Melbourne Museum Learns from Their Customers to Improve the Overall Customer Experience, Starting with Parking

Located in the city of Melbourne, Australia; Melbourne Museum is the largest museum in the Southern Hemisphere and is part of Australia’s largest public museum organisation, encompassing Melbourne Museum, Science Works, Immigration Museum and the Royal Exhibition Building. Focused on providing cultural and educational experiences, the organisation provides a variety of permanent and temporary exhibitions and experiences showcasing the history and life science of Victoria, Australia and from around the world.

Voted as one of Australia’s most popular tourist attractions, Melbourne Museum attracts 2 million visitors every year and is supported by more than 600 staff and 500 volunteers. The Melbourne Museum car parks, manages parking for Melbourne Museum, Science Works and the Royal Exhibition Building, providing facilities for staff, volunteers and visitors.

Managing events and seasonal trends

As with any major leisure organisation, there can be natural peak periods and added to that, some of the exclusive exhibitions hosted by Melbourne Museum, tickets can sell-out and parking can be difficult to obtain. Customers can become frustrated and disappointed with not being able to access the ‘must-see’ exhibition and even more annoyed if they have obtained a ticket to the event but are not able to find parking on the day that they visit. Melbourne Museum wanted to find a way to improve the parking experience for its customers. The parking journey needed to be considered as part of the overall experience, making it a seamless part of the customers visit.

Making it easier for customers to park

The museum needed to be able to manage seasonal trends and available capacity in its car parks, as well as the ability to offer an enhanced experience and special rate to its Museum Victoria members. As more and more customers were using the online ticket purchase facility for the museum and special events, Museum wanted to offer the same experience for parking, enabling customers to pre-book their parking.

The ADVAM AltitudeReservation platform enables Melbourne Museum’s customers to book their parking in advance, providing a range of options including Early Bird, All Day Parking, Weekend Specials and a discounted rate for Museum Victoria members.

Seamless parking experience

In order for the pre-book experience to be a seamless experience for the Museum and its customers it was imperative that the booking engine was available as a continuous link from the Melbourne Museum website and presented in line with the Museums branding. Melbourne Museum is able to manage the images, wording and pricing presented on the booking engine, displaying special promotions and essential information to its customers. In addition, the reservation platform is required to integrate with the Museum’s existing parking equipment and infrastructure.

ADVAM worked closely with Melbourne Museum and their equipment manufacturer to ensure that the integration was seamless. Customers book their parking online, using the ADVAM platform, they then enter the car park using the credit card used for payment when making the booking. The access control system, connects to the ADVAM solution, so it knows that the customer has already paid and enables them to enter/exit the car park during their allotted time.

The use of marketing to drive growth

The ADVAM reservation solution was installed in 2013. The first 18 months saw a steady increase of customers, but there was still capacity to improve on this. In December 2015, Melbourne Museum started its marketing campaign. This included advertising within the car park, on the parking tickets and the receipts given at the pay stations.

The focused marketing campaign led to a marked increase in bookings made via the reservation platform, with the average number of bookings per month increasing by 384% from the period before marketing commenced. This increase has been realised across all parking payment platforms, showing that the reservation platform has contributed to an increase in customers parking at Melbourne Museum and not just a shift from on-foot to pre-book parkers.

Improving the customers parking experience

Following the launch of the reservation system in 2013, Melbourne Museum and its customers have seen a vast improvement in the parking experience. The marketing campaigns and the ease of use for its customers has led to over 30,000 individual customers benefitting from the service. Making it easier for customers to park and the entire experience of visiting the museum more enjoyable.

In line, with the Museums core objective in making the parking experience seamless with the museum visit experience, the Museum has seen an increase in overall visitor satisfaction, reaching a 99% satisfaction rating1.

About ADVAM (www.advam.com)

ADVAM delivers world leading payment solutions, providing the expertise to make processing payments easier for its clients. ADVAM's reservation platform, parking solutions, unattended hardware and integrated online payment solutions enable clients to engage with their customers online, via mobile or at self-service terminals.

With teams and offices in Australia, New Zealand, UK and now the US, ADVAM services a client base that spans a range of sectors including some of the leading airports, parking operators, shopping centres and local government organisations.

Each client benefits from ADVAM’s depth of experience and industry knowledge. By working with its clients and alongside industry partners, ADVAM’s solutions integrate with clients’ existing infrastructure and business processes.
As the trusted business partner for payment solutions, ADVAM manages the complete end-to-end integration and enables clients to focus on improving their customers’ experience.