Northumberland Zoo turns to technology to transform customer experience

Owners at Northumberland Zoo believe an “innovative” technology platform they have introduced will be a gamechanger for the sector, growing income while also educating.

The family-run zoo, sat in 17 acres, near Felton, Morpeth, has partnered with County Durham based n-gage.io, to implement the company’s audience engagement platform and attraction management software, created to improve the visitor experience.

Maxine Bradley, founder and zoo curator, explained: “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.”

The zoo, which is home to more than 100 species of animals, has come a long way in a brief period, having gained its licence in June 2015. Maxine says she is “anxious” to keep building on the early success and make the customer experience “even better” while gathering important data.

Helping to deliver on this mandate, Northumberland Zoo has partnered with SaaS (software as a service) developers and audience engagement specialists, n-gage.io, which has launched an advanced audience engagement platform (AEP) and mobile app for the visitor attraction sector and wider experience economy.

Led by entrepreneur Bryan Hoare and incubated by GCV Labs, n-gage.io aims to transform audience experiences through a “highly customisable”, data insight driven SaaS platform with an integrated mobile-web application.

For Maxine, the advent of the n-gage.io audience engagement app (AEP), is said to be a “radical advancement” not just for her zoo, but for the entire sector.

She continued: “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.io 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.io 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.”

By Matthew Neville – Correspondent, Bdaily

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