Melbourne Holocaust Museum

Dr Breann Fallon, CEO, Melbourne Holocaust Museum joins Georgie in this episode to unpack how architecture, people and data combine to create a visitor journey that is both compassionate and deeply effective.

When people think customer experience, they often think retail or events - but it flows through every sector and is particularly important in a cultural and education setting.

In this episode, Georgie and Breann explore the importance of the customer and visitor experience at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, how visitor behaviours have changed in a post pandemic world, the role volunteers play in the visitor experience and how visitors are responding to the newly re-built Melbourne Holocaust Museum.

We know the physical environment has a huge impact on how we experience things and this is front and centre at their stunning new building. From a light‑filled central spine to views of green and natural light on every level, the design supports the museum’s “safely in, safely through, safely out” pedagogy, so guests can engage with difficult history.

Throughout, Georgie and Breann keep returning to a clear stance: automation has its place, but human connection is irreplaceable. A warm welcome, a steady guide, a moment of empathy in a quiet foyer: these are the touchpoints that anchor safety, trust and learning.
 
If you care about customer experience, social impact, or how design shapes emotion, this conversation will reset your benchmarks. 

Subscribe, share with a friend who works in CX or education and leave a review to tell us which insight resonated most. 

Then plan a visit to mhm.org.au and see how light can sweep out darkness.

Georgie Stayches, host of The Art & Heart of CX, brings a human lens to how businesses design Customer Experience (CX). She explores how every little detail impacts how a customer interprets, experiences and recalls a situation - from our senses to the built and natural environments - and how this can impact brand loyalty, word of mouth marketing and revenue.

Each episode she invites a special guess from all works of life and industries to share what they consider the art and hear of CX.

Want to hear more from Georgie? Her keynote presentations inspire audiences with real-world strategies to elevate CX, understand human behaviour and build lasting audience loyalty. 

Find out more at georgiestayches.com 

Transcript

Welcome And Museum Origins

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of The Art and Heart of CX. And I'm very honoured to be sitting in the office of Dr. Brie Fallon, CEO of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum. Some of you may know that Brie was very kind to come on a panel that I hosted at AIME 2025 earlier this year, where we talked about customer experience and we had people from different sectors. And so I'm really excited to be with you here to talk about the Holocaust Museum, customer experience, and of course, in your time here, you've been involved in the design so much. So welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Pleased to be here. Let's start because people listening to this, not everyone will know about the Melbourne Holocaust Museum. Do you want to describe it in your own words?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yes, the Melbourne Holocaust Museum is such a deeply important museum. We were founded in 1984 by a group of Holocaust survivors that came to Australia. It's probably important for the audience to know that after the Second World War, tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors came to Australia. We have the largest number of Holocaust survivors per capita outside of Israel. And this museum was founded to be the greatest memorial to education and to combating against racism and anti-Semitism. And it has stood in this place since then. And we are still so lucky to have Holocaust survivors sharing their story here. But we had a major renovation. Nearly two years ago now, we reopened in November of 2023, and we won a National Public Architecture Award. We have award-winning exhibitions. We have a phenomenal collection of over 13,000 artifacts. We have over 1,300 testimonies here. And really, we're a museum that is focused on telling a story of the past, but for the present and for the future. We're all about how we can make change in our own backyard and make sure that not only do we champion the legacy of our survivors, but we take their critically important lessons and use them to make a better Victoria and a better Australia for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Oh, and it's an absolutely stunning building that we're sitting in here. As you say, it's, I think, what did I have? Rebuild was completed in 2023. And I believe that, you know, there was work done of do you renovate the original one or do you sort of start again? What was the process in looking at the rebuild with your vision of what the museum is?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

So that was a little bit pre-me. I sort of came in in July 2023

Rebuild, Place And Symbolism

SPEAKER_01 2:45

and the physical building was here. We were still finishing some of the exhibition spaces. But I think the idea of place, especially when you're looking at a narrative where we had a community that was displaced and was forced away from their homes, forced away from key sites. You know, we lost so many synagogues in in Europe, so many, you know, Jewish families and other families were forced out of their homes. The concept of place and space is really deeply meaningful. And place and space, you know, carries so much soulfulness. And when we get to that point, we can talk about what that means for the customer and for what we would call our visitor experience. But we have part of the original facade of the museum still in place. If you come to our museum, which everybody should in Elstonwick, we're 200 metres from Elstonwick station, even less, you will see the original facade on the left-hand side of the building and part down the left-hand sort of corridor as you come up, and you will see that original site where you know some of our survivors helped actually, you know, purchase that original building. And so there is that amazing sense of history, of community, and these very beautiful bones to the building. And then we've sort of built around that. So you can see also that continuation between past and present. And I could talk all day about the architecture of the building, even though I'm not an expert in that space. Everything that Kirsten Thompson architects did in creating this site has symbolism in it. And we have beautiful tours as part of Open House Melbourne, which always sell out because this building, everything is just so thought through, not only in terms of the symbolism, but how we all relate to the visitor and their experience as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Absolutely. And just to sort of set the scene, it is the most stunning, light-filled museum. As you say, you have that story when you come in with the different facades, and and it's so important, I would imagine, in a museum that that the history forms part of not just the content, but the history of how the museum came to be, forms part of that visitor journey and that context and that understanding and the fact that it was founded by Holocaust survivors who came together to start it. But it is there's plenty of wood, it's a very calming sense when you walk in, and as a you know, you walk in and there's just light. It is a gorgeous sunny day today in Melbourne, and there's just light flooding in everywhere. And it it immediately took me to a phrase that I know you have on your website, which is a light to sweep out darkness. And I just thought, even though that might not necessarily have been connected to this, it was just so symbolic of what the architects have done.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

I think you're right. This idea of what light does in this space, and as you say, the warm woods that are used, and also the mirrors that are used throughout, there is definitely this sense. We have a pedagogical approach which was you know championed by the Holocaust Museum in in Israel, Yad Vashem, which is safely in and safely out. And you walk into this museum and you are held. And this is a really difficult history, and we're asking our visitors to come on the weekend and talk about the Holocaust and talk about one of the darkest periods in history. And so the visitor experience in the architecture is really important. So you come in, there's warmth, there is a way to physically get outside on every level if you need to get out and get fresh air.

Light, Warmth And Safely Throughout

SPEAKER_01 6:20

There is a way to see something green on every single level. So even though you may go into an exhibition that is about dark content and that exhibition may never have natural light, when you go in and you come back out, you come back out into warmth, you come back out into safety. And I think that is a real testament to the architect's understanding not just the way that a visitor would physically move through the building, but emotionally move through this building as well.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Absolutely. It's it's stunning. And for anyone who's heard me talk before, I'm very passionate about natural light. Um, and and and I talk a lot about it, which originally was, you know, I sort of came about when I work with polio survivors because of their their childhoods for most of them, you know, were quarantined away in infectious diseases, hospitals, you know, in facilities. They still associate that being institutionalized for want of a better term. So when we're whenever we're finding a venue for polio, we need to make sure there's lots of natural light, there's windows, there's access to our side, just that feeling of openness. And so I'm really passionate about natural light in in business events and the difference that it makes to our you know serotonin levels, to our moods, reduces anxiety, reduces stress, increases concentration, and then biophilic design because our as humans we respond better to visual, you know, natural cues in nature and all the benefits of that. And I know I've certainly run conferences where we've had a room that's had natural light, we've looked out to amazing gardens, we've had access to outdoor areas, and I can see the difference in the delegates in those conferences. They don't fidget, they don't get up to stretch their legs, you know, they don't walk in and out of the room, you know, to go to the bathroom, but it's really just they need a break. They we can see the benefits, and I'm really curious what sort of changes have you seen moving into the new museum with this architecture and this thought around emotion and the experience?

SPEAKER_01 8:34

It's a really great question. And even though we've not done sort of any sort of in-depth research into, you know, causation or correlation, our linger time in our current exhibitions is is quite high. And in part that is because there is a lot to see and a lot to understand, but I do think that there is something very powerful, and just anecdotally, you see a visitor go in and they might pop out back into what we call the central spine. So to set the scene, you know, we have a central spine in the museum, which is that wood foyer that goes up all levels and has the natural light and our exhibitions and our classrooms, which are critically important for our education programs, and our offices kind of stem off to the left and the right. And so you see, you know, visitors go in and they might come out and they'll come and take a break in the spine so that they can go back in, or they might do that and take a break in the spine and then go into another exhibition. So I do think having that, what we would traditionally just call sort of, you know, ventilation space or movement space really I think allows our visitor to have that moment of reflection and calm and back in that warmth to be able to go back in. So I do think it is really important for us to be able to hold our visitors so that they can have that increased linger time in our other exhibitions.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Absolutely. And as you were talking, it was, you know, was thinking that in some museums you go in and and you're, you know, you you have a certain capacity in there, and then it's like, okay, I I need to go. But here they can step out and then they can step back in. And I think what I like about that is you're not leaving people in a certain emotion for too long, you're letting them, you know, dip out, have a respite almost because it, you know, the content in here naturally as a Holocaust museum is is confronting, it's emotional, it's you know very heavy. Some people will have even more connection with it because they may have relations, you know, a lived experience through family members, generational trauma. Then you might be having people that have sort of been introduced to it for the first time. So you've got people at different emotional connections and context, but everyone can move through at their own pace and take

Natural Light, Biophilia And Linger Time

SPEAKER_00 10:55

those breaks out without even realizing that's what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

You are absolutely correct. The architecture and the fact that we have a very warm and welcoming approach to how we train our volunteers and train our wonderful visitor experience team. We really focus on that idea of a warm welcome, and we get so much beautiful feedback from our visitors about just how welcoming the staff and the volunteers are, which is such a heartening thing to hear back for somebody to give us that feedback that they felt that they had such a warm welcome and were really held when they came to the museum. So there's the architecture, there are the staff, there is the way that we approach things, but I think also in the exhibition curation, especially in Everybody Had a Name, which was curated by our former CEO Jane Joseph and our curatorial team led by Sandy Saxon, there is moments throughout the exhibition also where there are moments of light, whether that be a particular artifact or a story or a piece of art, there are moments where you can also intellectually take those moments of respite in the content as well. And I think being guided by that safely and safely out pedagogy has really helped us in making sure that the visitor does have those options. And my colleague here at the museum, Dr. Simon Holloway, would say it's not only safely in, safely out, it's safely throughout. And I really love that addition because, you know, in the past, Holocaust education was always about showing the most difficult, the most gruesome elements. We don't, we don't do that anymore. This is about empathy, it's about relatability, it's about connection. You know, it's a Jewish story, but it's human history. Everybody can connect to this. And if we take you safely throughout, if we push somebody over the edge, they're going to disengage. And that's not a good customer experience because they're walking away and they are feeling, you know, yes, they understand the gravity, but are they going to go away and take those lessons and actions into their life? Potentially not. So if we have safely throughout, we can still 100% convey the real nature of what went on in this history, but also give people those tools for storytelling, those tools for connection, and those tools for vicarious resilience rather than vicarious trauma that means they're more likely to go out, share it with their friends and family, bring more people here, which is going to, you know, share our purpose and vision so much more. But also they're going to go away thinking that there is something that they can do as well. So there is so much in that design, which is about us actually achieving the goal of the museum, which is to make a difference.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah, absolutely. And you can feel that sense of hope in here. You feel that sense of, you know, the past, the story, but you feel that sense of hope. And I think it's that lightness and that coming out of the darkness, which is really powerful. I love you talking about the warm welcome and your volunteers, because I think in an era where people rush to automate things, they're losing that connection and that, and I was sort of talking at customer experience about sort of what draws you into a place, what keeps you there, what you know, sort of gets you in for the call to action, and what has you spreading the word almost. And I was down in the what did we call it? The uh the spine. The spine. And I was watching a school group that had come out, and there were some volunteers down there, and the school kids just being drawn to these volunteers, saying, Thank you so much, thank you so much. And it was, and they were older volunteers, and it was almost like this, and I don't want to say this is like a grandpa grandchildren relationship, and he was saying, Don't forget this, and don't forget that. No, I couldn't hear quite exactly what he was saying, but he's like, No one can ever take this away from you, and just the warmth that is so powerful that people lose when they start to automate things and lose that human, not only the human touch of you know, that interaction and not obviously literally the human touch, but that warmth. But actually, these people have the story, and so you know, you have museums and obviously you have kiosks and you have different ways people can interact with an exhibition, but to have those volunteers there.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

I think that we are so lucky with both our staff and our volunteers, which of course includes our Holocaust survivors, and we have, you know, over 150 volunteers at the museum. We could not

Volunteers As The Beating Heart

SPEAKER_01 15:45

survive without them. And I think what's important is they are the beating heart of this museum because so many of them have a connection, whether that be through their own family history or just a community connection. But we have so many that don't have a personal connection, but they are committed to what this museum does. And having those sorts of volunteers with that sort of drive to be here comes through in everything that they do. And it's interesting, I'm really glad you saw that with the school students. It's a beautiful thing to see because, you know, we get those school students for what, two and a half hours, and we have to build rapport with them. Our phenomenal education team and those volunteers, we have to build rapport with them like that. There is just, you know, we probably will never see them again, and we have two and a half hours to get to them. And to have a school student leave and have that sort of reaction and say that sort of thank you is just the best thing to hear because I know that they are gonna go home and be chatting about it on the bus or go home and share with mum and dad or siblings about, you know, it is not going to be about the whiz-band fandangled screen that they interacted with in the museum. They're gonna say, I met this really cool survivor, I met this wonderful educator, I met this really dedicated volunteer who told me X, Y, and Z. And I remember one of our former CEOs said to me, that human connection is what makes our museum special. And in that renovation, we went from the Jewish Holocaust Center to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum. And one thing we're really conscious about keeping is the soulfulness of this museum. And I think that the people are key to that. And when we have the stories woven throughout the exhibition, you know, there is that sense of humans wherever you go. But, you know, I think about some of our staff who are the grandchildren of survivors in the display, you know, and you know, myself, I'm not Jewish, but my grandparents were targeted as non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and it is a deeply personal mission for me as well. And when we automate things, there is a place for that. But when it takes away human connection, that is something that I think just in our museum, we will always champion that ability to have that ability to relate to another person because this history is all about what happens when you don't have the ability to relate to others and you don't have the opportunity to relate to others. So for us, not only is it key to our customer experience, it's almost a little bit of resistance, resisting what actually happened in the past to actually keep that relatability front and center.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

There's so many things my brain was going around when you were talking, because in a lot of the research I look at with customer experience, it's you know, we talk about customer experience, but unless your staff are happy, you know, and I think it's a Richard Branson quote, isn't it you know, happy staff, happy customers, you've actually got to get it right with your staff before you can actually get it right with your customer experience because the staff are implementing it. And I know when we spoke earlier in the year, we had Karen Clydesdale from the Australian Open on our panel, and she said when they would introduce new things at the tennis, they would test it with their workforce because their workforce were going to be, you know, major players in it. And so it's having you know an environment that is the best for your staff to work in, because then they can really shine, because they're in a safe space, all of those sorts of things. But there's also a lot of research around good customer experience not only often increases revenue because more, you know, they'll come back or they'll tell their friends, and you know, there's those benefits, it actually reduces cost because happy customers means a much better environment for the staff. And so companies actually save money and their costs reduce. There's you know, lower staff turnover and all the things associated with that. And I'm curious to know what sort of things do you have in place for your staff, for your volunteers to create that environment that they feel safe in, particularly because many of them will have generational trauma, I imagine, and and that connection.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah,

Staff Wellbeing And Volunteer NPS

SPEAKER_01 20:05

that's a really great question. I think we've done a lot of work in this space, and I think, in particular in the museums and galleries sector, there's been a lot of work in the well-being space, really particularly in 2025 as well. And I think that there are lots of different things I could talk about in this space. I think, you know, having dedicated spaces for our volunteers to, you know, rest and relax as we do with our staff. Um, for our staff, we have an employee assistance program and we do lots of different things in terms of, you know, social things for our staff. You know, we do a hullabake and we do lots of different activities to really make sure that they feel connected and happy. For our volunteers, we have a really dedicated volunteer workforce, and we've just recently rolled out a volunteer net promoter score. And so we've done that with our customers, with our visitors, we do it with our school kids, our teachers, our corporate clients, we do it with our staff, and we've just rolled it out with our volunteers. And that was really interesting because we got a really wonderful score, and hearing the feedback from them was absolutely wonderful because not only did they say that it was warm, it was welcoming, they felt you know supportive, they felt a sense of purpose, but they also gave us feedback of we want more, we want more training, we want more opportunities to connect. And that sort of feedback was absolute gold for us because we have a quarterly volunteer meeting, you know, we have we try and keep them involved, we send out a weekly email trying to keep them updated all the time. We have a lot of afternoon tea opportunities for our survivors. But if you're not a survivor, you know, how do we roll that out for our volunteers as well? Because this is a museum where it is so it is a community in and of itself, there is so much that we can be doing for them to make sure that they feel like this is a place that they can come and really have that sense of purpose. So we got some wonderful feedback from that. But what was really interesting for us is we went out and we said, how do we benchmark a volunteer net promoter score? And it was actually really hard for us to try and see, particularly in other museums and galleries, what a kind of a good score would be. And so we were really happy with our score. I mean, I probably shouldn't share it in public, but we were really, really happy with it. And I think that it also gives us a space to tell them that their feedback is welcome as well and their voice is heard. And I'm really happy that we've started to roll that out. So we have a net promoter score really across all of our key stakeholders now.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Wow, that's so powerful. I haven't, I yes, I think that's the first time I've heard a volunteer net promoter score mentioned, which is so important because often you see customer experience or installations or events, whatever it is, retail, designed in complete silo from the people who will actually be working in there, who'll be managing it, will be trying to implement it. So that almost co-design to bring those voices in for the people who play such an integral role must just then have so many benefits to it because once again it creates an environment that they'll be proud to be in, that is, you know, works for them. Uh, and then that flows onto the customer experience, which of course then cycles back to them enjoying, you know, their role in here because they can see the impact. What has the volunteer reaction and the staff reaction been to moving into the new building?

SPEAKER_01 23:39

You know, change is always really hard, but I think nobody thought that this would be the legacy of the Holocaust survivors that came here, many with, you know, very little, and look at this phenomenal space that has been created, you know, led by our former CEO, Jane Josome. I think everybody looks at it and is is absolutely blown away by it. You know, it's taken us, you know, I would say probably a good two years to learn the new place. It has taken us, you know, that amount of time to settle into it and figure out its idiosyncrasies, you know, little things like, you know, everything, you know, tells you that, you know, a visitor is going to come in and go to the left because we're, you know, a left, a country that stays to the left, but people just come in and they just naturally want to go to the right because people are right-handed. And so, you know, what the visitor experience team does with that, you know, so it's taken us a while to really learn how to be in the building. And I think that the volunteers, I hope the volunteers and staff are super proud of what we've done here and the opportunities that it offers us. And I think that we're still making the most of those opportunities. And it is such a beautiful place to be proud

Learning The New Building

SPEAKER_01 25:00

of. But there is always, you know, always settling in that takes takes a time, especially when you have such a beautiful community as us that is so dedicated and was so dedicated to to the former space. But I really I cannot thank this, the team and the volunteers enough for how much they have just come here and continue to do the important work that they do.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Because as you say, it's change and and that takes everyone different, everyone adjusts to change at different timelines too.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

And I think for somebody that came in only in the new building, it was also really difficult for me to understand what had been lost from the old building. And yes, the stories and the people and the collections and the heart and the soul was there. But, you know, coming in and I came into sort of a 75% done building at a construction site, and only sort of ever seeing that to completion, you know, there was also a lot of listening that had to be done in terms of understanding, you know, what people felt like, you know, we needed to find a place for in the new, in the new building as well. And I and I think there's still part of us figuring that out too. But even seeing parts of the old building refreshed in the new building. So for example, there used to be these stained glass windows that we've then have created into a beautiful installation on the lower ground floor that is backlit. And that sort of disorientation of seeing that, you know, in a different way and in a different iteration. But as I said, I really just to have the team that we do here is honestly, it's it's our greatest asset, is the team that we have here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

It's uh oh, it's it's yeah, as I said, just standing down in the spine. And I should say, when you walk in, and I mean, I just cannot rave about this place enough. When you walk in, you know, there's this spine that's just dripping with light, but your eye also gets taken to the outdoor area where there's the remembrance flame, and it draws you in. It's you know, I felt pulled for you know, want of a better term, to different spaces because of those sight lines, and it's just so well thought through around that arrival. But it's funny when you say that you imagine people will move one way and they'll move the next. And it clearly, and I mean, I think this is why you're such an award-winning museum, and I should just note some of the awards that that the museum has won over the years, including Westpac Museum of the Year, Victorian Government Multicultural Award for Small Museum, I think it was the most prestigious small museum I was reading, the development award for the museum and gallery national awards, and as you say, architecture awards. So it's clear to see why you're an award-winning museum. But I also love when you talk about, you know, for you the visitor experience here isn't design and then set and forget. It sounds like you're constantly watching the way people move and then, you know, evolving and designing

Data, Behaviour Shifts And Late Bookings

SPEAKER_00 28:10

based on how behaviours are changing.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yeah, I think that that is really something that's led by my team that is so focused all the time on refreshing and rethinking. And I think that that's one of the amazing qualities that I see in the team where, you know, all of a sudden it's like, okay, well, you know, how will that work best if if this piece of the puzzle falls away, or if, you know, a classic piece is what happens if it's raining and the kids need to come inside, you know, and we're not the Melbourne Museum. We don't have that sort of level of square meterage. And I'm just always so taken aback and proud of how the team is always just constantly trying to reassess and take on visitor feedback and try and make that visitor experience better. And I think that's because we know the better experience they have, the more likely we are to have an impact on them. And I think it's actually fundamentally driven not by the fact that they're going to give us a great net promoter score, but that they're going to go out and be changed as a person. And, you know, when you rattle off all those awards, which are all wonderful, there's one that's the most important to me, which is the Australian and Museum, the Australian Museum and Galleries Association Social Impact Award. And for me, that is really core to who we are. And, you know, even when I look at our phenomenal schools feedback, and you know, for the first half of 2025, more than 90% of students will say that they will change their behavior after coming here. And if they have a poor customer experience, maybe they wouldn't. But our team is just so dedicated to making sure that you know they don't see our little. Feet going under the level, under the water level, they have this phenomenal experience, and that is all about the impact that we're going to have on them after they leave. So I think that there's something interesting about customer experience in a social impact museum where that is the foundation for the change that we're going to make in the West.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Yeah. But it comes through with this common thread that which goes for me through every good customer experience is authenticity. Because our, excuse me, consumers are more savvy than ever, and they sniff things out if it's not authentic. And if the motivation of the place they're going to and the reason they're being engaged isn't authentic, isn't authentic. Here you feel that authenticity, and then I and I it's clearly coming out in every different way. Have you noticed because we talk, you know, we've talked about you might think people might move in this way, but in fact they've moved this way through the museum. Are you finding just general changes in behaviour of how people are engaging? You know, we know that people are moving differently, as in Melbourne is sort of a nighttime city now, for example. We know that people are making decisions later. Their planning cycles have changed coming out of COVID. And if you talk to anyone in the entertainment, you know, live entertainment or theatre business, they'll talk about the how late bookings are compared to what they were pre-2020. Are there changes you've seen in your consumer behaviours, your visitor behaviours?

SPEAKER_01 31:36

The late booking is definitely something that we've seen. And uh, Victorians are the worst. You know, if you look at the data of all the different states, Victoria were the latest bookers. And I we've definitely seen that, you know, we see sort of in the 48 hours before an event or a talk, you know, it will kind of go through the roof. When we first opened, we saw a lot more online booking that has really dipped

Sector Collaboration And Social Cohesion

SPEAKER_01 32:00

off for us. We see a lot more walk-ups. We generally had sort of a uh one-third online to two-thirds in-person sort of ratio of ticket purchasing. Really, we're seeing, you know, more than 90% of people are rocking up on the day and wanting a ticket. So that's been a big change. And it's hard to tell if that's just because we were newly renovated and reopened and people were keen, beans, and going and booking online, or if there is just a sense that you know, most people would go to a museum post pre-COVID and just rock up and buy a ticket. So it's it's really hard to kind of see that. Really heartening to see you know, our student numbers are are growing, which is really wonderful. And we're really seeing, you know, that real sense of the importance of the education that we do here at the museum. We are seeing a little bit of less of a spread across the day. We used to when we first opened, see more of a kind of a spread between 10 to 5. There's more of that kind of kind of focus between sort of 11 and 2, where we kind of sort of do the bulk of our visitation is more in that middle of the day. We're also still figuring out for us, you know, pre-renovation, we didn't do ticket sales. We were a gold coin, you know, we're still figuring out what that looks like for us. And also, you know, figuring out obviously there are many Jewish holidays that we're not able to be open, but there are, you know, public holidays, that's that's a different kettle of fish. You know, what do we do with Melbourne Cup Day and things like that? So we're still also figuring out our audience as well. So it's really hard for us to know I love data and I love being data-led. And, you know, we have 40 years of of history, but only two years in the new place. Yes. And those are two years post-COVID, they are two years post-October 7. And so that's really, it's really that correlation and causation for us is really hard to understand. Moral of the story, nobody wants to come to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum on Melbourne Cup Day. Well, I was just that one the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

But I like you tested it, you know. Tested it. Exactly. Uh, but it's it's so interesting, isn't it? Because you Yeah, you I mean you had COVID, then you were rebuilding, so then you open, and then obviously you have the um occurrence of October. And so you've got so many things that have played into it. But I did like that you said you are data-led because what I love listening to you is you do have the data, and you can talk about okay, we've looked at, you know, people are coming at different times in the day, because then you can think about that in the visitor experience.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, for us, we also did some wonderful audience research with Maurice Hargraves McIntyre, who helped us a lot to understand our segments, the preferred days of the week, the preferred times. And that's been really useful for us also in understanding that, also in a market that is our potential market

Human Touch Over Automation

SPEAKER_01 35:05

rather than the market that's actually coming through the door. And so working with partners like that has been, you know, really, really useful. And the other thing I want to say is that I really think that the museum sector, and I'm not sure how this is across, you know, customer service more broadly, but the museums and galleries sector, we're really, in my experience, great at talking to each other, great at sharing data. You know, I went to a wonderful meeting this week with uh Museums Victoria and other multicultural museums, and we we talked a lot about how we can help each other and increase visitation. And I think that there really is this sense of museums as spaces for social cohesion and what our role is in that. And and you know, after libraries, museums are the second most trusted place by the public. And so, you know, for us, there's something really powerful in having that data and sharing that data and using it wisely, but using it, yes, for what we need to use it for, but also using it for what is going to benefit our audience. And I think that there is something really heartening in museums using that data for the betterment of each other and our audience, which I think is is something that in this day and age, where you know, they're ever we're all competing for grants, we're all competing for guesting is actually really a beautiful thing to see where we're rising above that.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Absolutely. I love that. I think do you know what I would say, and I'm gonna make a sweeping statement here, but I would say for the events industry pre-COVID, everyone was a little bit, you know, this is my space, and quite protective of their IP and their events, COVID hit and everyone started collaborating together. And I think coming out of COVID, it's you know, that's an industry that's stronger. So I love hearing that. It's it's so important because, as you say, you know, this is a visitor coming here is going to go to another museum. So, how can the actual the role of museums, how can each museum play a part in strengthening the role of museums across the board? You've you know, there's so much that you've done in this museum, which I absolutely love. If someone listening says, okay, what's one thing that either, you know, a small thing that has had a huge impact that you might have been planned, you might have even realized, but a small detail that you found had a big impact. And then, you know, one tip that you would give people when they go away and start thinking about their visitor experience or their customer experience.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Goodness me, one small thing, one tip to think about when they're thinking about it. I know, yeah. Wrap this up with you know, a couple of big questions or visitor experience. Goodness me, there's so many things that I would love to share with people. I think if we're thinking about the Melbourne Holocaust Museum in particular, I think any way that you can have some sort of you know, human, relatable connection with your audience is something that we will always champion and we will always see the benefit of. And I think, you know, that may not be in ways that it's possible to kind of, you know, put into a spreadsheet. Like, for example, when the Adus synagogue fire occurred, I believe it was December or November last year, that's less than a kilometer from this place. And the amount of phone calls we had from people of is your staff okay? Are you okay? You know, this is not the Victoria, this is not the Australia that we know, we are all here for all people. That goes to show what sort of you know beautiful community that is created when they have that meaningful experience here, you know, and that they want to take care of a staff that is doing real work that they have had some sort of personal connection with. So, you know, there is fundamentally a place for automation. There is a a place

Duty Of Care And Psychological Safety

SPEAKER_01 39:10

for, you know, when you go to a conference and a lanyard's printed out of a machine. But I think for us, we will always champion that that one-to-one person because for us, as we said before, that we see the danger of a society and a history where that is not possible and where that's taken away, and where dialogue is taken away, and what that means in terms of a customer experience and a visitor experience going beyond the day of actually leaving a lasting impression on that person. You know, the amount of people who you say I work at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, and they say either I came with school or I've been meaning to come there, or who I want to, you know, transition into a visit, or you know, my friend said to me that they recently visited or their or their student really recently visited, that just the fact that we're having that sort of touch point, yes, any way that you can create that that works for your, you know, your event, whether it be, you know, we were saying before, I'm a big dog lover, and you said having a space in your event where there are dogs that are coming as part of accessibility, that there is a comfortable space for that animal, that is going to mean so much to that person. Yes. And so I think any way that you can make that that makes sense for your organization or your event is going to set you apart from the rest.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Absolutely. And what I love about that is it's it's it's the simple, I don't want to say getting back to basics, but it's it's back to those core elements and that human connection and that authenticity, which you can enhance with AI, you can enhance with technology, you can leverage different things, but you will never get that. You will if you lose that connection, all these other things you're not going to actually be able to, you know, tap into. And uh someone sent me an anecdote in a completely different setting, but just talking about the power of the human connection of an apartment block in New York that have you know they have the doorman or door person that opens the door and shuts the door. And and the apartment block went, well, we don't need that anymore. I think they changed the doors, perhaps whatever it was. And yeah, okay, they saved a salary of that a year. But what they lost was that person was the concierge, they were the eyes and ears of the neighborhood, they were the meters and greeters, they were, you know, they could give advice on anything, they could tell if the residents were happy. They lost this person that was so much more than the functionality of just opening and closing a door, and they found that when they got rid of them, it compl there was so much more they lost with that. And I think that's what people don't often, and and people with their own staff don't understand the power of people in these roles. That it's not just about what's in a you know, position description, it's those other elements that come with it that really make that visitor and customer experience.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

It's funny, every time I think you and I talk, we always talk about getting back to basics, and it's also interesting that you mention authenticity because that's one of our five values here is being authentic. Yes. And I think you know, we also hire with values first, and you know, that is a big part of our our hiring process, and it is embedded into so much that so much that we do, and and I I love that it it I then think it it's imbued into everything that we do. And you know, I think that there is also something, something to be said for, you know, when we're talking about authenticity, authenticity is also about making sure that your visitor feels comfortable and your visitor feels safe

Final Reflections And Visitor Invitation

SPEAKER_01 43:00

and that your staff feels safe. It's a key part of you know psychological safety. And I just don't know that there's any downside to championing this as part of customer experience. And I think it's so easily lost when we, you know, when we look, when we try and make things, you know, sort of too schmick and too sleek. And there is there needs to be a healthy balance between utter professionalism and what I like to call the crunchy bits, which is that, you know, we are a community with with people and stories and a million opinions, but that is what we all are.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Every customer is that exactly, yeah. Yeah, you've just reminded me, a colleague of mine and I were talking about automatic check-in at hotels, and I am not a fan of them, and I'm a fan of choice, so have the choice to do automatic check-in. I love automatic checkout because and we were talking, and he was saying, because when you get to the hotel, you're tired, you know, you're possibly frazzled, it could be completely new city. Having that person at the desk, welcome. How are you? How was your flight? You get, you know, so you there's that warm hug when you get there. They can you can ask them, where's a good restaurant? You know, would anywhere be open now? You miss all of that with the automated check-in. Automated checkout, you just want to leave the hotel and you want to get on your plane. So that's okay. So we were talking about what's like the gosh, it's a Friday when we're recording this, so I'm getting tongue-tied. What's lost when you lose those elements?

SPEAKER_01 44:37

And I think what's lost there is, you know, safety.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

You know, that sense of there is a person downstairs that if I need something, I need help, I'm in a city that I don't know. If I, you know, am going to give, you know, the hotel card to the taxi driver, that's where they're taking me. There's that sense of safety. And I think that we often forget about a lot of customer service's duty of care. There is a duty of care to our visitors, to our school students, also to our volunteers, to our staff, that is about making sure that they feel safe. And we've talked earlier in this episode about being held. And how many times do you walk away from a hotel reception and you're like, goodness me, that was not a good check-in experience? And you just feel a little bit, it's almost like you're kind of limbless. You're like, I don't really know where I am, I don't really know what I'm doing, I don't really feel like I can go down and have that place where I can ask them the silly question when the Wi-Fi isn't working. And that groundedness is so fundamentally important for all of the people who are key to our community in this museum, and including including our visitors.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Oh my gosh. When you said duty of care, so I had an experience, and when you said knowing there's someone downstairs at a hotel, I had an experience this year. It was at a very well-known chain of apartments in one particular part of Melbourne, and it was a self-check-in. So it was a key from a key drop. There's no one on site. We got up to the apartment, we put the key in. It was my colleague and I. It was a two-bedroom apartment, it was the night before an event. We put the key in. We're, you know, we're tired, we just want to get into our hotel room. And when we went to open it, there was like a little choc in the door. And and then we heard this male voice say, uh, and I it, you know, it took me about five months to write about this on LinkedIn because it just shook us up so much. So we hear this male voice said hello, and we said, Oh gosh, we've got the wrong room, and we shut the door, and then and it was an old-style key, and when and we're like, No, this is definitely the right room. Anyway, it transpires that he told us he had stayed there the night before and he just thought he could stay there the next night. Some information the hotel gave us contradicts that. In any case, there was an intruder in our room. So, long story short, we had to ring a duty manager. He we he left. He said he would return the key. I said, We're not staying in this room. He evidently didn't return the key. We definitely weren't staying in that room. We got moved to another hotel. You know, it really, and it was too, you know, it was myself and my colleague. We're older females, but you know, my uh not that it should matter, but my mind went to what if it was our 22-year-old intern who checked in. We got moved to a hotel, which you know was a very nice hotel, uh, uh, a higher star, but it didn't fit the needs for why we'd booked this one. And from that, I will never do a hotel that has a late check-in or that doesn't have people at a desk. And when we rang and complained, talking about duty of care, the manager and I just asked for a refund and he wouldn't give it to us. He said, Well, you got better accommodation, so you should be lucky. And when I was very vocal around what it's like as someone walking into a room, particularly a female, his response was, Well, was anyone hurt? And as I said, it's actually taken me five months to kind of talk about it publicly. To people listening, you know, you might think it's trivial, but it was not only the because I've been in hotel rooms where they've actually accidentally wrongly keycarded. That's one thing. It was the response after that I think actually shook me even more. That what would it take for this to actually, how hurt did you want us to be before you thought this was a problem? And so that duty of care is not even just when they're in, it's understanding when people go home, you know, what their journey is.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

And I think that, first of all, sorry that that happened to you. But as you say, you know, the duty of care is duty of care is supposed to be preventative, not curative. And it's supposed to be always putting, you know, the safety, whether it's physical in that case, or for us here, a lot of the time it's it's mental, it's psychological, it's spiritual safety. You know, it's always putting that first because you have absolutely no idea where that person has come from. You have absolutely no idea what they're carrying. And I mean that sort of you know, in a meta sense. And you know, there it's it's also not actually about you or your product in that instance. It's about the you're you're having the amazing, let's be honest, the amazing privilege to interact with another person. Yes. And, you know, we work in a museum that is about when people are not treated as human anymore in the most extreme circumstance. And so, you know, championing each other as human beings, that fundamentally that's what duty of care is about. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Oh, look, I just I always love where our conversations go because I and I could talk to you all day, but I am conscious of time. It's there's so much that I know our listeners will have got out of this podcast, and I truly appreciate it. I will say to anyone in Melbourne to really understand customer experience, come down to the museum. To anyone interstate or overseas who's listening, when you come to Melbourne, you must put this on your to-do list because it is, yeah. And and I'm I remember coming at school, and our volunteer had the number tattooed on them from their experience in a concentration camp, and that's never left me. And and that's what I see. I can't tell you anything about the room that we were in. It was in high school. I can't tell you anything about the display, but I could almost draw the picture of the volunteer who, or I shouldn't say volunteer, of the person, the survivor who spoke with us. So please, everyone, in the words of Molly Meldrum, do yourself a favour and do come down. There is so much you'll get out of this. Give it a plug, Brie. Where can people, you know, hop on the website?

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Yes, definitely. So come down to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum. You can find us on all of your regular social media, but our website is mhm.org.au. We are open to the public Tuesday through Friday and also Sundays as well, Sundays being our busiest day. And my number one actual sort of tip to all of you would be check on our website because you know, every now and again on a Sunday, we do have a survivor sharing their testimony at the museum. And so, what a phenomenal experience to come and view exhibitions, but hear from a living witness as well. So come down to visit us. We're in Elstonwick, as I said, less than 200 metres from the Elstonwick train station or the 67 tram. It's also plenty of parking for those Melbourne who like parking.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

I could vouch for that because I know as Melbourne, we're always trying to find a park. You can get good parking around here.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

So definitely come down and have a life changing experience.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Yes, absolutely. I mean, just from coming in today and chatting with you, it's very emotional. I'm not gonna lie, it is a very emotional place, and it's been an absolute honour to talk to you. Dr. Bree Fallon, CEO of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum. Thank you so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

Thank you for having me.