How to design an exit experience
The most frequently overlooked aspect of the visitor’s experience—and yet perhaps most important—is the end.
When we think about the visitor experience, we tend to think in chunks. Ticketing is one chunk, the store another, exhibits another. In business, this tendency is called siloing. And that’s apt, because a silo is a rigid vertical structure unconnected to anything else.
Visitors don’t think about their experience the way we think about our institutions. They don’t care what department you work in or that the store is run by a concessionaire. It’s all one experience to them. The parts of an experience that matter to the visitor are the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Visitors don’t care what department you work in or that the store is run by a concessionaire. It’s all one experience to them.
The most frequently overlooked aspect of the visitor’s experience—and yet perhaps most important—is the end. Places may spend a great deal of time and money designing their entry experience, but very little thinking about their visitors’ last impression. The Experience Economy, by Pine & Gilmore, uses the analogy of a theater production. The book’s subtitle, “Work is Theatre and Every Business a Stage,” sets up the book’s premise that we should think of our work as creating a play for our visitors or customers. Uniforms are costumes, we’re telling a story in several acts, and the physical environment is the set.
This analogy inspired me to think more critically about the “Finale” of the experiences we create. Here are some steps you can take at your site (or as you’re developing an exhibition) to improve your last impression and integrate it with the rest of the experience.
Walk it out
Literally. Get up out of your chair and take the same path visitors take. What do you see? Is any signage oriented towards guests as they are leaving? What are visitors looking at as they leave? Is this a good last impression?
Talk it out
During customer service training, we often recommend starting front-line staffers with scripts. This ensures quality and consistency and helps train entry-level staff on your expectations. Once they’ve mastered the script, staff members can make it their own.
And yet most sites have never had an exit script. Instead of their great experience culminating in a satisfying finale, many just peter out, leaving a poor (or lackluster) impression.
What do you want to say to your visitors as they leave? Are you thanking them for visiting? Are you telling them about upcoming events so they start planning when they’ll return? Are you complimenting people with kids for being great parents? Remember that they could have just as easily taken their kids to a ballgame or mall, or stayed home for that matter. It’s a big deal when visitors arrive and it should be a big deal when they leave, too.
Seal the deal
Many places pitch membership at the entry. This is like arriving for a first date and asking what size ring she wears. How can people know if you’re “relationship-worthy” if they’re barely in the door? The time to sell memberships is at the end of a terrific visit. The desk or booth should be oriented to face people as they are leaving—ideally on the right, so they can stop without crossing traffic.
Yes, you can plant a seed of a future relationship at the entrance, and visitors should always be able to credit their entry fee towards a membership that day. But the time to talk about your relationship is at the end of this first date, when your visitor has already had a wonderful time.
REI uses their receipts to promote upcoming events. Do you?
Follow them home
Their visit may be ending, but you can still go home with them. Every single piece of the experience you offer should be worthy of being saved. This includes complementary mementos like ticket stubs, cash register receipts, maps, and brochures, as well as anything for sale in your shop.
Think about what’s being sold in the store. Great museum stores are so much more than revenue generators. They extend the visit with carefully chosen themed merchandise, increase the depth of learning through well-chosen books and DVDs, and help visitors feel more connected to your site. The stores at Alcatraz (National Park Service), Filoli Center (a National Historic Trust property), and the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, all enhance and extend the visitor’s experience.
A well-designed exit experience should create that satisfying sense of finale that you feel when a great movie ends. After all, not only do we want visitors to connect with our content and collections, we want them to return, tell their friends, and become members and donors.
