The paper examines the relationship between visitor satisfaction, intention to return, and intention to recommend based on a survey conducted at a small metropolitan museum. It finds that exhibition experience was the main driver of satisfaction. Those who reported being highly satisfied also reported higher intentions to return and recommend. Older and less educated visitors tended to report higher satisfaction. The measures of satisfaction, intention to return, and intention to recommend were found to be strongly correlated, suggesting they may essentially be measuring the same underlying sentiment toward the museum experience.

1. Museum Research Methods MUSM7034 Semester 1 2009 Session 2.2 Discussion www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/museum http://musm7034.ning.com/

2. Harrison and Shaw Consumer Satisfaction and Post-Purchase Intentions . The paper examines the 5-point satisfaction scale and comments on how it can be interpreted. They use data from a survey in small metropolitan museum in 2001. Paper published in 2004. 1. Introduction

3. Please say how satisfied you were with the exhibition overall … Please rate the exhibition overall … … on a five-point scale where 1 is LOW and 5 is HIGH. Five-point scale

4. Relationship between satisfaction and intention to return. Relationship between satisfaction and intention to recommend. Relationship between satisfaction and elements of museum experience. 2. Five hypotheses Relationship between high satisfaction and intention to return or recommend. Demographics act as moderators in the relationship between satisfaction and intention to return or recommend.

5. Relationship between satisfaction and intention to return. They found a weak inverse relationship (not what they expected). Tendency towards internal consistency The nature of the experience – it may not be a ‘repeat purchase’ item. Why do people visit museums? Why do they go back? New experience. See more (didn’t finish). 2. Five hypotheses Implication Watch out for assumptions, e.g. people will return Enjoy the surprises!

6. Relationship between satisfaction and intention to recommend. Tendency towards internal consistency ‘Would you recommend’ has been sold as a single measure that can measure loyalty. Called ‘Net Promoter Score’, it uses a 10-point scale. The score is worked out by subtracting the percentage of negative (0-6) scores from the percentage of positive (9-10) ones. 75+% is quite high. 2. Five hypotheses Implication Consider using Net Promoter Score

7. Relationship between satisfaction and elements of museum experience. Tendency towards internal consistency Exhibition experience | Staff services | Venue attributes Exhibition experience was major contributing variable, with some from Staff services and virtually nil from Venue. This would vary with the venue. 2. Five hypotheses Implication Watch out for local situation effects Be careful how you generalise

8. Relationship between high satisfaction and intention to return or recommend. Tendency towards internal consistency Those who were highly satisfied (score=5) also reported higher mean intention to return and recommend. The implication is that for program development, the 5 score is more meaningful than the 4+5 score. (Maybe; maybe not) 2. Five hypotheses Implication Look at what happens on each point of the scale Be wary of averages

9. Demographics act as moderators in the relationship between satisfaction and intention to return or recommend. We find this consistently Older people express higher satisfaction/etc Lower educated express higher satisfaction/etc (probably because they are also older) Museum audiences are ‘dumbing up’ over time. 2. Five hypotheses Implication Look at the differences between different audience sub-groups

10. Are ‘satisfaction’, ‘intend to return’, and ‘intend to recommend’ measuring three different things? Or are the essentially the same thing – a tendency to feel good about an experience. If they are essentially the same thing, the responses will correlate strongly, as they do in this study. So what if they are the same thing? Don’t bother measuring all three. Pick one as your KPI and track it. Don’t believe that everyone who says they’ll return or recommend will do that. 2. Three things, or the same thing? Implication Measures can’t be taken literally. Accept them as indications of underlying effect.

11. 3. Using the data May be expedient to merge the data (add 4+5) when reporting to Boards and Government, it may not be appropriate to merge when developing strategies.

12. Your experiences

13. Gillian Savage Ph. 9954 0455 (business hours) E. [email_address] Ning. http://musm7034.ning.com/ Contact