In this book, nine librarians from across the country describe their libraries’ best practices in this key area. Their contributions range from all-encompassing customer service policies and models any library can both adapt and be proud of to micro-approaches that emphasize offering excellent user-focused technology planning, picture book arrangement with patrons in mind, Web 2.0 tools to connect users with the library, establishing good service delivery chains, and making your library fantastic for homeschoolers. As past Public Library Association President Audra Caplan writes in her introduction to this book, “There is nothing magical about providing excellent customer service; it just takes the right people, the right philosophy and the passion to make it a reality.” If you’ve got all that, here are the best practices to make stellar customer service a reality for your library’s users.
The term 'customer service' is not new to the academic library community. Academic libraries exist to serve the needs of their community, and hence customer service is essential. However, the term can be applied in a variety of ways, from a thin veneer of politeness, to an all-encompassing ethic focussing organisational and individual attention on understanding and meeting the needs of the customer. For customers, the library's Front Line team is the 'human face' of the library. How well they do their job can have a massive impact on the quality of the learning experience for many students, and can directly impact upon their success. The importance of their role, and the quality of the services they offer, should not be underestimated – but in an increasingly digital world, and with potentially several thousand individuals visiting every day (whether in person or online), each with their own agendas and requirements, how can the library's Front Line team deliver the personal service that each of these individuals need? Customer Service in Academic Libraries contributes to what academic libraries, as a community, do really well - the sharing of best practice. It brings together, in one place, examples of how Front Line teams from libraries across a wide geographical area - Hong Kong, Australia, Turkey and the United Kingdom – work to 'get it right for their customers'. Between them, they cover a range of institutions including research-intensive, mixed HE/FE, private establishments and shared campuses. All have their own tales to tell, their own emphases, their own ways of doing things – and all bring their own examples of best practice, which it is hoped readers will find useful in their own context. - Discusses 'customer service' in a library setting - Translates 'management theory' into useful practice information - Examines building relationships, meeting customer needs, and marketing and communication - Provides examples of practical experience grounded in recent, transferable experience
From librarians to volunteer workers, staff to student workers, all library personnel need to deliver great customer service. This book presents innovative instructional methods that will inspire you to take a fresh approach to customer service training. Customer service is one of the most critical staff development training areas in the library world. Every member of a library's staff who interacts with the public needs the specialized skills and tools to work with a diverse clientele. This book addresses the need for staff training for various kinds of libraries, covering public and academic libraries of various sizes, medical libraries, law libraries, and state organization and joint-use libraries. Each chapter of Stellar Customer Service: Training Library Staff to Exceed provides practical advice and creative solutions for showing staff how to handle customer service issues. The book identifies the essential skills and tools staff at all levels—from librarians and staff to student workers and volunteers—must have to contribute to your library's success. Readers will learn innovative training methods, see how a wide range of libraries have approached this perennial staff issue, and get excited about approaching their own customer service training in fresh new ways.
This extensively revised and updated edition explores even further the ways technology influences both the experiences of library customers and the ways libraries themselves can assess those experiences.
In this book, the author attacks these and other pressing issues facing today's academic librarians. Her trailbrazing strategies centre on keeping the customer's point of view in focus at all times to help you to integrate technology to meet today's student and faculty needs.
"Offers a historical-cultural context for the ethos of service in libraries and critically examines this professional value as it intersects with gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, class, and (dis)ability"--Provided by publisher.
Prologue : the power of a lean transformation -- Strategy one. Recognize that service performance is the key to customer retention -- Strategy two. Transform your change-resistant culture -- Strategy three. Understand how delivery service chains drive your library's performance -- Strategy four. Align your performance metrics with your delivery service chains -- Strategy five. Transform your new book delivery service chain -- Strategy six. Transform your customer holds/reserves delivery chain of service -- Strategy seven. Transform your cost control philosophy to a lean service improvement philosophy -- Strategy eight. Transform your overall library service performance metrics -- Strategy nine. Transform your digital research delivery service chain -- Strategy ten. Transform your delivery service chain from a "push" to a "pull" philosophy -- Strategy eleven. Think lean before the concrete is poured -- Afterword : lean continuous improvement -- Appendix : more lean tools.
In this book, nine librarians from across the country describe their libraries' best practices in this key area. Their contributions range from all-encompassing customer service policies and models any library can both adapt and be proud of to micro-approaches that emphasize offering excellent user-focused technology planning, picture book arrangement with patrons in mind, Web 2.0 tools to connect users with the library, establishing good service delivery chains, and making your library fantastic for homeschoolers. As past Public Library Association President Audra Caplan writes in her introduction to this book, "There is nothing magical about providing excellent customer service; it just takes the right people, the right philosophy and the passion to make it a reality." If you've got all that, here are the best practices to make stellar customer service a reality for your library's users.
