Customer Service in Academic Libraries

Tales from the Front Line

Stephen Mossop

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781843347583
• eBook ISBN: 9781780634395
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

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

Chapter 1

“Customer Service”—What’s the Big Deal?

Stephen Mossop, Head of Library Services (Retired), University of Exeter, UK

Abstract

This chapter sets the scene for the case-study chapters which follow. It explores the nature of customer service in academic libraries, discusses the importance of establishing and maintaining the highest possible levels of customer satisfaction in support of institutional goals and in relation to enhanced student attainment, and describes the benefits of “thinking like a customer.”

Keywords

Customer focus; customer journey mapping; customer relations; organi­sational culture; organisational vision; service quality survey; service standards; library impact

What’s in a Name?

There are many terms traditionally employed by academic libraries to describe those who make use of the services they offer—“patrons,” “readers,” “researchers,” “students,” and “users” to name but a few of the more commonly used ones. I’m certainly not going to argue that any are better or more appropriate than others, and I’m certainly aware of how strongly ingrained their use can be in different institutions. In the end, for me, they’re all really just various disguises for the same thing—“customers”—and I happily concur with Bernstein’s view that “While some may question comparing a library to a department store, and some may shudder at using the word customer instead of patron, keep in mind that our users are our customers. Whether they are taxpaying members of the public, attorneys in a firm, or faculty and students of an academic library, they are still our customers” (Bernstein, 2008: p. 21)—though it never fails to amaze me how vehemently some will argue against the use of that terrible word!

You’ll have to forgive me, then, if you are one of those who prefer not to call your customers “customers.” Let’s agree to differ on that point, and, just for expediency, allow me to use it as a shorthand term—it’s simply a useful portmanteau word to cover all the above. This book is about “customer service,” and whatever descriptor you choose to replace the “customer” bit with, it is the depth, range, and above all the quality of the service that we provide which is far and away the most important element, and which will be the primary focus of this book.

We’ve probably all encountered instances of poor customer service. Do you recall a time when you couldn’t find something in a store, and had to resort to asking a member of staff for help? Couldn’t find one? That’s one end of the scale—but how about the reception you got at the customer service desk? Did you get the blank stare, or the rolled eyes? Maybe you got the benefit of a pointed finger—“Aisle 5, probably”—or, better still … microphone snatched irritably from its slightly battered cradle, a high-pitched whistle, and a curt “Grocery colleague to the desk please … a ‘customer’ needs a personal tour of the shelves”? Made you feel really wanted and “cared for,” didn’t it? And I bet you probably didn’t get what you went in for, either….

Compare that to how you feel when an assistant responds to your plea for help with a smile, stops what they’re doing, and leads you to exactly the item you were looking for. Even if they couldn’t find it, you felt at least that they’d tried to be helpful—but how was this handled? Was an appropriate alternative suggested? Did they check incoming stock delivery schedules to find out when it would arrive, or offer to order it in for you? In an extreme case, did they suggest where else you might try? Either way, you really did feel that the assistant actually wanted you to find what you needed, and that you would be satisfied with your overall experience of using the store.

In the more positive example, it is clear that the assistant was focused upon achieving customer satisfaction. In the negative example, who knows where their focus was? Certainly, customer satisfaction was not their highest priority. Obviously, there are a wide range of experiences between these two extremes, but wherever the marker falls will dictate the customer’s opinion of the organisation as a whole. Of the two extremes, which would encourage you to return on a subsequent occasion? Would you be more likely to recommend one store over the other?

In reality, of course, the circumstances of business dictate that organisations will usually need their staff to perform more than one role at any given time. In a supermarket, for example, it is important that the shelves be well and attractively stocked, so that the shoppers’ needs will be satisfied by the range of products they can buy. They won’t buy much from empty or disordered shelves. There is pressure, then, upon staff to keep on top of restocking and tidying, otherwise their customers won’t find what they’re looking for—there is rarely time for staff to stand around looking for customers to help. However, if staff are unaware that this pressure needs also to be offset by the need to keep an eye out for “lost” customers, and to be ready to help as far as they can, then they are most unlikely to raise their eyes from the shelves long enough to see customers, let alone respond in a positive and helpful way. In this respect, it’s all about priorities, and those need to be set out very clearly by the organisation. If the manager dictates that shelving is the highest priority, then that has to be the priority his staff work to—and no wonder, then, that customers have to continually dodge busily wheeled carts, lean over staff to get to the shelves, and are ignored when they need to ask for help. On the other hand, if the manager has set “customer service” as their store’s priority, and has made it very clear what that means, then the opposite is true—carts are moved around customers, rather than the other way around, and assistants wait until shelves are clear of customers before restocking or tidying … and, most important of all, they are continually looking out for people who might need a hand to find what they need. The organisation dictates the ethos, then—but that doesn’t necessarily mean that “customer focus” will come naturally to all staff, or that they won’t let even high standards slip occasionally. Customer focus is high maintenance, and requires constant vigilance if it’s to be maintained at a high enough level of quality to achieve consistent customer satisfaction—and in the end, that’s what it’s all about: satisfied customers who will come back again and again, but who in return expect to experience a level of service similar to what they did last time and the time before that.

It’s more than likely that you’ll have noted many examples of excellent customer service taking place in your own organisation, delivered by staff who just naturally like interacting with people and want to do their best for them. That’s a really good place to start from, but it’s not quite the same as knowing that every single member of your team is similarly focussed and delivering a consistently high level of service—all the time. How do you get to that exalted place? Well, I’m afraid, not without a lot of thought and planning, and certainly not without a lot of hard, sometimes grinding work.

Look around, and watch what’s going on. Observe how your staff interact with their customers—your customers. Some will no doubt be performing well, while others will inevitably be falling somewhat short of your standards. The point is, though—do they know they are doing well (or otherwise)? Do they know what you and, more importantly, their customers need and expect from them? In terms of the service delivered, they probably do (well, they should, anyway!), but, assuming that as a given, how did they deliver it? Cheerfully, or with a degree of frustrated resignation? Did they help the person find what they needed, or just point vaguely to where it should be? How did they find out what was needed in the first place? Were they looking for the next question, or just waiting for it to come to them? Look at it from their point of view—do they know what’s expected, what your standards are? Have you explained it to them, described what you need them to do and how you need them to handle interactions? They can’t improve if they don’t know what “improvement” looks like, so you really need to start by describing that through a well-crafted vision statement.

A true “customer service ethos” is much more than skin deep, a veneer that can be used to cover up all sorts of blemishes and impurities below the surface. Your customers are not stupid, and they’ll see through that very quickly. It really does have to be something that is grown from deep within the organisation and encouraged to exude through every pore. Smiley staff are nice to have, but they do need to have something to smile about—and that, whatever their working environment, can only really come from pride in an organisation they believe in, and that they are confident will support their endeavours to give the best customer service they can. What confidence can they have if their managers are constantly chivvying them to get the stocking-up done, and who frown at them for leaving their area to help a customer find something in another? On the contrary, they need to know that their efforts are recognised and will be rewarded, even if only in their own sense of a job well done.

It doesn’t end with staff who care about their customers, of course—there is an awful lot more to it than that. A thorough-going customer service ethos will influence the organisation’s entire relationship with its customers, whether existing or potential, beginning with a deep understanding of their needs and aspirations, through service delivery to what happens after they’re no longer on the premises. This makes sound business sense, and goes far beyond simply making people feel good—an organisation that doesn’t know what its customers want and need is hardly likely to be able to deliver it, or even to attract customers in the first place; once on the premises customers won’t buy what they can’t see, which is where good product placement, stock presentation, and staff assistance walk hand in hand, and organisations that care enough about their customers to deal quickly and effectively when something goes wrong post-purchase is much more likely to succeed in terms of customer loyalty and retention than one that relies entirely upon manufacturers guarantees. All of these aspects and more contribute importantly to the holistic customer service jigsaw, and shouldn’t be overlooked, but it’s worth bearing in mind that it is people who bring it all together, and it is their performance which will most directly influence customers’ opinion of the organisation as a whole. After all, it is those manning the front line who are the most visible face of the organisation and it is their interaction with customers that will be longest remembered.

No doubt the astute reader will have noted, probably with some confusion and chagrin, that much of the discussion so far has focussed upon the dreaded “R” word—Retail—and be wondering what on earth that has to do with delivering customer service in an academic library. The point is, of course, that “customer service,” “customer focus,” and “customer ethos” are all, essentially, context free, and whether it’s delivered in a retail or a library environment the basics are very much the same—only the purpose differs, and even then, in many ways, not by much. The delivery context is of substantially less importance than the delivery itself—and if we can learn from good examples from another arena, we would be wise to take note.

Bearing in mind the arguments above, it is worth remembering here that the concept of “customer service” in an educational library setting refers to something subtly different from the equivalent in a shop, restaurant, hotel, etc. In other environments the emphasis must, in the end, be upon providing a range of goods or services that are of a quality, style, and price range to suit their target market; offering them in ways which attract attention and encourage customers to both trust the supplier and differentiate between them and their competitors, and then upon satisfying the demand created as quickly and efficiently as possible. The desired outcome is sale of stock, and the bottom line is profit for the organisation. For academic libraries, the emphasis must be upon satisfying an existing demand for knowledge through the provision of trusted resources which are appropriate to the needs of the student, which will encourage a growth of understanding and ultimately the building of new knowledge, and then offering them in ways which will make them accessible and encourage their use. The desired outcome here is the use of collections and resources, and the bottom line is profit for the student. Unlike in a retail environment, where perhaps an element of persuasion might be necessary in order to complete a sale, the relationship between student and librarian might be broadly described as being akin to the partnership between seeker and guide. Arguably, a good guide will know how to help his client reach the desired informational goal … and then when to get out of the way and let them complete their journey under their own steam.

So yes, academic libraries do have customers—even though they may not refer to them by that descriptor, and indeed even though their clientele may not recognise themselves as such. The point is, of course, that, ultimately, academic libraries measure their success in terms of the success of their customers, and the achievement of that success is to a great extent enabled through a combination of quality resources and quality customer service.

Thinking Like a Customer

Discussing how academic libraries were facing up to the challenge of servicing the needs of a new breed of students, now more focussed than ever on the educational quality and outcomes of their university experience, I recently claimed that “The relationship between this new breed of students and Higher Education was becoming increasingly transactional. They considered themselves to be customers, the University to be providing education as a service, and the quality of the education they received and the quality of the customer service they experienced would be their joint measures of success” (Mossop, 2013: p. 118). Little has happened since then to change my opinion, nor my view that the university’s libraries should play a prominent role in ensuring the highest-quality experience for the institution’s customers … but how do we know we’ve got it right?

So—you’ve worked hard to ensure that your library service is “fit for purpose,” i.e., you’ve made sure that your stock supports the learning needs of your student customers; you’ve done your best to make sure that they can access resources in a variety of media (books in paper and e-formats, access to an appropriate range of e-journals, etc.); you’ve tried to ensure that your in-library study facilities are comfortable and sufficient for those who need to use them, and you’re pretty sure that your opening hours allow access to the library when your students need it most—but have you done enough? Is the library truly benefitting your students? Is there more that you could, or should be doing?

Libraries have long grappled with the problem of how to measure library “quality,” and much work has been done to explore the relationship between individual’s library usage and academic achievement: a good recent example of this is the JISC “Library Impact Data Project,” led by the University of Huddersfield, the outcomes of which “suggested a correlation or statistical significance between library usage—e-resources use, book loans, and gate entries—and student attainment” (Stone, 2014). What better motivation could there be for ensuring that the library is performing at its best, when there is a provable connection between library use and student attainment … all the more reason to encourage increased, and most importantly beneficial, usage by making sure that the library is operating in ways, and to a standard, that is appreciated by students. More generally, though, increasing numbers of libraries employ tools such as customer-satisfaction surveys, judging their service’s impact-effectiveness by direct consultation with their clientele—after all, while we might think we’re doing enough, they will undoubtedly have a view on how much of “enough” that is in reality. Do they think it is substandard? Or adequate? Appropriate? Exceptional?

As West (2002) puts it: “Davies (1998: p. 336) offers a succinct definition: ‘Satisfying and maintaining customer needs profitably’. If one substituted ‘effectively’ for ‘profitably’, then most libraries could relate to this” (West, 2002: p. 98), and, exploring this concept further, he adds that “Discovering and understanding customer wishes is a key starting point in the marketing process” (ibid., p. 102). He describes the usefulness and importance of customer surveys, pointing out that relatively simple and cost-effective toolkits have been developed to allow libraries to create regular measures of customer satisfaction and needs:

Essentially, regular surveys of customer needs should be carried out to provide a current and longitudinal view of their:

satisfaction with the current range of services and resources provided

view of the relative importance of these services

other, more qualitative, opinions and ideas on additional services needed, and their prioritization of these

West (2002: p. 101)

Chapter 7 explores the effectiveness and usefulness of surveys in detail. The reason for mentioning them here is to highlight their importance in terms of customer relations. They are but one of a wide range of tools—but any means of encouraging and maintaini...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• List of Figures
• List of Abbreviations
• About the Editor
• About the Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. “Customer Service”—What’s the Big Deal?
• Chapter 2. Staffing the Front Line
• Chapter 3. Marshalling a Century of Experience: Customizing Services for the Next Generation of Users
• Chapter 4. Customer Service in a 24/7 Environment: The Exeter Experience
• Chapter 5. Customer Service at Victoria University, St. Albans Campus Library
• Chapter 6. Innovations in User Services at Sabancı University Information Center
• Chapter 7. Library Services for Falmouth University and the University of Exeter, Penryn Campus: Listening to Our Customers in a Shared Services Environment
• Chapter 8. Where Next for the “Front Line”?
• Bibliography
• Index