Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

It’s All Great! - A unified quality of experience across five sites.

“We challenged TheWholeStory to bring together the staff and volunteers from 5 historic sites to create a cohesive story and consistent visitor experience. Treating each participant as individuals, Josh and Lily use their natural empathy and ability to read people to bring out the best in everyone. Creating a safe, open learning environment, participants focus on the learning, rather than the worry that ever accompanies the unknown. All came away full of new ways to tell our stories and engage with our visitors, whilst eagerly asking when the next module would be. Josh and Lily are a joy to work with; infinitely helpful, flexible, always available on the phone or by email and willing to adapt to their client’s needs at short notice. I cannot recommend theWholeStory highly enough.”

Head of Visitor Experience, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Beginning.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is the independent charity that cares for the world’s greatest Shakespeare heritage sites in Stratford-upon-Avon, and promotes the enjoyment and understanding of his works, life and times all over the world. They wanted to help all their front of house teams (whether new to the role or seasoned old hands) be more proactive in approaching and engaging visitors. Storytelling offered a means to improve abilities to share the stories surrounding Shakespeare’s life, to link one site to the next and to have a unified experience across all five sites whilst not losing their individuality.

Middle.

Mixing participants, from across sites, for sets of three workshops, helped create a unified workforce, working with common a methodology and a shared aim. The first workshop explored the experience staff wanted for their visitors and what they can do to achieve it. Participants shared anecdotes and experience, found new solutions to old problems and defined visitor experience best practice. In the second and third workshops participants used storytelling techniques to create pop up interactions, alongside refreshing and enhancing communication capabilities for conversations, tours, talks and welcomes so to connect and engage visitors with Shakespeare and Stratford upon Avon.

End.

Participants are now better able to not only meet but exceed visitor expectations. Each element of the organisation tells it’s part of the whole story in an improved and common manner, whilst honouring the individual characteristics and personality of each site and the staff and volunteers who work there. The process of the training and the techniques learnt gave staff more confidence to approach and interact with their visitors, resulting in a greater understanding, and appreciation, of Shakespeare and his time in Stratford upon Avon.