Northumberland Zoo in the UK has partnered with County Durham-based N-gage to implement the company’s audience engagement platform and attraction management software.
The partnership with the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) developers and audience engagement specialists aims to creative an improved visitor experience. The technology will also help the zoo and aquarium sector to create strategies surrounding development through the use of data.
Maxine Bradley, founder and zoo curator, said: “The zoo industry is all about making the right impact on visitors and shifting their behaviour, by encouraging a sense of conservation in people and generations to come.
“Ongoing research and measurement as to what visitors take away with them from a visit to their local zoo, safari park, or wildlife sanctuary, is critical.”
Bradley added: “Our duty is to continuously research, test and discover what knowledge people are taking away with them when they visit our establishments. With this technology, the more I work with the N-gage team, the more I begin to realise what we can use it for.
“Dwell time is a big thing for this sector. If visitors have downloaded our app powered by the N-gage platform, then through dwell time monitoring, heat mapping and content triggering, we will instantly be able to see which displays are getting the most attention. Because of the enormous real time data gathering, we will then be in the position to send visitors specific questionnaires or surveys to elicit insights, as the platform can segment data and send personalised communication which is also essential in building long-term relationships with our fans.”
N-gage has also worked with the zoo’s management to create a built-in education portal on the platform, which helps to manage the task of school visits and the delivery of lessons. This means that each school has a dedicated area of the platform with secure logins to manage activities and modules that have been pre-loaded, which teachers can access through a tablet of smartphone.
Visitors attending Northumberland Zoo are able to pre-download the app where their tickets are automatically available, as well as exclusive in-app vouchers. There is also interactive content and fun activities like quizzes and shareable photo frames, interactive mapping and way finding.