Job Title: Visitor Experience Officer
Reports to: Visitor Experience Manager
Salary: £26,455 per annum
Employment: Permanent full-time contract
Hours: 40 hours per week (includes regular weekends and bank holidays and occasional evenings)
Annual Leave: 25 days + bank holidays
Bath Abbey
Bath Abbey is a flourishing parish church in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage City of Bath and a significant part of the city’s rich heritage which reaches back to Roman times. Please visit our website for further information.
While the geographical parish has only a small residential population, our congregation is a gathered community from all over the city and surrounding area. We also welcome over 350,000 regional, national and international visitors and worshippers each year. Bath Abbey has around 27 staff, around 100 choir members, over 250 volunteers and over 450 people in its congregation.
Bath Abbey was built in 1499, is Grade 1 Listed and is the last great medieval church to be built in England. In addition to this building, the staff of Bath Abbey work from offices in Kingston Buildings next door, which is also home to the Abbey’s Song School.
Our Values, including Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
Bath Abbey’s core values are as follows:
Welcoming - we open our hearts minds and doors to all people, and we offer a warm and inclusive welcome to everyone who visits or connects in any way with the Abbey.
Sharing - we value teamwork and knowledge sharing. We listen to the views of others and are transparent, collaborative and responsible in how we deliver our roles.
Cherishing - we care for all people, our planet and the culture and heritage of the Abbey. We show this in the way we make people feel, the empathy and support we offer, responding to cultural shifts and challenges, and altering our behaviours to live more sustainably. Not all of us can do the same things but what we uniquely do, we can do with great love.
Flourishing - we encourage people to grow and so look to create a working environment that provides opportunities to learn, innovate and develop, so that we can be happy, fulfilled and successful in our roles.
Bath Abbey is committed to treating our staff and our whole community with dignity and respect. We aim to represent diverse identities within our staff and our whole community whether this be by race, culture, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability, or social background. We work to ensure that staff fulfil their potential within a proactive caring and loving environment. We aim to be a diverse and truly representative workplace and particularly welcome applications from people of UK Minority Ethnic/Global Majority Heritage.
Overall purpose of the role
Bath Abbey welcomes over 350,000 visitors a year. Working alongside two other Visitor Experience Officers you will be responsible for ensuring all our visitors receive a consistently warm welcome and have an outstanding experience with us. You will support a team of Visitor Experience staff and volunteers in the operational delivery of a high-quality visitor experience. We have between 7 to 9 Visitor Experience staff and usually 2 to 4 volunteers on site each day, you will be a key point of contact for their daily briefings and handling operational issues that may arise.
This role will take particular responsibility for the tours offered at Bath Abbey. This includes but is not limited to the highlights tours running throughout the day which are included in the admission as well as out key offer of Tower Tours which are offered to both public and private groups and proposal packages. This role will focus on organising the day-to-day delivery of public and privately booked tours, as well as maintaining their quality and training new staff and volunteers.
Who we’re looking for
We’re looking for someone with a high standard 'visitor first' approach who is confident acting as a Duty Manager, will be a calm and supportive presence on the ground and who understands visitor operations and visitor experience in a heritage setting. We need an enthusiastic team player who is comfortable working in a quick paced environment.
Key Responsibilities
* Ensure all visitors receive a warm welcome to Bath Abbey.
* Deliver the Abbey’s tours programme, includes regular and seasonal / occasional tours.
* Ensure all staff and volunteers have a strong knowledge of the visitor offer and can communicate this to our visitors.
* Act as a role model to ensure consistently high levels of customer service are delivered.
* Be responsible for the daily set up of the Welcome Area.
* Lead daily briefings for staff and volunteers.
* Be responsible for cashing up at the end of each day.
* Ensure the Welcome Area, Abbey, Discovery Museum, Tower and all other public areas are presented and maintained to a consistently high standard reporting any issues to the Facilities Manager and Visitor Experience Manager.
* Ensure the Welcome Area, Abbey, Discovery Museum, Tower and all other public areas are compliant with the Abbey’s Health and Safety processes and procedures and report any Health and Safety issues to the Facilities Manager and Visitor Experience Manager.
* Work with the Visitor Experience Manager to ensure Visitor Experience staff and volunteers are appropriately recruited, inducted, trained and developed. Most specifically support the training of new staff and volunteers in their learning of tours.
* Provide first line support to and daily supervision of a team of Visitor Experience staff and volunteers.
* Work with the Visitors Experience Manager to set and review standards to ensure a consistently high level of visitor experience is maintained and coach the team accordingly.
* Ensure appropriate levels of staffing and volunteer support.
* Respond to visitor enquiries in person, by email and on the phone.
* Deal with complaints in line with the Abbey’s Visitor Complaints Policy.
* Ensure all private and group bookings to the Abbey, including tours bookings, are processed in a timely, efficient and professional manner.
* Act as the key contact for internal and external stakeholders as agreed with the Visitor Experience Manager.
* As requested, provide support for the smooth running of the Abbey Shop, Learning Programme and Events Programme.
* As requested, provide support for the care of the Abbey’s Archive and Collections.
* Support the Visitor Experience Manager and Head of Visitor Experience in the production of reports.
Person Specification
Essential
* Relevant qualification in history, heritage, hospitality, tourism or similar or able to demonstrate equivalent interest, knowledge and experience.
* Relevant first aid qualification or willingness to undergo training.
* A flexible, visitor first approach.
* An understanding of visitor operations or visitor experience in a heritage attraction.
* An enthusiastic attitude towards sharing the history of Bath Abbey.
* An understanding of different access requirements and how to meet visitors needs.
* A minimum of 2 years experience in visitor operations, visitor experience or customer service, ideally in a heritage attraction.
* Experience of supervising a team, ideally in a heritage attraction.
* Experience of working with volunteers
* Experience of cash handling / till reconciliation.
* Experience of dealing with visitor complaints and handling demanding and difficult situations with the public, in a calm and confident manner.
* Clear and effective written and verbal communication skills.
* Ability to manage a busy workload, multitask and prioritise accordingly without compromising on quality.
* Ability to work both collaboratively and independently.
* Ability to make decisions under pressure without immediate assistance from line manager.
* Strong problem solving and intuitive thinking skills.
* Excellent forward planning skills.
* Excellent IT skills.
Desirable
* An understanding of the history of Bath Abbey including religious aspects of British history and Bath Abbey’s links with the British Empire; or a willingness to undergo research and training in these areas.
* An understanding of volunteering policy and framework.
* A creative and imaginative approach to problem solving.
* Experience of providing guided tours.
* Experience of growing and developing public guided tours.
* Experience of using volunteer management software.
* Experience of working with back-office ticketing and online booking systems.
* Experience of scheduling staffing rotas and creating briefing materials for daily operations.
* Experience supporting the delivery of formal and informal learning activities.
Special Requirements
* Hours are on a four-week rotation and include regular weekends and bank holidays and occasional evenings.
* The candidate will be required to submit to an enhanced DBS clearance check.
Application
To submit an application, please send a full CV and covering letter of no more than one A4 page which explains why you are a suitable candidate. Please include the details of two references. References will only be taken up once an offer has been made.
Deadline for applications: Midnight on Sunday 13 July 2025
Please note: Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we regret that we are unable to respond to every applicant. If you have not heard from us by Friday 18 July 2025 please assume you have not been successful on this occasion.