Museum of Art eats up advice from Zingerman's

. . . March 1996

A F e a s t f o r t h e E y e s By Greta Grass
"If the Museum staff could get people half as excited about our painting by Guercino as the Zingerman's staff can about their latest wheel of farmhouse cheddar, we will have accomplished something," said William Hennessey, director of U-M's Museum of Art (UMMA). And with the advice of Ann Arbor's famous deli, that is just what the staff, volunteers and docents at the UMMA intend to do.
"Virtually all of us who work in museums were taught that our primary duties were to collect, preserve, display and interpret works of art," said Hennessey. "But a great collection of beautifully conserved and carefully studied objects does not make a great museum. People—an engaged, involved audience, excited and challenged by what they see—are crucial."
And with that in mind, the Client Service Team set out to find Ann Arbor outfits known for superior customer service. Without hesitation, they placed Zingerman's Deli at the top of their list.
"Interestingly enough, we found that Zingerman's faces some of the same challenges that we do. They lack adequate parking, their store space is very small, and they sell some pretty unusual stuff---exotic cheeses, sandwiches and strange olive oil," said Hennessey. "And just as the deli has to convince customers to be interested and comfortable with its products, we at the museum have to generate interest in some unique works of art."
"We're in a fuzzy area," said Karen Ganiard, UMMA volunteer coordinator. "We aren't selling cheese. We're selling products that don't really change, so we needed to adopt a new mind-set and figure out what people wanted from their experience at the museum."
What they found is that people normally consider museum visits to be very passive experiences, so the staff set out to find ways to engage visitors and make them feel involved.
They called Ari Weinzweig and Maggie Bayliss of ZingTrain, the deli's consulting and training arm. And Weinzweig conducted a workshop last December for 80 museum staff and volunteers, showing them what it takes to meet and exceed the expectations of their clients.
"The concepts of great service are the same no matter what you do," Weinzweig told UMMA staff: determining what the client wants, getting it for them, and giving them something they did not ask for. UMMA's Client Service Team then mapped out strategies for creating a "service culture" in which less than great service will be unthinkable.
UMMA has already seen results. In efforts to make museum goers feel more involved with and excited by the works of art at the UMMA, the staff recently made a bright idea happen. The museum had contracted artist Sol LeWitt to design a border for the building's ceiling cove, and, upon completion, much of the material used on the project was left over. Therefore, at an interactive workshop, local children and parents were invited to make the left overs into their own LeWitt-style works of art. The results are four pieces that now hang in the museum's central apse credited to the families that created them.
Security guard Tom Walsh wondered what he could do to be more welcoming to parents and children visiting the museum, so he helped design coloring sheets featuring UMMA works of art and assembled crayon and coloring book packets for kid visitors. His effort now awards parents the peace of enjoying the Museum while knowing their children are stimulated and occupied.
Ganiard thinks the skills learned from the delicatessen's staff will differentiate the UMMA from other museums.
"We've readjusted our thinking which has reminded us that we are in the business of public service," she said. "And as we serve others, we're realizing that we're also serving ourselves."
Greta Grass '96 of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a student intern in the Office of News and Information Services.

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