Customers usually choose the play, not the theatre. However, the ancillary experience around the play has a major impact on the customer’s memory of the event, and their likelihood to return. The Lyric Hammersmith wanted to understand what the current customer experience was, and whether there were obvious areas for improvement.

What where the outcomes?

The majority of the overall Lyric experience was very positive. However, it was clear that some elements of the arrival experience, such as way-finding, were confusing, and in particular customers did not feel that the Hats and Coats facility was secure enough to leave laptops. As many customers came after work during the week, they would consequently take bags into the theatre hall with them, taking away any leg room and making the seats fundamentally uncomfortable. Ironically, the customers were used to this and did not notice it as being out of the ordinary, despite the impact it had on their experience.

We identified interventions that would improve trust around leaving laptops in the cloakroom, in order to improve overall comfort (and hence improve the overall experience of the performance), and also looked at how to improve other elements of the experience that the customers found frustrating or confusing.

This also led to increased revenue opportunities. For example, our sample customer arranged to meet her friend outside the theatre because she did not know of the existence of an internal plaza containing a bar, café and restaurant. Tweaking the information process at booking and arrival will increase the flow of customers to this space prior to the performance.