It’s the time of year where everyone tries to predict the next big thing, and while I take most of these with a pinch of salt, the Trendwatching briefing is always worth spending a little time reading.
One trend that they have predicted for 2010 is ‘the rise of real time reviews’, this is described as:
In short, with even more people sharing, in real time, everything they do, buy, listen to, watch, attend, wear and so on, and with even more search engines and tracking services making it easy to find and group these ‘live dispatches’ by theme, topic or brand, 2010 will see ready-to-buy consumers tapping into a live stream of (first-hand) experiences from fellow consumers.
This piece on Trendwatching reminded me of some statistics that I’d seen from Deloittes about online reviews. This said that 62% of consumers read consumer-generated reviews on the internet, and of that group 82% subsequently made a purchase.
Of course online reviews aren’t anything new, for example they have been a major element of online stores like Amazon for many years, but the rise in social media means that people are now reviewing their experience of your museum, even if you don’t ask them to.
The Trendwatching briefing made me wonder, are any museums using online reviews on their websites?
I asked the question on Twitter and I was pointed in the direction of a small number of museums who do encourage visitors to share feedback. The Milestones Museum in England asks visitors to leave reviews on their website (shown below).
The museum has received sixty reviews and have an average rating of three out of five, that isn’t an overwhelming advert for a visit. I guess that this is the reason that more museums don’t ask what people think. They are frightened that they might not like what they hear.
Trendwatching say that organisations who are brave enough to ask for reviews need to adopt a ‘Beta-mindset’ and embrace any feedback as a positive thing that allows you to involve your visitors in the development process, co-producing a better museum experience.
That is a major factor in asking for reviews from the public, it’s not enough to just ask for people’s opinion’s, you really need to have a plan in place for what you do with that feedback and how you will communicate progress to your visitors.
Although there is the possibility of negative feedback and the work that it would take to manage this are factors to consider, the statistics from other sectors suggest that adding reviews to your website could be a great marketing tool.
I am really interested in learning more about the experiences that museums have had, positive and negative with trying to implement reviews on their websites, have you tried this?
