How to turn our Museum Superheroes into Customer Service Titans.
I started writing a few months ago when my mentor suggested that it would help get my name out to the museum community. The first few things I wrote were little articles that only my Mom and all my Aunts would leave a like for or leave a comment like “good for you, honey!”. For the fourth article I decided to tell my story, about how I had really started out looking to make a career in museum Collections and ended up going the Visitor Services route. In the article I argued that Visitor Services and our front-line staff are the museum superheroes and if there was a shift in how the cultural sector leverages this role, we could see major change in our museums. Well it’s basically a prologue to this article, so if you haven’t read it, then take a look here.
I hit “publish” and closed my computer and walked away to watch a Netflix show. Before going to bed, just a few hours later I opened my Mac book and was shocked when I saw that a few Directors at pretty major museums had commented or liked my post. Shocked. I was so excited I called my parents (probably waking them up) and danced around the room telling them. I’m a super museum nerd, so this is probably equivalent to most people getting a like from Taylor Swift or a comment from Neil Patrick Harris.
Over the next few days, the article’s popularity continued to rise. It was shared by hundreds of people through LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms I’ve never even heard of like Yammer and Flipboard. After just a few weeks the article had a couple thousand reads, and I was still seeing comments and shares rolling in from all over the world.
What was it about this article that made people want to share it? Many people who shared it expressed gratitude to their own Visitor Services team, several said that it was the first time they had seen an article written about their role as a front-line person in a museum. It was relatable. Over and over again I saw people applauding the challenge for museums to leverage their Visitor Services staff better.
Of all the people who came across my article, one was my supervisor. She asked me to think about the “how” and report back during our next one-on-one meeting together on how we can actually leverage our VS staff better. The pressure was on. It’s one thing to call out an area needing improvement, a whole other to come up with the solution. But I am glad she asked. I spent some time thinking about it. I have come up with some ideas on where to start, but I have not yet arrived at the how of the how. For example, I know how we can leverage VS staff: one idea is better pay. But how organizations find the funds to pay their front-line staff better- I don’t yet know. And, I think that answer will be different for each institution. So here are a few ideas on the first “how”. How we, as a museum field, can do a better job of leveraging and building up our museum superheroes.
Better Pay. For most organizations, regardless of their size, front-line staff is paid hourly, and often they’re even kept at part time. Art + Museum Transparency was formed by a group of museum workers who wanted to bring attention to the salary disparity found in museums that has been kept secret for so long. They created a spreadsheet where museum workers could anonymously share their salary and benefits with others. I calculated the average hourly rate paid to Visitor Services staff from the first 15 that I found doing a search in that spreadsheet and came up with $14. Someone making $14 (at 40 hours per week and remember many VS staff positions are part time, so they’re making less), would be taking home an annual salary of $29,000.
The minimum wage in Philadelphia is $13.75.
The minimum wage in NYC is $15.
The minimum wage in LA is $12 or $13 (depending on size of business).
The minimum wage in Chicago is $13.50.
The minimum was in DC is $15.
The minimum wage in Miami is $8.46, with an Amendment proposed in the 2020 ballot to increase it to $15 by 2026.
So $14 is basically minimum wage.
This past week I tuned in to a conference call for Florida attractions and a woman was asking people on the call to vote because the proposal to increase the minimum wage would have a negative impact on smaller organizations that can’t afford to pay their staff that much. I wonder how much money that woman makes, and if it’s more than $8.46 and hour.
I don’t want to offend anyone. Most of my experience comes from working in medium to large sized institutions. I know that many small non-profits work with a limited budget, and while I do believe that all across the sector we need to pay our front-line staff better, I also think we need the larger organizations to first set the example.
It is extremely difficult to live on minimum wage. At 27 years old and already out of grad school I lived in a 4-bedroom ground-floor apartment with 3 roommates. I had an internal (illegal, I think) bedroom with no windows, and a minor and terrifying cockroach problem that kept me from sleeping at night. All while I made $34k working at a museum as a Lead Visitor Services Associate. I was in a supervisor position, making close to minimum wage in an expensive metropolitan city. I had about $13k in credit card debt and over $80k in student loan debt by the time I left that city, and I will be paying off that debt for years to come. I’m just one person, not even supporting a family, which I couldn’t imagine doing on that salary.
It is unrealistic to think that someone making that kind of money can afford to stay in the position long, and/or will be happy for long. It is also unrealistic to think that a position offering that kind of salary will attract anyone other than an entry-level applicant, despite the fact that the majority of these position descriptions say they require a Bachelor’s degree (someone that likely already has debt stacked up). By having a low hourly rate, you’re placing museum front-line jobs in the same market as retail and fast food. There is absolutely nothing wrong with working in retail and fast food. I worked in both when I was young and in school. Though I cannot provide one example of a stellar customer service experience that I have received from either. I have had many perfectly fine experiences, but none that made a memorable impression (in a good way) where I thought “wow, they get me” or “I can’t wait to go back”. You might say that I have too high of expectations if I think a fast food chain wants me to feel excited or engaged by them. But I think you’re wrong. I think they put millions of dollars into guest survey’s, marketing, and training to try to get you to come back.
If museums are attracting the same applicants as a fast food chain, then how can we provide exemplary customer service that rivals other industries and provide a relatable, engaging experience for our visitors? If we want our visitors to think “wow, they get me” and “I can’t wait to go back” then we need to step up the competition and be able to attract applicants from a different pool than retail and fast food.
I would not apply for a position that pays minimum wage. The ‘me’ of 5 years ago would not apply for a position that pays minimum wage. I could not survive on it and pay my rent, food costs, transportation, student loans, credit cards, etc. So if I want to attract more customer service professionals like me (not that I’m the example to aspire to, but for the sake of making a point), with experience and ambition and someone excited about what they’re doing, how can I, if that position doesn’t appeal to me (or even to a younger, less experienced version of me)?
Let’s raise the salary for our front-line staff. By increasing the pay for these positions, we are increasing the marketability of the post. It would initially serve to improve morale, employee loyalty, and increased responsibility, but it also would enable us to start to attract leaders in the customer service industry. Can you imagine having customer service titans welcoming you, orienting you, and guiding you around a museum? The experience would be fun, engaging, relatable, and you’d want to return. They would sell you on the museum experience. They would be trained to build a warm and welcoming experience and to know what things in the collection that visitor relates to or is excited by. Stay with me though, because Better Training is another point I make later on.
Better acknowledgement and appreciation. I touched on this point also in my superhero article. I have noticed a trend in many museums that I’ve worked in, or through meeting colleagues at other institutions. There is a divide between those on the front-line and those in the back office. I wonder if it’s because of a physical divide- front of house vs back of house work spaces, or if it’s just because approaching a group is intimidating? My team of Visitor Services Associates has often commented on other staff at the museum ignoring them, not knowing their name, or not knowing their title despite seeing them every day and passing them in the Admissions Booth routinely. They say that often other employees only speak to them when they want something, like an answer to an admission question or a guest pass. One of my Associates has been working here for 12 years and she has often commented that it feels demeaning when certain staff from the back office walks by and doesn’t say hello, doesn’t know their names or show any interest in learning it. They don’t acknowledge them. She has over a decade of institutional knowledge and they don’t care.
Front-line staff are also often seen as teams, rather than viewed by other colleagues as individuals. I have recently noticed that we tend to share the wins from staff in other departments, but we don’t share the wins for Visitor Services. For example, the Director of Grants works hard and successfully submits and gets awarded a large financial grant for the museum. The Executive Director then sends out an email to all-staff acknowledging their achievement. It is followed up by about 10 other staff emails congratulating that individual and the museum. This is great, I am not at all saying that they don’t deserve praise. My point in bringing this up is that I have never once seen an email from the Executive Director at any museum where I have worked that calls out by name a front-line staff person and acknowledges their tough interaction with a visitor, or the public tour that they gave to a full-house, or stopping someone from backing up into a priceless piece of work with their purse. Have you? I see the difference between the large chunk of money and the interactions with visitors- but both are doing their everyday jobs that they were hired to do, and one is publicly acclaimed and the other isn’t. It feels like the museum is telling us that one is more important than the other (putting aside the likely huge salary disparity between the two roles). A large chunk of money right now is pretty major for the museum, but my Admissions team brings in more than that in just a few days during peak season. Yes, we have gotten a thank you email to all-staff, but it was again, about the team, and never building up an individual from the team. Let’s build them up so they know they’re valued, and they want to prove themselves time and again and be an acknowledged employee. And call them by their name, not their position. Say ‘hi’ to your Visitor Services staff. You’ll find they have a lot of insight into the organization that could be helpful to you!
Training, conferences & networking. Have I mentioned how much I admire my current organization? When I started in 2017, I learned that they put aside a modest amount of money for all managers for professional development of their choice, with the discretion of their supervisor of course. Since starting, I have been able to go to several conferences, I’ve been challenged to speak at some, and I even went to an international conference one year that was so mind blowing and thrilling to see what other organizations are doing and ways museums are evolving and reaching their communities that I came back on a high, feeling refreshed and enthused about my work. I also network like crazy at these events and have used those contacts later when I had questions about how they’re handling ticketing, what POS system they use, how they deal with service animals, and DEAI issues. The networking at these conferences has been so valuable for me, and also for the organization where I work.
My employer also gives me money each year to organize trainings for my team. Usually I have a presenter come in to do a customer service training for all my front-line staff (including Admissions, Museum Educators, Security, Facilities, and a few others). I also coordinate a training with the County ADA Coordinator on Accessibility each year. These trainings are good, and useful, but… no one comes out of them on a high.
I imagine that if all the Visitor Services Associates went to a conference, or asked to speak on their expertise, or got sent to trainings, that like it did for me, their pride and enthusiasm for their work would grow exponentially. They would feel appreciated and acknowledged. They would also get a wider perspective of the museum sector and more understanding of their role in it. If you had a team of people, each with individual contacts in the VS world, then how much easier would it be for your organization to get answers to those questions we have, or to stay in the-know about innovative ways other museums are changing the visitor experience.
Responsibility. Even though working with the public can throw some curve balls your way, even the curve balls sometimes just become routine. Routine doesn’t challenge or inspire. We need to find ways to break up the routine and challenge our front-line staff. By challenging them, we’re helping them grow in their knowledge, their experience, and their versatility. People who aren’t challenged become complacent, and we don’t want complacency to be seen on the public faces of our museum. In my experience, many people, not all, but many people will jump at the opportunity to shine. They like to show that they are up for the task.
Pre-pandemic a typical day for me would have me spending about 50% of my time going to meetings representing Visitor Services and receiving information that I would then disperse to the team through email or in a daily meeting. I’m not sure about you, but we love having meetings. A meeting for this, a meeting for that. Why resolve something over the phone- let’s just call a meeting. What if I sent a VS Associate in my place to represent the Visitor Services team instead? It hasn’t been done like that before, but why not? What if we started to send VS Associates in our place? Well for me, it would free up a lot of my time. But the unselfish benefits are just as compelling. The front-line staff knows our visitors better than I do. They can speak about trends, visitor intentions, and visitor expectations better than anyone else at our organization. It would also give them a platform in the organization, and maybe they’d be seen as an individual more than just a part of the VS team. If we gave them more responsibility and asked them to take charge over DEAI initiatives, or Visitor Services’ roles at programs and events, or supporting Interpretation- I think it would greatly benefit the museum and also greatly benefit the staff as well. If we give the front-line staff more responsibility then we’re helping them grow while helping spread out the workload.
If you’ve made it this far into the article, I’d be willing to bet that while you may agree with some of these ideas for the first “how”, you might have rolled your eyes a bit or thought something like “this is great in theory, but…”. Remember I said I don’t know how to answer the second “how”- the how it actually gets done. My guess is that we start small. So, we start with what we can do. We (all museum employees) start to say ‘hi’ to our front-line staff more. We get to know their names. We start sending out an all-staff acknowledgement email to an individual on the VS team when we see something great they’ve done. We take pictures of front-line staff to put in the all-staff meeting to show them during the pandemic wearing face shields and standing at a distance, and yet still providing excellent service to visitors. We advocate for better pay for the staff we supervise. We continue to advocate for better pay for the staff we supervise after it’s been turned down again and again. We train our staff in whatever way we can- maybe on our own, or maybe we even assign them trainings to present to each other. We send them as a representative to some of our meetings. We ask more of them and give them more responsibility. We let them step up.
Let’s start small but take the opportunity to make waves when we can. Front-line staff need advocates in their corner, so take up the charge with me!
