In the second part of this book, we will move into examining the real meat of delivering the visitor experience: the day-to-day management of an operation and a team.

In Chapter 6, we examine the procedures we use to manage an operation and the all-important role of the Duty Manager. I’ll suggest some best practice, and a case study from world-class heritage attraction Stonehenge will show how service recovery can turn a situation round even when things go wrong.

Chapter 7 will explore the most important role of the Visitor Experience Manager: managing a team. We’ll look at motivation and performance management, both good and not so good.

In Chapter 8, I’ll use a case study from a previous role at Kew Palace to further explore how we look after our teams. In this instance, I will focus on the emotional wellbeing of our teams, and specifically, what we can do to safeguard this when dealing with exhibitions, collections and programmes that include challenging content.

Chapter 9 deals with that mainstay of museum visitor experience: the guided tour. We’ll look at the pros and cons of guided tours and use a case study from the highly successful Hidden London tours from the London Transport Museum to explore best practice.

Finally, we’ll look at what happens when that day-to-day management goes straight out of the window! Crisis management practice has been heavily impacted by the experience of COVID-19, so Chapter 10 reviews our learnings and suggests new best practice for keeping our crisis management plans and processes ready to go.