Case Study - Tourism Northern Ireland.
Tourism Northern Ireland have a network of over 30 VICs (Visitor Information Centres) that act as local information hubs, promoting their area and increasing dwell time and spend of visitors, in each destination.
Additionally, VICs work with their local partners and stakeholders to extend the reach of visitor information provision at all stages in the customer journey.
Challenge Faced
TNI support the VICs by conducting regular mystery shopping audits that include a digital audit, visit assessment of the VIC, the initial welcome experienced by visitors to that area and the overall visitor experience in the surrounding area.
Solution
Insight NI designed bespoke customer experience mystery audits based on the visitor’s end to end journey and facilitated regular audits for all VICs. Audits included a pre-visit review of the destination web content and social media sites in advance of visit, an assessment of the service delivery within the VIC, analysis of the welcome experience plus the experience at several key touchpoints e.g. train station, hotel, cafe or visitor attraction.
Mystery audits were facilitated on an ongoing basis throughout the year using varying customer personas and scenarios.
Results
The audits provided each VIC with insight into their online performance and face to face service delivery including welcome, knowledge, identifying customer needs and ability to tailor the visitor response to promote the area for increased spend and dwell time. They also measured the typical visitor’s experience of their town and the level of service and information delivered by their stakeholders and tourism partners. In addition to measuring and evaluating the knowledge and service delivered at each VIC, the audits helped the centres to identify any training needs or gaps in knowledge of their tourism partners e.g. local knowledge, need for fam trips, TripAdvisor support etc.
Based on the audit results Insight Mystery Shopping also supported the VICs through bespoke training courses and manuals that improved and enhanced the VIC service and overall visitor experience.