Page:Take Five for Customer Service.pdf/1

ISSN 2324-7878 (online)

palrap.prg

Pennsylvania Libraries:Research & Practice

Practice

Take Five for Customer Service

Laura J. Ax-Fultz, Barbara E. Eshbach, Evonne N. Loomis, & Richard C. Miller

Laura J. Ax-Fultz is the Information Services and Outreach Librarian at The Dickinson School of Law, lja10psu.edu

Barbara E. Eshbach is Head Librarian at Penn State York, bee11psu.edu

Evonne N. Loomis is the Acquisitions Librarian at Northampton Community College, ELoomisnorthampton.edu

Richard C. Miller is the Executive Director and System Administrator at Osterhout Free Library, rmillerosterhout.lib.pa.us

Businesses leverage excellent customer service to improve profitability. Although not profit driven, libraries should leverage excellent customer service to achieve their unique missions. Evaluating and improving customer service practices will help a library determine if it is successfully serving its customers. The library should review three areas to improve customer service: the physical space of the library, how library employees work with library policies, and the communication skills of the library staff. By using the Take Five model, the library can make immediate, no-cost changes or plan for future improvements by taking just five minutes, every day, to assess specific areas. Over a few weeks or months, these small changes will result in better customer service.

Take Five for Customer Service

Customer service is the most important, but often overlooked, element of running a business or a library. If a business fails to focus on customer service, it may lose sales, and thus, income. If a library fails to focus on customer service, it does not lose profits, but it loses good will, customers, and possibly even funding if the situation is bad enough. Small, incremental changes can lead to great improvements. Libraries can make customer service a priority by making changes in just five minutes a day, using the Take Five model.

Imagine this…

A customer who is lecturing you on appropriate collection development policies has cornered you, the library director. While listening to a discourse on proper social standards for libraries, you observe the following:

A woman, whom you later discover is Lisa Lane, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, trips over the threshold of your library door, almost dropping a folder of loose papers. Lisa recovers her balance and strides to the information desk. You observe the library assistant, back turned to the desk, wearing headphones, and engrossed in the final moments of an eBay auction waiting to snipe the goods.

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