Yes, yes, you read that right.

The 10-years-in-the-making, greenest museum on earth is the recipient of this month's uncoveted wet blanket award.

Here's why.

There are 895 reviews on Yelp for the Academy. Of the 20 most recent posts, 18 come from mothers. Of just these 20, 17 make reference to crowds, lines, difficulty parking, and cost.

Some excerpts:

"And the crowds are thick...really thick."

"We did not get to see that exhibit as there were no passes available. That was a big bummer. Even if we had gotten passes, the people in line waited a long, long time to get into the exhibit."

"Parking is very frustrating. We were at this place for less than 3 hours, parking was $10 AND there was only one, yes one, parking ticket paying machine on the entire and huge parking level. The line was ridiculously long. The machine location is
downright stupid...right in the path of cars driving in the ramp."

"Just far too spendy to consider revisiting; $24.99 per person."

"Overall, it was a great experience minus the crowds and minus the price."

"Arrive before the doors open if you want to be assured a spot inside. There was a HUGE line ALL DAY."

These quotes are nothing compared to those on TripAdvisor, likely because those visitors traveled from other states or countries to see the museum. Their postings have titles like "Totally underwhelming" and "Overhyped and overpriced."

What these reviews reveal is a critical truth every marketer must know. Your customer's entire experience is your brand. No matter how glorious your museum's architecture appears, nor how pithy your tagline, the single most critical thing is the takeaway for the customer. Your "living rooftop" gets lost in a customer's mind when all she can remember is the gridlocked parking lot she endured with her cranky kids.

My biggest beef with the museum is that they don't seem to be minimizing these well-publicized problems. Case in point. When you finally join the huge line out front, ticket in hand, you aren't able to just file in at once.

No.

That.
Would.
Be.
Too.
Swift.

Instead, they pull each group aside to pose in front of a blank backdrop and have their picture taken. This delay is entirely in the interest of the museum and another profit source that seems usurious given the steep cost of admission, parking and food here. Whoever at the Academy greenlighted this offering either doesn't know how frustrated museum-goers are or, worse still, doesn't care.

Labels: Bad Customer Experience, California Academy of Sciences, marketing to mothers

Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below, even if -- no, especially if -- you don't agree with what I've written.