Read our case study on how we helped Beamish implement their EPOS and Ticketing solution to help welcome more visitors.
VisiSoft helped implement a new integrated EPOS Solution with Gift Aid reporting built in to help increase charitable revenue.
The museum tells the story of the people in the North East of England during the Industrial Revolution, between 1825 when the region was rural and thinly populated, and 1913 when the heavy industries of the region were at their peak. Beamish stands in 300 acres of beautiful countryside and unlike traditional museums, most of the houses, shops and other buildings have been dismantled, relocated and rebuilt at Beamish.
Beamish tells its story, not with labels and fact sheets but by costumed staff who are proud of their heritage and happy to share their knowledge with visitors. Beamish hold a wide range of events including Agricultural Shows and Fairs which prove very popular with the public, with lots of group bookings and educational trips taking place throughout the year. There are also a number of cafes and gift shops within Beamish for the visitors to enjoy.
Beamish Museum have been working with VisiSoft for over 12 years providing them with continued EPOS updates and support. Back in 2008 Beamish Museum knew that to effectively grow their business they needed to get an EPOS system that could grow with. Welcoming thousands of visitors every year Beamish needed a way to process and manage GiftAid, due to their charitable status by processing Gift Aid they could increase income streams automatically at the till.
After much careful consideration of more than four shortlisted EPOS solutions, Beamish Museum decided that VisiSoft was the best solution for them. VisiSoft had all the functionality Beamish needed and met all of their standards, unlike some of the other EPOS systems which were looked at that did not meet every specification.
Another advantage of VisiSoft was that it could be tailored even further to meet and exceed Beamish’s requirements. Beamish implemented an initial twenty tills throughout the cafes, gift shops and admission stands around the museum.
Initally, in the early stages, we integrated with their bespoke online ticketing software, to allow fast redemption of tickets ordered online at the till. Beamish now have digitickets to manage all of their ticketing, annual passes and “friends of beamish” membership schemes.
Major on site events such as christmas specials and santas grottos are all managed through digitickets and visisoft intergration, allowing for capacity management and timed slot events.
Their integration with exchequer has always been massive for them, allowing them to analyse all of the different outlets across the site, from admissions to the fish and chip shop. It also allows them to meet all of their reporting requirements
across their whole site.
We even introduced queue busting measures with tablets in the peak season to gather visitor details and process admissions whilst standing in the queue. Beamish find this new system to be particularly useful when dealing with group bookings or school trips as it simplifies the process and the group booking process is much easier to manage than it was with their previous system. Beamish implemented VisiSoft’s loyalty programme to cater for their membership scheme which allows them to store their members information and regularly update them with the latest news and events from the museum.
Our EPOS solution has allowed Beamish Museum to meet the demands of their growing customer numbers with state-of-the-art tills and tablets located throughout their attraction. Our museum EPOS software is specifically designed with museums in mind making it simple to process admissions at the entrance and keep queues short in catering outlets, such as their famous Fish and Chips shop.
Request A Demo
VisiSoft has allowed Beamish Museum to improve its efficiency and customer service through the use of the new ticketing and bookings system, and also allows them to identify areas where their performance can be improved by looking at the trends of their ticket sales. The new IRIS Exchequer accounting solution fully integrates with all VisiSoft tills, a significant advantage and saving to Beamish.
Beamish can now control every area of their business through the use of a single system and all reports can be done from a central location simply and efficiently – unlike the previous manual methods used. VisiSoft’s comprehensive management reporting now allows them to report on almost any aspect of their business – a function that has proved invaluable to Beamish since the installation. Staff at Beamish have needed minimal training on VisiSoft EPOS tills and have been happy using it from the day it was installed, as it has made their day-to-day processes much simpler and allows them to fully concentrate on their jobs and focus on giving visitors a more enjoyable experience at Beamish.
Beamish use a number of tablet based tills to enable queue busting at peak times. Staff can walk down the queue to gather customer information, leaving the payment to be processed at the ticket booth.
Since the initial 20 tills that were implemented, Beamish Museum has grown in volume and expanded this attraction. This increased demand led to what is now a 36 till solution which meets this demand.
See how our EPOS Solutions can help your business grow.
Online group and school ticketing, cafes, gift shops, Gift Aid, memberships, donations, stock management and reporting all on one system, all backed up by award-winning support.
Your visitors deserve the best experience: Our EPOS solution empowers your team to delivery exactly that.