And if museums are able to engage and educate these mercurial children, can any of their tactics be used by businesses to better engage and educate customers<\/em>?<\/p>\n We decided to find out.<\/p>\n Jack Rouse Associates is an attraction design company. Over the past few decades, JRA has planned, designed, and realized<\/a> a wide variety of kids’ attractions and immersive museums around the world.<\/p>\n Most of us would assume that a children\u2019s museum is pretty easy to set up. Just put up some interactive exhibits and let the kids run wild!<\/p>\n For JRA VP of Business Development Shawn McCoy, however, that\u2019s not how things are done at all.<\/p>\n Taking a more business-like approach, McCoy describes the core design philosophies<\/strong> that go into creating children\u2019s museums; elements which allow children to get maximum value from their time in the museum, to make the experience as meaningful, instructive, and enjoyable as possible.<\/p>\n Show of hands\u2014who recognizes these exact same principles<\/em> from the business world? From the customer experience world? Most of these children\u2019s museum philosophies can be directly applied to the art of customer experience within for-profit businesses. Let\u2019s examine a couple of them in more detail.<\/p>\n Your customers are real, emotionally driven human beings with personalities, impulses, and a sense of humor. To make them feel comfortable with your business, it\u2019s important to create environments and contexts that feel familiar to them.<\/p>\n You need to understand your customer well enough to know the best way to communicate with them, to lay out your website, to brand your products \u2026 all with the goal of engaging this target customer<\/strong> as well as possible.<\/p>\n Your prospects are just like kids: a dynamic, inviting environment will engage them far better than a bland wall of text! This empathy for the person is what many companies miss when planning CX. It\u2019s something that kids museums focus on heavily (primarily, even) and it\u2019s definitely something businesses can learn from.<\/p>\n This is already a famous marketing philosophy<\/a>. Most companies set themselves up as the hero, ready to save the day: \u201cLook at what our amazing product can do for you!<\/em>\u201d But we\u2019re learning (and what the designers of children\u2019s museums already know) is that making the customer<\/em> the hero is a far more successful strategy.<\/p>\n A children\u2019s museum doesn\u2019t tell kids that water hoses put out fires; they let the child extinguish the fire using the hose! Your company shouldn\u2019t tell prospects how great your products are, it should show them their brilliant future after using it.<\/p>\n Apple\u2019s groundbreaking slogan wasn\u2019t \u201cWe\u2019ve built the world\u2019s best music device with 5GB of storage!!\u201d\u2014it was, \u201c1000 songs in your pocket.\u201d The first is completely accurate, but the second captures the imagination of the user and shows them what their future looks like with this product.<\/p>\n This one is a bit more of a stretch, but hear us out. Most of your customers will come to you with a specific problem that your product or service solves. Once they\u2019ve got one foot through the door, you can explore all the other<\/em> problems you can solve, and the other ways your business can help them.<\/p>\n For children, museums use this idea to help them understand the physical world around them. For businesses, it\u2019s about expanding the tiny little world their customers live in\u2014the one in which your business can be much more valuable than they initially thought.<\/p>\n Make sure to consider this when interacting with prospects. Just because they came to solve that<\/em> problem doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s all you can help with. Explore their broader world and see what else you can do.<\/p>\n Before creating any specific attraction, McCoy also stops to consider what all children need in general. Things like:<\/p>\n This is another principle that businesses can apply to their own contexts. What are the things that all<\/em> of your customers need?<\/p>\n It will depend on your business and its exact audience(s), of course, but keeping these simple priorities top of mind will help you plan your CX and remind you what to prioritize most.<\/p>\n A crucial element of the children\u2019s museum is freedom: freedom to play and roam and develop skills like curiosity, confidence, and creativity.<\/p>\n Part of running a children\u2019s museum is having a clear purpose<\/em> behind seemingly innocuous activities. For example, an exhibit where children play at being dentists<\/a> has been designed to teach children the importance of oral hygiene and that dental tools aren\u2019t scary. By introducing these ideas in a pressure-free environment (through play) children learn crucial skills more effectively than, say, by reading plaques like in an adult museum.<\/p>\n This is another lesson that many businesses are already applying with their customers. Consider the free demo or free trial for SaaS companies. Rather than preaching about how amazing their product is, companies put their customers<\/em> in the driving seat and let them play around with it themselves.<\/p>\nChildren\u2019s museums: Creative whimsy or careful strategy?<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nChildren\u2019s Museum Design Philosophies<\/h3>\n
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Provide familiar, inviting, and fun context<\/h3>\n
Let the customer be the hero<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nAssist the customer in facing the world around them<\/h3>\n
Taking things back to basics<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nGiving customers freedom to \u201cplay\u201d<\/h2>\n