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  • 1.  comment cards

    Posted 01-26-2020 11:45 AM

    Happy Sunday museum folks,

     

    Do any of you collect demographic info from your visitors using comment cards/short questionnaires via a kiosk or information desk?

     

    Working on a talk about low-cost data collection strategies, and would be interested to know how this method is used (and how effective you find it to be).

     

    Feel free to email me offline.

     

    Thanks in advance!

    Kirsten

     

    Kirsten Büchner

    Insight Evaluation Services

    Fairfax, VA 22032

    www.insighte.net

     

    e: kirsten@insighte.net

    m: 703-606-7976

     



  • 2.  RE: comment cards

    Posted 01-27-2020 01:18 PM
    Edited by Sean Kelley 01-27-2020 01:18 PM
    Hey Kirsten--

    I'd be worried about a self-selected process like this giving skewed data.  The people who think "I'll go fill out that comment card" are probably a sub-set of your audience, not representative.  Just a thought.

    Good luck!


    ------------------------------
    Sean Kelley
    Senior VP, Director of Interpretation
    Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site
    Philadelphia PA
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: comment cards

    Posted 01-27-2020 03:34 PM

    Hi Sean,

     

    Thanks for your response, you are exactly right.

     

    I'm wondering to what extent this technique is being used, though it is far from ideal.

     

    Kirsten

     

    Kirsten Büchner

    Insight Evaluation Services

    www.insighte.net

     

     




    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: comment cards

    Posted 01-28-2020 06:19 AM
    Kristen:

    I agree with Sean on the problem with interpreting non representative data gathered with comment cards. On the other hand, the research shows that people who are really happy or unhappy with the experience tend to be more likely to fill them out and that information does have some value in identifying problem areas and opportunities to improve. Any feedback is better than none.

    My advice is to encourage (and train) the people who are at your last guest touch point to make eye contact and ask each departing guest about the experience. If you also develop a form (even a simple one) for systematically recording responses you can obtain a reasonably useful metric of the guest experience (and trends) that would be more representative of the total population and doing this adds the personal touch that makes the experience more friendly. 

    Cheers

    Robert C. Ford, PhD
    Professor of Management Emeritus
    Department of Management
    College of Business Administration
    4000 Central Florida Blvd.
    P.O. Box 161400
    University of Central Florida
    Orlando, Florida 32816-1400
    Phone: 407-601-4616; Fax: 407-823-3725



    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: comment cards

    Posted 01-29-2020 08:29 AM
    We use comment cards and I would say only 1 in 4 complete the personal information (ours asks if they are a member and their contact information if they would like a reply). We actually pulled all other demo questions off the card because it seemed disingenuous with the purpose of the feedback cards to ask a bunch of questions about the visitor. I agree with Robert that only very happy/unhappy people use them and at that point might just want to be anonymous. We don't currently do this but perhaps just having a station that says "help us learn about you" with a very quick demographics questionnaire would be inexpensive, easy, and more straightforward. 

    Since the topic appears to be low-cost data collection and not necessarily the comment cards in particular we have had much better success just asking people as they check-in if we could collect some quick demographics (zip code being most popular). 

    Best of luck on your talk.

    ------------------------------
    Amanda Kepner
    Senior Manager for Institutional Processes
    Columbus Museum of Art
    Columbus OH
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: comment cards

    Posted 01-29-2020 03:14 PM

    Hi Robert and Amanda,

    Thank you for taking the time to chime in, you share some good strategies and helped me clarify some points to make.

     

    Best,

    Kirsten

     

    Kirsten Büchner

    Insight Evaluation Services

    Fairfax, VA 22032

    www.insighte.net

     

    e: kirsten@insighte.net

    m: 703-606-7976

     




    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: comment cards

    Posted 01-29-2020 04:08 PM
    I agree with all the comments - a zip code only is easy. We have comment cards that are used rarely and have resulted in a nice mix of compliments and friendly improvement suggestions. The only personal information we ask is name, email (which are optional) and whether or not the person is a member. Wish we had added zip code, but the cards are used so infrequently that data wouldn't add much for us. Quite frankly, I am more interested in improvement suggestions - a couple have been helpful in improving our guest experience.

    ------------------------------
    Denise McClean
    Director
    Prospect Park Zoo
    Brooklyn NY
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


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