Thanks for this question. I work at a historic natural history museum that gets an average of 125 visitors a month. We have very few resources for visitor services, and here's what we do for visitor data collection:
What data points are collected in your museums on entry and exit?
Name, Address, Professional Affiliation (if relevant, such as if they are coming from another museum or university or something that might be of interest for us), Email, # in party, How did you hear about us?, Are you a member? Though all of this is what we ask when they arrive, we also like to think of our data collection as happening in many different ways and different points throughout the visit. In the museum, we have a comment box, for instance, so that helps us get qualitative visitor feedback. We also recently went through a process with an outside consultant who helped us articulate our definition of a "successful" museum visit, and now we have a log that the visitor services attendant keeps for most visitors saying why or why not she feels the interaction fit our definition of "success" and considerations for the future.
How do you use, present, and leverage your information once it's collected?
We're still figuring this one out. Right now, we enter our visitor logs into a spreadsheet every month and then manipulate that data to answer questions such as, "Is there a day of the week that we are busiest?" The hope is that we can come up with more questions like that to help inform our strategy. The data is always being used, too, for grant reporting.
How is your information collected (on paper, digitally, etc.)?
We have historically used a paper book because it fits with our historic aesthetic. We just recently got two tablets and now offer that as an option, too. Even though it's very modern, it is SO MUCH EASIER and faster to collect info that way and we hypothesize that visitors will be more likely to fill in all the information we're asking for on the tablet because it doesn't hurt their hand as much :)
Who fills out/collects the information - a desk attendant or the visitor?
Visitors fill it in themselves and we have an Audience Engagement Facilitator on staff who aggregates the info.
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Cara Scharf
Program and Communications Manager
Wagner Free Institute of Science
Philadelphia PA
Original Message:
Sent: 06-15-2016 10:19 AM
From: Max Metz
Subject: Simple Visitor Statistics Best Practices
I am looking at refocusing the visitor statistics taken at a small historic house and museum, and looking for some best practices from the museum community. Right now, number of people in the group, date, and zip code are the only pieces of information asked when visitors enter, however I know there really could be more that we could ask (and not be too onerous) to maximize the information we collect and create a very useful dataset. I am wondering:
What data points are collected in your museums on entry and exit?
How do you use, present, and leverage your information once it's collected?
How is your information collected (on paper, digitally, etc.)?
Who fills out/collects the information - a desk attendant or the visitor?
Thanks for your best practices!
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Max Metz
Durant-Kenrick Manager/ Anne Larner Museum Educator
Historic Newton - Jackson Homestead & Museum
Newton MA
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