You're a Celebrity:
An
Article for Reservationists and Guides
They have to know how much you care
before they care how much you know.
- Unknown
It's easy to forget that you and your groups are coming from
entirely different perspectives. To you, they're just a small
part of a single day. But to them, the visit to your museum is
a BIG deal.
Even when group leaders first call to book a tour, they're
not calling the place you work at every day -- the place with
the broken air conditioner and the two-day-old banana peels in
the wastebasket. They don't know that you just got staples caught
in the copy machine or that you have your shoes kicked off under
your desk. Heck, they wouldn't believe it even if they did know.
After all, they're calling a museum. A big, famous, intimidating
museum. Regardless of how they come across, they're a bit nervous.
And when tour day finally arrives and the coach pulls up to your
door, the whole group is feeling that same way.
They've probably been planning this trip for months. They've
bought new clothes, shipped the cat off to the neighbor's and
stopped the newspaper. Even if it's only a day trip, they've
gone to some amount of trouble -- had their hair done at least.
Probably didn't even sleep last night, knowing they had to be
up at 4:30 this morning to drive 30 miles to meet the bus at
6:00 a.m.
These people have been busy anticipating this trip. And they've
been anticipating meeting you.. Remember . . . as passengers
on a motorcoach tour, they've been looking at life through a
bus window. You may be one of the only local people they get
to spend any time with the whole time they're away. And they're
fascinated with you.
If the group is from another part of the country, they're
fascinated with your accent -- even if you don't have one. They
wonder if you're married or single. They wonder what you eat
for breakfast and when you mow your lawn. They think you have
a glamorous job. Some of them even wish they could be
you.
To your groups, you're a celebrity. And as is the case when
any of us meet celebrities, they hope you'll notice them as well.
They want you to ask where they're from -- even if they're only
from the next town. They want you to be impressed that they've
traveled so far to meet you. They want you to think they're the
best group you've ever had -- the smartest, the wittiest, the
cutest. They want to think you're treating them like insiders,
telling them things you usually don't share with other groups.
In short, they want you to connect with them and be their 45-minute
friend. This may all sound a bit much, but I guarantee it's true.
Regardless of how they're acting on the outside, it's how they're
feeling on the inside.
For many people on motorcoach tours, the interaction with
you is the museum experience. No matter how great your
collections are, if visitors don't feel that you connected with
them personally -- even in a small way -- their visit is a huge
letdown. But if you do make the connection, yours is the greatest
museum in the world. How you treat your groups largely determines
how they will remember your site. Make it a good memory.
Copyright © 2000 Katherine Khalife All rights
reserved.
For reprint permission, please e-mail info@museummarketingtips.com
Katherine Khalife is a consultant and writer specializing in
museum marketing, customer service and heritage cultural tourism.
See the Services section
for information about her workshops and other services.
