Consolidating Computers and Software – A True Museum Story

Who We Are

At The Corning Museum of Glass, glass isn't just for looking at or looking through. At our Museum, guests can explore, research, touch, work with, and interact with glass.

A truly unique Museum experience, The Corning Museum of Glass offers:

• The world's best collection of art and historical glass. More than 45,000 objects trace 3,500 years of glassmaking history.
• Hands-on exhibits that tell the story of the science and technology behind innovations in glass.
• Live, narrated glassblowing demonstrations all day, every day.
• Walk-in Workshops, the Museum's unique try-it-yourself glassmaking program.
• A fully equipped glassworking Studio offering year-round courses in all levels of glassmaking.
• The Studio's try-it-yourself glassmaking program. The Walk-in Workshop is the cornerstone activity of Corning where customers can reserve online or at the admission’s desk.
• The Rakow Research Library, the world's library of record and the finest collection of research materials related to the art, history, craft and technology of glass.
• An 18,000 square-foot GlassMarket, where you can purchase glass treasures from around the world.

Our Challenge

With over 350,000 visitors per year, the Museum’s operation constantly challenges our infrastructure and pushes us to seek more efficient ways of doing things. Our most recent focus has been to consolidate our customer facing software and computer systems. Over the past few years, we have experienced exciting growth in all facets of the Museum. With this growth, we needed to expand the capabilities of both the in-house and online sales systems.

What We Had

Our customer-centric infrastructure consisted of four separate computer systems consisting of:

• CounterPoint Version 7 for our GlassMarket retail store
• Micros for our cafeteria
• Vista for our admissions and ticketing
• Raiser’s Edge for our membership handling

Each of the systems was adequate for the specific task they were required to do but there was not exchange of information between them. With this setup, we employed the classic “Sneaker Interface” where we would hand-move information from one island to another. This became increasingly frustrating for our accounting group in dealing with four different sources of income. It was also difficult to track who our customers were. It became time to move away from our islands of information to a fully interconnected operation.

What We Wanted

After interviewing each of our departments, we came up with our wish list:

• Simplify training by having one system/user interface throughout the Museum including admissions, retail and food service.
• Consolidate accounting by having one source for all Museum transactions.
• Reduce maintenance costs by consolidating the type of hardware and software used.
• Maintain customer information in one place and be able to report on what that customer did in the Museum.
• Reduce staff specialization with one specific system. Allow staff to easily move from one department to another without retraining.
• Create a universal gift card that can be used anywhere in the museum.
• Solve current system “bugs” such as dropped admission sales.
• Enable customers to reserve workshop, special event and admission tickets online.
• Increase online sales by creating an intuitive online store and check-out process.
• Allow flexible reporting to accommodate the needs of each different department at the Musuem.

We spent a fair amount of time traveling to other facilities to see what they were using and to share our findings. Instead of finding a solution, we found that most of these facilities shared are same frustrations of having a myriad of systems that did not talk to each other.

What We Found

During our 18 month search, we found many systems that would get us 80% there but for one reason or another had a weakness in one or more key areas. We were not going to compromise on our requirements and end up with a new set of problems. We contacted Retail Control Systems (RCS) in New Hampshire to see what new things were brewing with CounterPoint given the fact that we were using version 7 for our retail shop. RCS was excited to tell us that the latest version of CounterPoint (Version 8 /CPSQL) connected with Outbound Software’s Online Reservation System could be the solution we were looking for.

After extensive demonstrations and lengthy question and answer sessions, we were convinced we had found a system. Here are some of the highlights of those conversations:

• CPSQL would be able to handle our retail shop, cafeteria and admissions thereby having the same system cover our three core departments.
• Outbound Software would be able to handle all of our online reservation needs as well as our call center and walk-in reservations. This, along with Outbound’s tight integration with CPSQL would centralize our customers and online transactions within CPSQL.
• CPSQL’s intuitive e-commerce module would allow us to create a storefront showcasing our hot-selling items.
• We would continue to use Raiser’s Edge but share member information using CounterPoint’s member interface.
• All aspects of the solution would be fully supported by RCS.

All in all, we were replacing three systems with one connected solution.

Phased Approach

Given the specific needs of each department at the Museum, we decided not to implement everything at the same time. We have spent the past year phasing in items 1 through 5 below, and plan to release phase 6 in the next couple of months.

• Phase 1 – Glass Market (CPSQL)
• Phase 2 – Online Glass Market (CP Online)
• Phase 3 – Admission Sales (CPSQL)
• Phase 4 – Internal Reservations (Outbound Software)
• Phase 5 – Cafeteria (CPSQL)
• Phase 6 – Online Reservations (Outbound Software)

The phased approach has been critical in our success in having our staff adopt the new software as well as reducing long nights for the IT staff!

The support we have received from RCS and the customization work from Outbound has exceeded our expectations. We are pleased not only in our software choice but in our relationship with these companies.

Next Steps

With our new set of tools, we are prepared to actively grow the Museum, including adding, additional workshop times and new activities. As we grow in the years to come, we are confident that the infrastructure we have created now will keep pace with the ever changing demands of the museum environment.