From the Director's DeskDecember 6, 2006 |
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Creating a YES culture @your library — Part 4During this season of shopping, traveling, and eating out, etc. I challenge you to a little game “Good or Bad Customer Service”. When you are out and about, do some people watching! Observe the interactions of the shoppers and clerks in stores, travelers and the airline agents, waitresses and their customers. Who gave good service and what made it good? Who gave bad service and what was wrong with how they handled the customer? At the Customer Service workshops on Nov. 29th, Gail Johnson and Pam Parr of Face to Face Communications gave us some very practical tips on dealing with our customers. Here are a few – When there is a customer confrontation, it is about who has the power or who has control. It is useless to argue with someone who is angry. When you see an angry confrontation, ask yourself, “Who has the power?” How is the clerk or waitress reacting or interacting with the customer? There are two statements that Gail and Pam said to use when someone has a complaint. They are—“I’m sorry that happened.” (Note this does not admit any failure on your part but shows empathy with the customer.) In addition, “I can take care of that for you.” (Referring the person to someone that can help counts as taking care them.) Do you hear these statements? What is the customer’s reaction to them? If you have not conducted the No Log exercise with your staff, it is never too late. This is something that you may decide is valuable and plan to do once a year as a check on your library’s customer service responsiveness. This was the first part of our Yes Culture Training grant. Part 2 is coming in March when Rebecca Butler from Northern Illinois University will come to RPLS and conduct workshops on Copyright. Sessions for Special and School librarians will be on March 13 and those for Public and Academic librarians on March 14. Check out RPLS CLeO for details and to register for the workshops. I wish you all a safe Holiday Season. “Funding for Creating a Yes Culture grant was awarded by the Illinois State Library (ISL) a Division of the Office of the Secretary of State, using funds provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), under the Federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA)”. Rolling Prairie Library System |
