Advertising, Marketing & PR

Winning Family Customers

Families form a significant part of the day and overnight visitor economy, and ensuring you successfully cater for them can widen your market and increase business levels.  Families with under fives help to fill off-peak periods and attracting local families can boost quite changeover days.

 With the current downturn, some analysts are predicting that to save costs, extended family and friends may holiday and visit together. At the same time, many customers are watching the pounds and pennies closely and are looking for maximum value and maximum experience from their spend.  So understanding how to successfully meet this market, may give you the edge over the competition.

What is a family in the 21^st century?

Well, what it isn’t is two up two down any more.  If you want to be more family friendly, then you need to consider the wide diversity in today’s family makeup.  For example, many families:

• are lone parent families, with only one income and one parent to do all the breadwinning and caring - mostly, but not exclusively, headed by women (9 out of 10, source ONS)
• contain adults not related to the children
• contain step brothers and sisters encompassing different age ranges, interests and family cultures
• contain ‘second’ families, so there can be a wide disparity between the oldest and youngest children
• travel on day trips and holidays with grandparents, aunts, uncles etc, and can therefore contain multiple generations
• ask grandparents to take the children out for daytrips or away for breaks, while parents work
• increasingly contain adult children: since 1991 the proportion of men and women aged 20 – 24 living at home has increased by 8 and 7 percentage respectively with now, 58% of young men aged 20 – 24 live with their parents (source ONS)

If families can be so diverse, how can you hope to successfully meet their needs?

Understanding who your customers are, how and why they book with or buy from you, what kind of experience they hope and expect to get, and what their habits and interests are is always the first step to beginning to meet their needs.  Start of by observing your own customers.  Ask for feedback. Conduct surveys and polls and collect verbal feedback from the customers you actually win, but also try to find out about customers who enquire but don’t book or buy.  You can question telephone enquirers: devise short questionnaires that ask key questions about your customers’ motivations, expectations and hopes, and train front of house staff to ask, “While I’ve got you on a phone, we’re just conducting a very quick customer survey to help us improve our service. Can I just ask you 3/4/5 quick questions about what you’re hoping for?”  or similar.  Try it with email enquiries and ask your web developer to add a short survey to your site.  Understanding who your customers are, what makeup their party is, what they are looking for and what they are likely to spend will set the framework for adjusting your offering.

The second step is to generate ideas about how to (cost effectively) meet these needs and tap into niche areas.  Aside from asking customers don’t forget to ask your own family and friends.  Encourage staff to be family friendly and to keep an eye out for service improvements and feedback.  Run a competition for best family friendly ideas or keep the topic alive in a regular slot at the weekly staff meeting.

Draw ideas from other successful, family friendly businesses, not just in your region but in other areas of the UK and even abroad.  What do they offer that you could imitate or adapt?

Remember the key things:

• Provide a real welcome – don’t just tolerate kids and families
• Engage everyone – make sure there is something for each age group (adults and grandparents too) across all areas of your business
• Add the little touches – that make life easier and more enjoyable
• Train staff - so that their number one priority is to keep customers happy

What are family customers looking for?

Like most customers, they are looking for:

• a clear idea of what’s on offer, with plenty of information to plan and manage their visit
• easy ways to book and buy
• clear instructions on how to get there
• good parking and good access (for everyone including those with pushchairs, wheel chairs, back pack child carriers, older customers and those who aren’t so agile, well sighted or who are hard of hearing etc)
• a genuine welcome and upbeat staff
• an experience that pleases and engages everyone – from the youngest to the oldest
• good facilities and good customer service
• good food with plenty of choice
• great toilets
• the little touches that make life easier
• an easy departure
• good value

Tips and ideas

Ultimately you need to tailor your service to meet your customers, and you need to analyse your costs and potential returns to ensure you stay viable, but here are some family friendly ideas to consider in order to get your creative juices flowing:

• Provide lots of information – to make deciding to book easy. Include detailed information about prices, openings, offers, facilities and services and suggest ways families can get the most out of their visit with you (including other things to see and do nearby).  Don’t forget kids can be very influential in this process, so make sure the look and feel of your information appeals to kids too, and even consider adding games, quizzes and a child’s checklist to build anticipation and participation.  Don’t forget reviews from other families.
• Let your family tickets/offers allow two adults (of any makeup) and up to five children – this allows two lone parents, grandparents taking the kids out, step families and other non-conventional family units to take advantage of these concessions.
• Make arrival and access easy –  as well as clear directions and parking for the grownups,include a family friendly map so perhaps younger ones can ‘navigate’ the last bit, or include landmarks for them to spot on the way, or word games to play in the car/on the bus.  Make parking easy, well signed and well spaced and make it clear how to arrive by public transport.  And ensure access around your building is as easy and safe as it can be for all users – including unsteady little ones, older customers with limited mobility, those with hearing and sight impairments, etc.
• Keep those arriving and queueing entertained and comfortable – queueing or waiting for ages without any entertainment is an awful start to the experience (and don’t forget for kids ‘ages’ can be just a few minutes).  Whether booking in at a hotel or campsite, in a traffic jam leading to the entrance or queueing for a busy attraction find innovative ways to help people wait: provide welcome information, posters and signs to help them plan their time, stencil a poem in a long ribbon along the wall, provide music (and get people dancing), a quiz or competition, get staff entertaining customers, take brollies out in wet weather etc and free water in hot weather etc.
• Greet families warmly, provide a personal service and make it special.  If you say you’re family friendly then mean it.  Let family customers know they are welcome and you’ll do all you can to ensure everyone has what they need and a good time. Use clear and welcoming signage.  Encourage staff to greet and engage with customers.   It may be just another working day for you, but for them it’s something they’ve saved for and looked forward to, so smile, chat and do your bit to make sure it’s an easy and happy time.
• Make toilets and bathrooms easy to use – this includes placing some near the car park or entrance, cubicles big enough for Mum/Dad to come in too, potties, training seats, baby changing (for Mum and Dad and perhaps with a few spare essentials available), grab handles, child friendly sinks, taps and hand driers.  Accommodation providers can go one step further: little towelling robes, a baby bath or baby seat, safe bath toys, child-friendly shampoos etc.
• Ensure you capture the kids and the adults’ interest– neither party wants to be bored at the other’s expense.  How you do this depends on your business type: provide a range of family games/DVDs/books that suit different ages; put a family ‘pub’ quiz on the back of menus or place mats; consider producing different interpretation materials for different age groups, eg audio tours or pod casts delivered by differently aged characters - not only can you explore your attraction at different levels, but it gives families something to talk about and compare when the tours are over.
• Provide the little touches and the flexibility that make life easier – depending on your business type: flexible sleeping arrangements, travel cots or fold out beds; flexible mealtimes and seating arrangements; a safe place to store buggies and bags; comfortable seating for those not participating; a DVD player and iPod docking station; wireless access and internet points; a socket to charge mobiles or laptops; a pleasant place to breastfeed;  a quiet zone – not everyone, even the kids, want to be constantly charging around in a high octane way; sturdy toys for under fives;  a dressing up box; free baby wipes; highchairs or booster seats;  a customer microwave for reheating baby food; free tastings to help the picky choose; cheap ready-reading glasses in your shop for those who’ve forgotten theirs; books and magazines for a range of ages and interests, and newspapers; local interest facts or quirky facts and figures and family quizzes and competitions to brighten mealtimes or queues; inspiring trails and walks, so adults don’t have to do all the running in getting their kids outside or engaged...
• Serve healthy food – don’t assume all families want chips and burgers. Many, many don’t and the campaigns like 5-a-day, Eat More, Move More and Jamie Oliver School Dinners have reinforced the message with kids too.  Why not serve half portions of existing menu items to create your kids menu - and don’t have an under 12 rule or similar. This allows anyone with a small appetite (for example older customers, those with an illness, dieters etc) as well as children to participate in the full menu just like everyone else.  And throw in free squash refills, second kids drinks half price or supply water jugs so thirsty kids don’t suffer and parents don’t get stressed about the added costs.
• Make leaving easy (and enjoyable) – provide give always to thank them for their custom or help them remember you, like pens, rubbers, stickers, a postcard, bookmark or even just a tin of chocolates at the exit; provide a branded sheet with games and puzzles for the trip home, preferably with a theme related to your business (but stick to simple word, spotting or memory games to avoid car sickness!), print a family friendly message on the bill, help families book forward travel or accommodation, post latest traffic news etc at the exit.
• Take feedback – leaving is the perfect place to take feedback.  Give customers the chance to provide an honest review and suggest new ideas, and act on what you find.
• Provide incentives to return – send a follow up email saying you hope they had a good time and hope to see them soon.  Provide discounted re-visit offers.  Publicise your forthcoming events or updated facilities to previous customers.  Devise a loyalty scheme. Join forces with another business to offer a combined package.

Further information and help

• There are lots of books, newspaper articles and website promoting family friendly establishments – check these out for ideas and to gain tips from what other businesses are doing
• Take a look at theKids in Museums manifesto, although it is geared towards museum attractions, the principles can be applied anywhere
• Download the Families Welcome pdf from the Quality in Tourism site (aimed at accommodation providers)