Managing group sales like school visits and field trips at a cultural institution can be complex.
Some schools qualify for grant-funded visits, while others need to pay deposits and stagger their payments.
Some groups require special accommodations, and others, despite your best efforts, may ghost you entirely.
Automating deposits, tracking school visit history, and segmenting outreach efforts can help your organization build lasting relationships with schools, businesses, and community groups.
In this article, we’ll break down how a modern, semi-automated approach to group sales can help you save time, maximize impact, and create better visitor experiences.
Catering to schools and other groups, offering discounted or even free access based on eligibility criteria such as Title I status, is likely a big part of your cultural organization.
And managing these sales involves multiple layers, including:
Getting all of this information into one cohesive system where you can actually see and use this data is the first step to creating a streamlined approach to group sales.
While your ticketing system handles transactions, it often misses critical details, like who called, the demographics of a visiting school group, or contact information for future outreach. It also doesn't manage or track tasks and communication follow-ups, or help manage assignment of resources like equipment and educators.
That’s where a CRM comes in: capturing key engagement and execution data and helping you manage both relationships and resources more effectively.
The goal is to strike a balance between automation and human oversight, ensuring accessibility while preventing misuse of available programs. With a process in place, you can minimize errors and ensure a seamless experience for educators booking field trips.
When it comes to managing educational programs like field trips or travel programs, there’s a lot to consider. But at the end of the day, what matters most is the logistics work for both your visitors and your organization.
Here, we’ll explore how you can streamline the process and weigh the benefits of automation vs. the human touch.
One of the first considerations is the level of complexity in your programs and the volume of clients you're managing. Typically, you have two main levels:
This model allows you to manage a higher volume of clients while minimizing the time and effort your staff has to spend on them.
For more specialized programs that are customized to each group, a hands-on, personal approach is ideal.
Since these programs often require more direct communication and customization, it is important to integrate automation WITH a high degree of human interaction.
As you consider automation and self-service models, it’s important to understand how these strategies can help you sell more, save money, and ultimately further your mission.
By making the booking and outreach process easier and more efficient, you can attract more participants and fill more spots in your programs.
The more standardized and user-friendly your offerings are, the easier it will be to reach a larger audience without significantly increasing your workload.
Whether it’s a free, self-service model or a premium, paid service, simplifying the experience makes it easier for schools and other organizations to participate in your programs.
An automated system also helps you save money in the long run.
With self-service models and automated outreach, you can cut down on staff costs because you’ll reduce the need for extensive manual management.
Additionally, simplifying logistics, whether through DIY registrations or pre-set material distribution, can help your patrons save time and money, making your programs more attractive to schools and organizations that are budget-conscious.
It’s important to consider which channels can be automated and which ones will still require a level of human interaction.
For instance, one of our clients discovered that some educators were reserving multiple dates at once, not out of bad intent, but because they weren’t sure when they could attend.
While that flexibility was helpful at the onset, it created availability issues for other educators trying to book field trips. But because the program is free, the institution didn’t want to fully staff the booking process.
That’s where safeguards come in.
In this case, we implemented two key solutions:
These kinds of thoughtful automations allow your organization to balance efficiency with fairness. And also helps protect your team’s time while still offering a great experience for the communities you serve!
Beyond simplifying group sales, a CRM system allows you to measure and communicate your impact.
Capturing data on school visits allows you to:
For example:
Donors supporting initiatives like girls' STEM education often want to allocate funds to that initiative specifically.
A simple way to do that?
Create a custom field that includes a checkbox in Salesforce that makes it easy to identify those specific requests, automate the financial aid processes, and report to donors and investors down the road.
By using CRM technology to match funding sources with eligible recipients, you can ensure financial aid reaches the intended students.
Managing field trips or outreach programs effectively lies in finding the right balance between automation, logistics, and personal interaction.
By refining these processes, you can better serve educators and students while optimizing internal operations.
The Foglight team and I are ready to help you navigate these challenges and implement a system that works for your organization.
Whether you're looking to streamline group bookings, integrate your CRM with ticketing software, or develop custom automation, we’re here to guide you through the process.
Technology can help your institution maximize its impact while reducing administrative overhead.
Reach out today to learn more!