CC image courtesy of Robbert van der Steeg on Flickr

The choice you need to make is will it affect it in a good way or a bad way?

We are all busy. My to-do list is so long at this point I keep a master running list and a small list just for today, because looking at the long list inspires panic.

As individuals, managers and organizations it can be easy to keep adding responsibilities, expectations and tasks to our list and to the lists of others. Especially at a time like this, when you may be short staffed, or just busier than normal (library usage goes up during a recession) or both.

Unfortunately this attitude towards time can really hurt you in customer service. How staff feel about their time and the expectation from management affects how they interact with patrons. It’s the difference between handing someone a call number and vaguely gesturing towards the stacks and leaving the desk and walking the patron to the book. It’s the difference between hand the book over and walking away or asking if you can help them find anything else. It shows up in the type of greeting patrons receive in that minutes of extra chit-chat so many love, in determining if the information they are asking for is really the information they are seeking.

Don’t think it’s just front line staff either. It can mean the difference in pulling that raggedy looking book or letting it circulate one more time, in ensuring the door knobs and other areas are properly disinfected, in how fast a phone call is returned. I could go on but I think you get the idea.

Want to get smart about time? Here are some suggestions from How Smart Leaders Talk About Time on Harvard Business.

1) Establish a shared language that distinguishes between the “pressure on time” and “impact on goals” factors.

Team leaders often fail to make this distinction clear. Tasks are transmitted without specifying if the emphasis on such task is due to:

• a combination of the above mentioned two factors
• the fact the task has a remarkable impact on the individual or group’s goals
• the restricted timeframe within which the task must be completed

2) Reduce those activities that, despite being important, must be performed under pressure. (emphasis mine)

A successful leader reduces “urgent and important” activities to a minimum, by monitoring:

• How tasks are planned and delegated.
• How “urgent and important” activities can be reduced.
• How much free-of-distraction time people have for high-impact activities.

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• How do you get organized?
• Your Inbox Is Not a To-do List
• Top Ten Links Week 21

Emotional Customer Service

Change exercise – identity crisis, exchange name tags & three facts keep passing along like telephone

How can we use in workplace?
Where is quality control in info exchange?
Importance of communication

Patrons come to lib for more than just books, dvds and info and internet access they call come to feel good
What retail stores will you not go back to?

Think about emotional need of patrons, not just physical need

Thoughts lead to feelings that lead to behavior that lead to events that lead to belief systems

Belief systems can be created upon a lie or by what someone told you

How do we overcome that belief system? Consistent good customer service experience

Is every customer a good customer for our library? Is the customer always right?

Seek first to understand then to be understood – St. Francis

Most times we don’t’ seek to understand we seek to respond
Judging stops the listening process
Our goal is to understand even if you don’t agree with them.
Its not fair – fair is a perception

Empathy – are we empathizing with our patrons
Sympathy vs empathy

Customers who leave angry might never come back or might come back angry

Giving training isn’t enough you need follow up to measure success

Giving instructions often aren’t clear to the other person

Stop asking people if they understand

Your patrons only care what you know when the know that you care

Average adult can only listen for in the morning 7-11 minutes before they mentally leave the room, in the afternoon only 4-7 minutes
3 ways to get them paying attention again.
Get others talking
Do an activity
Get them to laugh

The Customer Experience
• Service is often see as merely task/transaction
• Experience is created by consistently exceeding customer physical and emotional expectations
• Expectations judgment customer make as they do business with you
• Challenges to look at service from outside in what are the customers physical/emotional expectations at each moment of contact/connections

Survey of visits to public libraries
Customers noticed
• Bright lighting
• Colors
• Smells
• Positioning of displays
• Employees present/nonpresent
• Asking for help/not help/too much help
• Employees taking amount themselves
• Space
• Noise
• Checkout lines
• Attitude of employees
• Eye contact
• Acknowledgement of patrons
• Going with patrons vs saying its over there
• Having to wait inline
• Acknowledgement/no acknowledgement in line
• Greeting in leaving

Other patrons have told use they would like this to be a quiet areaSimilar Posts:

• There is something to be said for brand loyalty
• Steven Bell – Design Your Way to a Future Proof Library
• Continued Online Community Engagement

I’ll provide some background, but if you’d like to get to the point it’s don’t buy a camera from Casio and think hard about Customer Service.

My first digital camera was a Sony, but my second was a Canon Powershot and two subsequent cameras have been Powershots.  I love taking photos and I know I am working my way towards an SLR. Last October I traded in my Canon PowerShot SD870 IS  (great point & shot by the way) for the Canon SX10 IS, love it! But found I missed having a small point & shoot in my purse handy in case I wanted to take a photo of something.  Having sold the SD870 (I so regret this) I looked at my options, I didn’t want to spend a lot as I already have a nice camera, but I did want image stabilization and a wide angle lens.  Canon had an option but of course it was more expensive than the one Casio offered.  So I put aside my brand loyalty and bought the Casio.  I’m not completely thrilled with the functionality of it and wouldn’t want it for my “good” camera but it worked.  Until 2 weeks ago when I dropped it and the screen broke.

I’d had it for less than a month and it was under warranty so I sent it into Casio to be repaired.  Today I got the estimate for repair, now keep in mind I indicated the screen was broken when I filled out the forms & they did not indicate it what it would cost and I paid about $10 to ship it.

• Flat Amount: $69.00
• Labor: $0.00
• Parts: $0.00
• Shipping & Handling: $10.00
• Sales Tax: $4.74
• Service Total: $83.74
• Remarks: review screen broken

I only paid $124.95 for the camera! Seriously?  Worse there is no view finder so it is useless without the screen, but there is no freaking way I’m paying them $83.74  In truth I’m more frustrated with myself than Casio, I know that sometimes cheaper is cheaper for a reason and you end up paying for it in the long run.

update 6:30 pm EST – just realize I have to pay them $10 to send it back to me or allow them to keep it.  Now actually mad.

Now I wish I’d bought the Canon. Why? Because several years ago, when I had my very first Canon, I broke the screen.  I foolishly left it laying on the stairs and someone (I can’t remember if it was me or a roommate) stepped on it and broke it after it was almost a year old.  I sent it to Canon, they repaired it and mailed it back to me a no cost. I’d almost forgotten this was part of my foundation for loyalty to Canon (I get flack for it sometimes you know) until this little incident.  In truth it probably cost them very little to fix it for free and it earned them a life long customer, I’ve since purchased 2 more Canons, each increasingly higher end, therefore more expensive models. I’ll be replaced the Casio with a Canon thank you very much, and I’ll also be advising other people not to buy a Casio. I am the techie friend that so many friends and family come to for advice when they are thinking about a new gadget. Sometimes it is the little or not so little things that matter.

Ok so how does this relate to libraries? Customer service matters, and not just in the front line smile and be nice kind of way, but in the don’t offer excuses and just fix my problem sort of way.  I’m sure Casio has very good reasons for these fees, and I’m certain its their policy.  I can’t argue with that.

But sometimes by sticking with our very good reasons and policies we’re digging a hole.  You may gain a small amount in fees or fines, but what did you loose in the form of customer relations, good feelings and PR?  How much do you spend on marketing and PR?  What if by providing exceptional customer service your patrons could be doing positive PR for you instead of negative?

I know times are tight and we’re all looking to save a buck, but what you gain today in $10 or $20 (or $83.74) of  fees you could pay back many times over in the money you could have saved on marketing and PR.

photo by debairdSimilar Posts:

• Emotional Customer Service for Library Professionals – Andrew Sanderbeck
• Managers – The Message You’re Sending About Time is Affecting Customer Service
• Put Down the Phone and Pay Attention