Loss isn’t fun and it can get even worse when it happens at a Music Festival. The Liff Crew wanted to put together some easy advice for helping customers and creating a plan to manage Lost & Found.
1. Put it on the Map.
Pretty simple, but one that festivals miss all the time. List this information on the maps, website, and mobile app to keep your attendee informed and short circuit those common questions.
2. Tell the staff where it’s located
Asking one question to 5 different staff and getting 5 different answers is insanely frustrating and kills your customer experience. “I’m not sure, but I’ll find out” is an amazing staff golden phrase.
Encourage staff that finding the correct answer is so much much MUCH more important that just taking a random stab at it.
Important questions: How is your festival currently managing information and communication? What tools do festival staff have to find out the correct answer? Once the accurate information is found how are you sharing it with internal staff?
3. Only have one location
Of course attendees will likely turn in stuff all over the festival grounds so make sure to send runners on a regular cadence to check if items are at key locations.
4. Open 24 hours vs limited times
This is a bit more difficult of a decision to weigh. A camping festival means your customers will be there 24 hours from start to end, but do they really need 24 hours of help? You’ll want to encourage customers and staff to be able to turn items in whenever they are found, but how much do you think you will return during the sleeping hours? Dedicating staff to the 4am-9am shifts creates additional cost and can lead to burn out, ultimately leading to a worse customer experience.
Side Note: make the items searchable 24/7 at the very least through your website or mobile app… cough cough maybe using the Liff App
5. Put up signs
Kind of a reminder from Point 1. Disseminating information to your attendees can be difficult and there is no silver bullet so you want to position this information in the places your customers are most likely to be searching for it. Consider adding information to places such as:
- The Map
- Onsite Guides
- Signs around the festival (especially at the exit)
- The tent sign actually says “Lost & Found”
- Online FAQ
- Online Navigation (under info)
- Mobile App (under the info section)
- Social media posts (before and after the event)
6. Keep Found Phones Charged
Phones can = life for attendees. As their primary source of info, a popular tool for payments, and the singular communication device this commonly stolen & lost device can take over an attendee experience.
The most effective way to update owners and coordinate returns is by keeping these device powered and having staff answer calls. Not the easiest task as phones charging has multiple types and can occur in large numbers.
7. Post-Festival Plan
Items show up during clean up and attendees might not start searching until after the festival is over. All the “we will not be liable for lost & stolen… yada yada” signs don’t matter as most states and counties require efforts to attempt returns.
Important questions to consider:
- How do attendees report what they lost?
- The festival is over so what do attendees do now?
- Can they pick items up still? If so do they go to the festival site or an office?
- Will you ship items back?
8. Get the Liff App
Why do we care about Lost & Found? Hundreds of thousands of dollars in stuff is turned into Lost & Found over a festival weekend. The items sitting in the lost & found means tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars are not being spent at your festival and thousands of attendees are having a poor experience that might lead to not returning next year. We want to help you fix that.
Interested in hearing more or want to chat with the Liff Happens Crew? Drop your info below: