Successful hybrid visitor guides: Combining BYOD and hardware devices for Historic Royal Palaces
The Brief
Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) is an independent charity that manages six of the United Kingdom's royal palaces including the Tower of London, and Hampton Court Palace and Kensington Palace elsewhere in the city.
HRP had offered a device-based audio guide as a free experience at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace, and as a paid offer at the Tower of London. However, the large numbers of visitors, particularly at Tower of London, as well as challenges with distributing, charging and collecting devices across large sites, led the organisation to pilot a hybrid distribution model - introducing BYOD.
HRP also wanted to explore the benefits of a mobile visitor guide that could be distributed before the visit. This could include additional visitor information and, in future, potentially ease crowding through the use of real-time push notifications based on wait times.
The Solution
Smartify collaborated with HRP’s digital team to create a custom-branded Bring Your Own Device visitor guide, with dedicated web-apps for each site that worked alongside hardware based guides.
The solution hosts Tower of London’s highlights tours as well as family tours, available in 11 languages including Sign Language.
Visitors also have the ability to see live events taking place during their visit, prompts for shop items as well as easily look up information about shops and cafes at the sites.
Finally, as a “first” for HRP, Smartify integrated live visitor surveys within the app to allow users to rate their experience of the app and provide feedback.
What made our solution unique
Working closely with the HRP team, Smartify tested WiFi across the sites, flagging areas where signals could be improved and ensuring multi-media stops were spread out to avoid areas with no coverage.
We carried out a signage and implementation consultation as well as training sessions for all HRP visitor service staff so that they could familiarise themselves with the new visitor guide and answer questions from the public.
In addition, the BYOD has opened new opportunities to connect with the visitor, from post-visit mailers to surveys that drive improvements and innovation.
The Impact
Tower of London, Kensington Palace and Hampton Court always enjoyed great take-up rates given their well-established hardware distribution model that has been running effectively for decades. HRP envisioned an average take-up rate (TUR) of 6% across all sites for BYOD as part of the pilot.
Smartify’s solution achieved over 7% in its first three months of operation, beating expectations and customers were overwhelmingly positive about the offer, with an NPS score of 7.35 and a satisfaction rating of 94% (Q3 24). This proves that a hybrid distribution model including devices and BYOD can unlock increased visitor satisfaction, and provide the scale and resilience major popular cultural attractions require.
A key differentiator of the BYOD solution is the ability to distribute the guide to visitors before they even arrive. This helps improve pinch points and queuing where visitors previously had to wait to pick up an audio guide.