A Service Model for Cultural Excellence

Culture, that intrinsic expression of humankind, has somehow grown remote from the general public. Arts and cultural institutions, just like their business counterparts, urgently need to find new audiences, meet changing demands and consider their business models afresh. The whole sector needs to reinvent itself, says the author. But how? Beatriz Muñoz-Seca recommends that arts and cultural institutions focus not so much on their products as on creating richer customer service experiences. To that end, she proposes the Service Activity Sequence – an operational framework for designing a customer experience and bringing several complementary players together to produce an integrated customer experience. Using various examples drawn from the author’s own research on arts and cultural institutions around the world, this article urges everyone to try new approaches, before today’s radically changing social and economic factors dictate the decline of our shared cultural patrimony.