In September 2020, we trialed our work at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. We tested a mix of weekends and weekdays, ten days in total. We trialed locations across the Gardens and tested different visitor approaches and asks. As the Gardens has a mix of paid and free aspects to their offering, our focus was twofold: Visitor Donations and Membership sales.

With enormously reduced visitor numbers due to the pandemic and working only ten days, we were delighted to learn that September saw a 312% increase in donations and a 206% increase in membership sales compared with the whole of September 2019. In those ten days, we generated 66% of all donations across the month.

One way to look at this is that the donations more than paid for the project. The membership sales will also provide significant and lasting income year on year. We continued to work with the Royal Botanic Gardens for the remainder of 2020 and look forward to a long relationship with them.

“I’ve worked with them for over 5 years on a multitude of projects, there’s no one else I call for staffing and training.”

Eddie Kemsley, CEO, Dreamland, Margate

We regularly provide a team of membership recruiters to boost on-site recruitment at the British Library and were asked to run a campaign during the Anglo Saxons Exhibition from18th October to 19th February.

Our recruitment campaign ran for 115 days over the four month period. We positioned a single recruiter by key footfall locations each day between the hours of 11 and 5. Our sales approach always starts with a great welcome; an incredibly effective way to promote membership at visitor attractions. By delivering excellent customer service we are able to build rapport then proactively promote membership. This helps enhance the customer journey as well as facilitating new acquisition.

We achieved a total of 706 new members with a ROI of 340% after cost; 74% joined by direct debit & over 50% were gift-aided.

“When it comes to membership recruitment and visitor experience, Complete Works are industry leaders in this area”

Caan Walls, Membership manager, the British Library

Since the summer of 2013, we have worked with RBG Kew providing frontline membership recruiters to boost on-site acquisition. Working alongside the Visitor Services & Membership teams, we developed a strategy to best capitalise on visitor interaction.

Our team of performers put their professional training to good use through a combination of carefully selected messaging, clear communication and a friendly 'welcome led' sales approach. This enabled us to achieve consistent recruitment figures for RBG Kew, with a particular focus on Direct Debit acquisition to ensure higher retention year on year.

Due to client confidentiality, specific membership figures cannot be shared, however several recent ROI percentages can be found below, all of which are calculated after cost:

  • March 2019 - 8 Day Campaign = 835% ROI

  • April 2019 - 24 Day Campaign = 980% ROI

  • May 2019 - 19 Day Campaign = 965% ROI

  • June 2019 - 8 Day Campaign = 805% ROI

  • July 2019 - 10 Day Campaign = 635% ROI

  • August 2019 - 25 Day Campaign = 765% ROI

“The team at Macallan Estate cannot thank you enough for an incredible and inspiring couple of days. The impact you had on our team and the visitor experience in a couple of days was just astonishing””

Stuart Cassels, GM, The Macallan Estate

In August 2018, we were asked: “Can The National Gallery increase donations from its six million visitors through a more proactive approach?” - The answer was an emphatic yes. There were three stipulations:

  • There must not be a barrier at any entrance or exit

  • Any donation ask must respond to the needs of different audiences

  • There must be a guarantee of quality

There were also questions that the Gallery wanted answering like, “Who donates?”, “Where do they donate?”, “Why do they donate?”, “What messages are most effective?”, “How much can be generated?”.

We delivered detailed research across the above parameters that has been beneficial to the development department beyond the initial remit of the project.

Since then, we have won three tenders to partner with The National Gallery seven days a week, providing a specific Visitor Donations team. This team has increased donations by between 300% and 400% and increased visitor satisfaction scores on Trip Advisor, Mystery Shops and internally. This project also won a IPM (Institute of Promotional Marketing) Award.

“Complete Works are hard workers, using intelligent processes they helped us shake up the experience at the National Gallery. Thanks to the team’s focus on adding such a warm welcome our customer feedback satisfaction levels have reached and consistently remained at an excellent rating!”

Carole Keltie, Head of Operations, The National Gallery

Complete Works regularly provide a team of membership recruiters to boost on-site recruitment at the Royal Museum Greenwich during peak times throughout the year. In the summer of 2019, we ran a recruitment campaign for thirty days. Positioning our team of experienced membership promoters by key footfall locations at the Planetarium & Cutty Sark, we adapted our approach to ensure maximum reach for the campaign without comprising the visitor experience.

Our sales approach always starts with a great welcome. By delivering excellent customer service, we build rapport and then proactively promote membership. This helps enhance the customer journey and facilitates new acquisition.

We secured a total of 426 new members, 57% of which joined by Direct Debit, achieving a ROI of 200%.

Wembley; arguably the best sports hospitality club in the world and the heart of football. Membership includes your seat at all England home games, FA Cup and League Cup semi-finals and finals and a wide variety of super premium hospitality options. Prices start at £2545 per year (as of Feb 2021). In 2017, they had not sold a membership on any match days that year, despite having a large team circulating to find those leads.

In 2018, they brought us in - a little more expensive than their last staffing company. At all eight match days that year, a lead was generated that led to at least one sale; over £100K of sales in total. How did we do it? By focusing on quality not quantity and when our team were pitching, leading with the price as a way of separating those serious about joining and those who were not.

We have worked with ZSL since 2014 providing membership sales teams to engage, promote and sell to your visitors at peak times throughout the calendar. This has been an incredibly successful partnership delivering formidable ROI's. Recent successes include:

Pre-Pandemic | Easter 2019
68 staff shifts across London and Whipsnade generated a ROI of 309%

During the Pandemic | Summer 2020
36 staff shifts at Whipsnade generated a ROI of 236%

We also provide event staff for their Summer and Christmas activities.