Open Forum

Do you work at a museum with free admission and paid visitor services staff greeting visitors at or near the entrances? If so, I would love to hear from you! What are the benefits to having paid visitor services staff instead of volunteers or security guards? More specifically, have there been any monetary benefits such as an increase in memberships or donations? 

Thank you!

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Lindsey Hammel
Manager of Volunteer and Visitor Services
Birmingham Museum of Art
Birmingham AL
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Hi Lindsey,

I used to work at a museum that had free admission.  Though we never used volunteers while I was there, we did have issues with not having dedicated staff.  When I started there the museum front desks were run by a combinations of 1 paid VS staff member, a secretary/admin who didn't want to take money, and outsourced security guards.  Once I was able to get paid, dedicated VS staff we were able to make some real differences to the revenue and the experience.  Having paid staff gives you more control not just over training, but also over expectations.  We saw a huge return on membership sales, front desk donation capture, and guest satisfaction scores.

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Conor Hepp
Director
Barnes Foundation
Philadelphia PA
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Hello!
I'm responding to your inquiry about paid staff vs volunteers at visitor desk. For our institution we have a combination of paid and volunteer/docents working at the Gallery greeter desk. Over the years we found it important to distinguish some of the duties between paid and and volunteer team members. We have 3 shifts in the Gallery- morning-afternoon and evening. (Basically 10am-6pm most days.) For opening greeter and mid day greeter shifts we tend to fill with weekly or bi-weekly volunteers.  However, our evening shift is always filled by a paid staff. That last shift is responsible at the end of the day for things like attendance tally, checking doors and access points for security and locking up the gallery space. I also will assign the paid person a few extra duties like updating mailing lists, cleaning plexi vitrines, etc. if things are slow. I personally do not think the extra "security duties" should be on a volunteer. Volunteers tend to be in it for the social and community service aspect- and we want to respect that by giving them duties that give them those opportunities.

On a side note, I have found that my volunteers do tend to be the "best" at customer service. For some, it may be the part of their week where they get to be most social... so they really get into it. Doesn't mean I don't have fabulous paid greeters too... but over the years- its been my overall observation.

I hope you may find some of my comments helpful.
Best of luck!!
Michelle

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Michelle Nichols Dock
Visual Arts Curator
Tempe Center for the Arts
Tempe AZ
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