Creating visitor profiles to guide the customer-centered service development of Metsähallitus Parks and Wildlife Finland

With over 7,5 million visits made annually, the visitors of national parks and other destinations of Metsähallitus are diverse. They range from new to experienced hikers, many of whom are not familiar with the rules that apply in different areas. This may lead to misconduct, including igniting illegal camp fires and hiking in restricted areas. There was a lack of understanding of how services should be developed to foster sustainable behaviour and ensure a safe hiking experience for all.

Metsähallitus conducts continuous customer research and collects versatile data about our customers. However, there had previously been a limited amount of qualitative insight regarding motivations and behaviour of different customer groups. There was also a lack of understanding of how different services should be developed in a way that better meets customer needs. It was identified that there is a need for a tool that would help develop more customer-centric services.

Visitor profiles were created as a tool to increase understanding of customers in Metsähallitus.

Behavioural profiles are a tool for increasing understanding of visitors and empathy towards customers. The profiles are archetypes that help you understand the behaviour, attitudes, challenges, motivation and values of different customers. Ideally, profiles are a systematic tool for customer-oriented service development that provide a basis for decision-making based on customer insight.

As the result, five profiles were identified: Enthusiast, Comfort Seeker, Wilderness Wanderer, Piknicker, and Achiever. The profiles are based on qualitative customer insight collected by various methods, including surveys, interviews and ethnography. The profiles were created by grouping and combining different attributes, and by using frame analysis to identify the ones that distinguish visitor groups. Hiking skills and service expectations of customers were identified as the key attributes.

Full study here: Metsähallitus_Visitor profiles

The visitor profiles have increased awareness of the needs of different customers and enabled the development of more customer-centered services at Metsähallitus Parks and Wildlife Finland.

These services include the development of guide signs at urban national parks, the renewal of Nationalparks.fi service, and the planning of hiking areas and trails. The profiles have enabled creating services and content that guide different visitors to hike in a safer and more sustainable manner.

As Metsähallitus Parks and Wildlife Finland is a public service provider, the visitors are diverse. In order to gain qualitative understanding of the needs and attributes of different visitor groups, thorough customer research was needed on various topics and by different methods. Additionally, using service design as an approach was fairly new to the organization.

The visitor profiles and qualitative insight can help not only to increase empathy and create more customer-centric services, but also to advance the organization’s goals to conserve nature responsibly across generations. By understanding our customers and their motivations, it is possible to develop services that foster people’s connection to and respect towards nature, and to nudge all visitors to act in a sustainable manner.