10-15. We are a fairly small children's musing that is growing in foot traffic since I have started here (last year we had 15,000 visitors). 

The vast majority of our volunteers are of course retirement age. They kindly volunteer their time to keep our museum staffed and we typically do not have any issues with them. However, I have noticed that we have a few that have issues with how the modern family structure is compared to what the modern family structure was when they were kids in the 50s. I have had issues where I have needed to set down and discuss why it is not appropriate to tell parents how to raise their children. That comments of how children are so reliant on their cellphones and such are not appropriate etc. How we should not be telling single moms that they need a male influence to help support the kids. I have also struggled with some of the volunteers having ethnocentric mindsets and expressing them to me. The opinion from my superiors is that we desperately need these volunteers so any kind of real discipline is limited. 

Unfortunately, my museum does not have a customer service training program. I am trying to initiate that with no budget or available funds. What resources (free or cost efficient) are there available for my use? I really am hoping that with a proper system in place we can reduce this type of mindset or that I can better instruct our volunteers with regards to their behavior. 

Again, we have a great core group of volunteers but this behavior troubles me immensely. 

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
Brittany Wedd
Operations Director
Discovery Station at Hagerstown, Inc.
Hagerstown MD
------------------------------

Original Message------

Hi Everyone,

I am reaching out to you today as the only paid employee of the museum that I work for. We are strictly volunteer supported. We have a core group of volunteers of about 10-15. We are a fairly small children's musing that is growing in foot traffic since I have started here (last year we had 15,000 visitors). 

The vast majority of our volunteers are of course retirement age. They kindly volunteer their time to keep our museum staffed and we typically do not have any issues with them. However, I have noticed that we have a few that have issues with how the modern family structure is compared to what the modern family structure was when they were kids in the 50s. I have had issues where I have needed to set down and discuss why it is not appropriate to tell parents how to raise their children. That comments of how children are so reliant on their cellphones and such are not appropriate etc. How we should not be telling single moms that they need a male influence to help support the kids. I have also struggled with some of the volunteers having ethnocentric mindsets and expressing them to me. The opinion from my superiors is that we desperately need these volunteers so any kind of real discipline is limited. 

Unfortunately, my museum does not have a customer service training program. I am trying to initiate that with no budget or available funds. What resources (free or cost efficient) are there available for my use? I really am hoping that with a proper system in place we can reduce this type of mindset or that I can better instruct our volunteers with regards to their behavior. 

Again, we have a great core group of volunteers but this behavior troubles me immensely. 

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
Brittany Wedd
Operations Director
Discovery Station at Hagerstown, Inc.
Hagerstown MD
------------------------------

You need to figure out how to do training and you need to model language and behavior.Always accentuate the positive and remind your volunteers that they are there to make the visitor's day better, not to judge or scorn. This is a good place to begin.

All the best in your efforts!

------------------------------
Mary McDonald
Audience Engagement Specialist
Wenham Museum
Wenham MA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 05-19-2017 10:54 AM
From: Barbara Cohen-Stratyner
Subject: Volunteer Behavior Question

You can use the LGBTQ Welcoming Guidelines to validate the museum's need to accommodate and respect all forms of families.  The changing family structure was, in fact, one of the motivating issues for the project.  You can download it from the AAM's diversity/inclusion resource page.

If this behavior makes you feel uncomfortable, it probably has the same effect on your visitors.  I would recommend that you arrange a training for the front of house staff and volunteers.  If you are the only staff member who works with them, it may be more comfortable to bring in a consultant.

--

Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, Ph. D.

Suite 7C, 265 Riverside Drive

NYC, NY  10025

barbarastratyner@gmail.com

Now blogging at outsidethemuseum on Wordpress.com

The Genius of Geoffrey Holder is traveling again with Lincoln Center Education's Boro-Linc Initiative. The Library for the Performing Arts' tribute to the multi-talented actor, dancer, designer, and director can be seen at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning through May 30, 2017.  Take the E train to Parsons Blvd. & Jamaica Avenue.  http://www.jcal.org/exhibitions 

If you happen to be in Jacksonville, Florida, visit the Holder costumes and more images in our exhibition Dance Theatre of Harlem: 40 Years of Firsts, now at the Rita Theatre and Museum, April 15 - July 20, 2017. http://www.ritzjacksonville.com/Museum

 James Baldwin - You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. [Early Essays]

Alice Walker -- Hard times require furious dancing.