How RocketRez helped Mennonite Heritage Village Streamline Operations with Museum Software

RocketRez has honed several features over the years that meet the specific operational nuances of a Museum or Gallery. Implementing our museum software has allowed the MHV to streamline administration and reduce manual work on-site while adhering to COVID-19 protocols.

Online Sales

Museum customers must plan some logistics on the day of their visit. Some customers travel from far away with their whole families. Once they arrive at the museum, they have a limited time frame and a lot of options for exhibits to view and additional activities to participate in. Being thoughtful about the planning they must do, and providing all the information they need in an easy-to-use way, dramatically improves your guest experience.

“The way we’ve done it in the past was a PDF that you download from our website, scan and email it back, then wait for our confirmation. [With RocketRez], we have all the information about what you can experience, you choose from the menu online and say, “book now”. – Patrick Friesen, Development Coordinator

Here is a sample of your options when visiting the Mennonite Heritage Village:

• Indoor Gallery
• Outdoor Village
• Barrel Train Ride
• Horse Drawn Carriage
• Traditional Meal
• 38 Historical Monuments

Beyond individual and family purchases, the Mennonite Heritage Village derives a lot of its customers from school field trips.

Simplifying the process with a live “shopping cart” in our online sales web engine allows for better planning on the part of trip organizers and better forecasting for the MHV’s staff capacity planning.

Timed Entry

With a large suite of activities to choose from, it is common for a guest to spend two to three hours at the Mennonite Heritage Village.

This requires the team to ensure the crowd is neither too large, nor too small, at any given time throughout the day.

Customers who drive an hour and a half to go to the Mennonite Heritage Village will be frustrated and less likely to return should they find that its full when they arrive.

Timed ticketing allows staff to plan capacity and stop selling tickets at the optimal number of guests on the grounds.

“Our current demographic skews a bit older. Within a couple hours of going live we had people logging in to buy tickets. It’s evidence that the online flow makes sense”. – Patrick Friesen, Development Coordinator

The data RocketRez provides, combined the MHV team’s operational insights on the ground, allow them to hone these numbers and the associated prices to bring in additional customers in slow traffic times.

Rotating Exhibits

The MHV, like many museums and galleries, has several static exhibits that form the core of their offering. They then rotate a host of different exhibits, events, features and guest speakers to ensure they keep their customers engaged.

RocketRez gives MHV the ability to update their online sales engine to show new rich imagery and descriptions - with their centrally administered capacity and pricing settings for each new event.

Thanks to the “drag and drop” modularity of our web engine, this can be updated as often as needed with minimal technical knowledge required.

Memberships

The MHV is a member-driven museum and member communications are very important to them.

“The ability to manage memberships has been a vexing process for us. The renewals, keeping communication with members has been a bit of a strain at times”. – Patrick Friesen, Development Coordinator

Partnering with RocketRez has allowed them to streamline memberships and online donations with museum software allowing seamless payment options that recur monthly (or annually with a discount).

Customers are automatically sent all applicable renewal confirmations and receipts and can be sent a template email with the MHV’s key messages of gratitude and periodic updates.

Private Events

Finally, the Mennonite Heritage Village hosts many private events like graduations and weddings.

Putting together a package of services to satisfy all customer needs requires on-site staff planning and also management of some third-party services.

“The ability to manage those contracts. Hold the deposit, schedule the payment process, communicate with an outside photographer or caterer. It will be great to manage that all within the RocketRez system." – Patrick Friesen, Development Coordinator

The ability to centralize this within RocketRez makes sure there is a central record of planning and updates for all staff to review.

While imposed in a rush by COVID-19 restrictions, the Museum believes our museum software have improved both their operations and the customer buying experience and will remain in place for years to come.