Audience Relations

The Customer Is Sometimes Very Wrong

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Earlier this month, Thomas Cott’s You’ve Cott Mail had some stories about dealing with divas. While there are a few divas I have had to deal with, I actually feel like I have encountered fewer abrasive personalities in the arts over the last few years than when I was younger. It may just be that I am more confident now than I was in the early part of my career and I have enough experience dealing with such people that I either 1) identify them immediately and avoid becoming involved in the first place or 2) identify them immediately and take preemptive action to diminish opportunities for conflict.

I have actually had the occasion to pull customers aside and tell them I won’t tolerate them treating my staff in a certain manner more recently than saying the same to an artist. Of course, as I mentioned, looking over a touring artist’s contract you can often prepare for potential problems months prior to their arrival. You really don’t know if an audience member/renter will cause a problem until the moment it occurs.

Which is not to say you can’t channel your inner boy scout and be prepared.

Cott cites a blog entry by Seth Godin who mentions that it is tougher for people to get away with being a jerk because technology allows us to both learn about problematic people more effectively and identify alternatives.

While this is true for the providers of services, this is also true for the consumers. Performers can find out about bad experiences others have had at different venues and either avoid them or take steps to ensure their needs are met.

But it is also true for our customers. We often don’t talk about using this side of technology. We celebrate the fact that technology allows us to offer better customer service by recording customer preferences, noting how we disappointed them in the past so we can do better in the future and rewarding them for their record of loyalty. This is as it should be. Our focus should absolutely be on providing better service.

However, we should also value the contributions of our staff, collaborators, partners, etc, to our success and make an effort to provide a positive work environment and experience. Corporations apparently need to spend billions paying bonuses to retain the top talent, it behooves us to spend a little time making notes and taking steps to retain valued employees.

The same technology that allows you to remember your customer’s preferences so that they don’t have to reiterate them at every interaction also allows you to note that they give your staff a hard time, press them with heavy demands when renting your facility due to their lack of preparation or frequently challenge their credit card charges.

Making notes allows you to address these issues in advance of the next encounter in an effort to improve your relationship and experience–and take appropriate action if the changes don’t emerge.

Obviously, most companies aren’t going to get into discussing negative experiences with their customers over the internet the way customers will about them. (Though you may be sorely tempted!!!) However, when I wrote a few of these examples, I had particular instances in mind. The situation with people challenging their credit card statement in a serial manner has actually happened. Being on a ticketing system which shares a database of names and addresses allows us to serve our customers without repeatedly asking them to wait while we enter their personal information and it also allows us to provide warnings to colleagues about who is habitually trying to get out of paying for their tickets at venues around town.

The problem with flagging people for negative interactions is that it can be abused to take revenge for petty slights. Which is one of the reasons few companies encourage these sort of notes in customer records. Not to mention the records might be subpenaed or hacked so you don’t want to write anything you wouldn’t say in public.

But for those egregious cases where people make your staff miserable, you owe it to everyone to keep proper records. Time makes memories fade and problems don’t seem as serious later on…until the person does something to remind you why you didn’t want them back. In non-profits there is a lot of staff turnover so good notes can help smooth transitions by maintaining a portion of the organizational memory.

Good notes can help you strengthen your relationships with the majority of your customers by identifying their needs and preferences, but also prevent you from letting the minority of your customers divert time and resources more constructively spent on the bulk of your customer base.

Distinguishing Yourself With Your Own Best Practices

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One of the big focuses on college campuses today is tracking student success. It is important that students both earn their degree in a timely manner and have developed appropriate mastery. Classes are scrutinized and numbers crunched to insure quality is being maintained but that instruction is not delivered in a manner that inhibits student success.

The students need to master the material, but the way the material is delivered may need to be changed to facilitate the learning process. As you might imagine, there are a lot of conversations about whether standards are being compromised along the way.

I hadn’t really seen many connections with the arts until I read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education this week one of the early sections struck a chord.

1) Institutions should improve student success by focusing on practices within their control instead of blaming external factors.

When asked about the challenges they face in helping more students graduate, higher-education leaders tend to list external forces, such as budget cuts and poor academic preparation. Yet regardless of whether states or the federal government restore needed support, or our K-12 system produces better-prepared graduates, institutions can do more with mechanisms directly within their control to help the students they enroll.

Research has shown that institutional practices make a big difference in student success. Similar institutions (of comparable size, selectivity, and student composition) vary more significantly in their completion rates and success with underrepresented populations within segments than they do between segments—with high performers outpacing low performers by as much as 40 percentage points.

The same complaints are made by arts organizations- funding cuts, lack of arts exposure/involvement and other external pressures. The article goes on to mention that the profile of students diverges from traditional in some way and that they “swirl,” attending more than one institution, sometimes simultaneously.

Certainly the arts face the same thing with audience composition changing and splitting their arts and entertainment activities between many choices. Arts organizations struggle with the expectations their audiences bring to the experience in much the same way as colleges struggle to meet student expectations that their credits will transfer from other institutions.

Yes, even if you are adept at handling them, external forces impact your organization immensely and can not be ignored. But there are still many things within in the scope of your control which can positively impact audience experiences.

Unfortunately, unlike college, the arts are not seen as critical to life long success. Where colleges can answer the problem of poor K-12 preparation by offering more remediation and earning money by the effort, there isn’t as much money to be made from filling in the gaps in people’s cultural education.

Which is not to say educational programs can’t be successful for an individual organization, the necessity of bolstering one’s creativity and arts knowledge just isn’t as widespread a cultural value driving people to our doors. I suspect that this is where the second paragraph I quoted applies. Internal institutional practices can probably likewise make a difference in successful audience/community engagement and set one organization apart from similar organizations.

If you read as many articles and blogs as I do in the pursuit of improving your practices (and creating content for your blog) you may be intimidated by the long list of things you are supposed to be doing to improve your organization. I think one of the things that doesn’t get emphasized enough is to make sure your internal practices are playing to your particular organizations strengths rather than trying to replicate/adopt what you read other people are doing.

Using social media may help raise your organizational profile immensely, but the tone and frequency of your interactions should be your own and not mirror that of the big organization you wish you were. The same with your website, the people answering your phone, your ushering staff, curtain speech, lobby decorations, press releases. It should all play to your strengths rather than reflect industry best practices.

You would think all this would be a given, but think a moment and if your like me you can think of a few encounters you have had that ran contrary to the general environment and screamed “industry best practice.” (And if you think a little harder and honestly, you can probably identify some you have perpetuated.)

Granted, some times it is difficult to separate what you value about yourself from the actual organizational strength. For example, a farmer may view his expertise at growing a certain crop as a strength, overlooking the assets of the quality of the soil that can allow him to grow other crops now in demand.

This is a rather simplistic example, but in a similar way arts organizations can define themselves by their performances only, overlooking the asset of their production studios which can meet a burgeoning demand.

Should Arts Organizations Sanction Electronic Devices

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Let me just preface this entry by saying I am pretty much old school when it comes to attending performances. I don’t have any problem sitting passively in a dark room watching a performance. I don’t have any problem standing in a dark room and moving around as required for site specific performances. Sure, I get a little uncomfortable when performers in elephant masks sit on my lap and put their arms around me, but I am pretty much open to whatever experience the performers are offering me.

But as a person who programs and administers a performing arts facility, my job requires me to acknowledge that not everyone seeks the same experiences I do and I have to pay attention and be open to making changes.

When you go to the movies, you can’t bring in your own food. Not because the theatres don’t allow food, but because they want to control the environment their spaces–namely the food is purchased from them.

I wonder if the same situation exists in relation to the performing arts. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend about why you shouldn’t text while in the theatre. I actually agree with the points about wasting money, annoying other people, maybe you are the one that is boring, you aren’t in the moment, you wouldn’t text while your lawyer is advising you and you are interacting with machine instead of humans.

But what is the difference between using a cell phone and Concert Companion? Many of those same points can apply, except Concert Companion is developed and supported by arts organizations and foundations. While I am not sure Concert Companion is still active, the most recent article I can find on it is seven years old, it shows that nearly a decade ago orchestras were already thinking of introducing hand held electronic devices people could reference throughout a concert into the performance hall.

Perhaps they didn’t recognize the problems this might cause, including giving license to others in the audience to pull out their own devices for other purposes. My question is, would these devices be welcomed if they were serving the arts organization? If audiences, especially new audiences, showed an interest in using their iPhones to access information about a performance and told the performing arts organization that it really enhanced the experience, would there be more tolerance for the glowing screens?

There was recently a story about Quebecois artist, Olivier Choinière, who as part of his performance piece arranged for people to attend a performance of Moliere’s School for Wives at Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. The 80 people in his “audience” were instructed to hide their headphones until the lights went down and then start listening to a podcast.

“What the audience within a larger audience was then treated to was Choinière’s indignant but humorous real-time commentary, in which he questioned whether the metatheatrical production lived up to the claims, in the promotional material, that the director had found “terrible resonances with our society” (for instance, regarding pornography and pedophilia) in Molière’s 1662 play about a misogynist named Arnolphe who raises a young girl to be the perfect wife.”

I don’t really agree with Choinière’s event and would agree that it was somewhat closer to being parasitical than a performance. Yet, I think it is an interesting concept and I am sure many of you do as well. I can easily imagine arts organizations doing something similar to help guide audience members through a performance. Provided people keep the volume down so their neighbors can’t hear, ear buds are a far less obtrusive alternative to the glowing screens of Concert Companion type guides.

Though I suspect once people starting using the guides, I suspect they wouldn’t be satisfied with just listening and might crave the accompaniment of visual information as well.

So is it okay for people to listen to podcast commentary or look at supporting materials as long as it supports the show, but a invasive practice if someone is criticizing and lampooning the performance? Will ushers back away quietly when they see an approved image of John Cage on a hand held screen, but swoop down if they see someone texting about their physics homework?

Again, to my mind all these devices are extraneous and intrusive. However, I realize many people didn’t have parents and schools that exposed them to the arts (ah, memories of my sister shouting “Mommy, they are naked,” in reaction to dancers in body stockings.) Right now we see the presence of these devices as detrimental to the experience, but there is a fair possibility that if people start developing performance related content, they will viewed as useful tools for educating and enhancing the experience in the near future.

It would be great if audiences eventually got to the point where they could wean themselves off using devices, but once people start, they may expect/seek material to supplement a performance. No guarantee that the material will always be complimentary or under the arts organization’s control.

While it is easy to criticize, to do a good job providing a running criticism, you would have to know the material about as well as you would to provide a running educational commentary. If there are people like Choinière who have enough motivation to create a criticism, there are probably those just as motivated to create a helpful guide. Tough part might be identifying them so you can partner with them (or point audiences toward their material). It might make sense to seek these people out now (or task your education department to generate the material) before you find yourself scrambling to do so in reaction to a Choinière.

As I sit here writing this, I am thinking, “God, do I really want to create an environment in my theatre that encourages people to use mobile devices?” Yes, people are already doing so against our wishes, but do we really want to sanction that activity by providing content for it? If you think there is a good chance someone else might eventually create negative content, it would probably be good to at least start having hypothetical conversations about how you might implement your own program or otherwise constructively react.

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Reader Challenge- In addition to sanction and cleave, are there other words in the English language that have opposite meanings? I seem to remember at least one more.

Charm Offensive (Minus The Offensive)

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I was reading the Western Arts Alliance (WAA) Spring Newsletter today and there was a letter from Alliance President John Haynes (page 2) giving his view of what audience engagement is really about.

He tells a story of his time as a programming executive at CBS TV when he pretty much had an unlimited expense account and could do just about anything that struck his fancy. He would regularly order pizza delivered to his apartment and he could hear its approach long before it got to the door thanks to the singing of the Neapolitan deliveryman. At one point the delivery man confessed he was having a hard time saving his money because he was attending the opera a few times a week. Haynes confessed in turn that he had never attended the opera, a fact that flabbergasted the delivery man.

“He was shocked. Here I was, living the good life in a doorman high‐rise on West End Avenue, three blocks from Lincoln Center, but bereft of the most glorious creations of mankind. He sang longer and with more feeling that night than ever before. Neighbors I’d never met came out of their apartments. He sang his way to the elevator and was still singing when the door closed.”

The next time Haynes ordered pizza, the delivery guy showed up at the door with two tickets to the opera. Haynes attended his first opera, Carmen, with the pizza deliveryman. He says that he has seen his role as an arts administrator to do for others what the pizza deliveryman did for him; expanding the scope of his experience. “And that’s how I came to conceive of my role as an “arts leader. I’m just the pizza delivery man. ‘Wanna see something cool?'”

The pizza deliveryman was an apt model for the arts community. He was clearly passionate about a segment of the arts. Even though he couldn’t believe Haynes did not go to the opera, much less love it, he managed to express it in a humble rather than condescending way. (And like the arts, he was poor and funded his passion through donations/Haynes’ large tips.)

Of course the challenge we face today is that unlike Haynes, audiences aren’t necessarily won over after one exposure. And many of us are expending great effort in the direction of audiences who are not CBS executives with unlimited expense accounts. Regardless, we do have the same opportunity the pizza man had. We can unabashedly share our passion where ever we go and maybe after repeated exposure, people will start to open up to the possibility of sharing whatever it is that makes us (metaphorically) sing. (Keeping in mind that constantly singing songs from Wicked, either literally or figuratively, is going to make people want to throttle you.)

I realize that since this is filtered through Haynes’ recollection, the pizza deliveryman sounds very charming. Someone else might have perceived him as pushy and elitist. Though I have to think he was indeed as earnest as Haynes portrays him.

The pizza man has had his victory. For the rest of us, another challenge is to be charming as we talk about our passions and avoid making people’s eyes glaze over as we yammer on–or worse, harden as they feel alienated by the tone and direction of the conversation.

Most everyone in the arts seems to be invested in this shared goal, but there are few clear tips circulating about how to accomplish it. Perhaps it is as easy as the “be yourself” advice dispensed about dating. But if that were effective, there wouldn’t be 1,000 new dating articles on newsstands and the internet every week.

I’d suggest more practical and specific advice about diminishing the appearance of elitism might be what the arts needs. But like I said, advice on any sort of relationship doesn’t seem to provide much clarity or instill confidence.

Dear Thespis-

There is a woman at the supermarket I would really like to get to know better as an audience member. However, she seems to think I am elitist snob even though the resale value on her five year old SUV is still more than I made last year. How do I get her to even consider looking my way?