Melbourne Museum uses customer insights to improve the parking experience
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. 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.
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
Following a targeted marketing campaign, Melbourne Museum ave seen 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 rating.
