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"Persepctives" offers varied viewpoints on subjects of interest to the public library profession.

The Not-So-Secret Keys to Great Customer Service

If you Google “customer service in public libraries” you’ll get more than 19 million results. WorldCat comes up with 473 hits for the same phrase. The American Library Association, Public Library Association, and state library association conferences all offer sessions on the subject. It’s one thing to say that your library will offer good customer service; it’s another to ensure that everyone associated with the library (staff, board, Friends) practices it.

Is good customer service giving patrons everything they want when they want it? Is it being nice to everyone all the time, no matter what? How can you inspire and maintain positive customer service throughout your library? These essayists agree that the impetus comes from the top, but the effect spreads throughout the organization. I hope that the following insights help your library to become a truly welcoming place for everyone!

Customer Service is More than a Chapter in the Policy Manual
Shelley Campbell, Communications Director, Tulsa City-County (Okla.) Library

From the minute you start the interview process for a position at Tulsa City-County Library (TCLL) you get a sense that customer service is a priority. In fact, our policy manual states up front and center that customer service is core to our vision and mission. Quality library service is customer-oriented, understandable, consistent, and flexible. Great in policy, but how do these principles hold up in real life?

Customer-oriented: Across the system—twenty-five locations in eight diverse towns ranging from urban to rural plus a bookmobile and outreach services—staff at every level of employment are encouraged and rewarded for seeing what needs to be done and doing it. This commitment starts at the top with our
governing commission, which takes its role as the stewards of taxpayer money very seriously, and weaves its way through all departments, levels, and responsibilities. An internal customer is just as important as an external one. A request for help on the computer from someone who appears down on his luck is answered with all the professionalism as a call from the mayor’s office is. Staff members are encouraged to give each other “applause awards” for
everyday acts of awesome customer service, and twice a year individuals and groups can be nominated for larger employee recognition awards. Continuing education is stressed and employees are encouraged to think of better ways of doing things.

Understandable: We’ve all been on the receiving end of rules that, frankly, don’t make much sense. These can be rules that were established years ago, rules for procedures no longer in use, and a myriad of other situations. The administration of the library recently underwent the review and updating of the entire policy manual. With input and help from staff, we searched for and removed several of these rules having to do with antiquated technology, no longer viable services, and items that really should be business as usual. What is left is a living document that continues to evolve and be used every day.

Consistent: At first glance this one might appear to be in direct conflict with our next item, but let’s really look at it. Library customers are a mobile bunch. They might go to the location near their work during the day and use another one closer to home in the evenings and weekend. All of our libraries have  their own unique personality, so some people drive across town to go the one that speaks to them most. What consistency means is that they can expect the same level of service at all of our locations, whether it has a hitching post outside or is located in the heart of bustling Tulsa downtown. We admit that there have been times when a complaint bubbles up that the staff at X location forgives all fines and why doesn’t location Y do the same. But these are few and far between and customers rely on being able to walk in any location and find the same quality collection, facilities, and courteous staff.

Flexible: The key to our service model is flexibility. All members of our staff have the ability to excuse fines, renew books, or provide answers—even if these things are not the norm. We all know that each story is unique and while we all love having policies and procedures to fall back upon, it’s the ability to connect with the customer that takes our service from good to stellar. If a mistake is made, we learn from it and adjust how we handle similar situations moving forward. Ideas and experiences in customer service are shared in staff meetings and in our weekly staff e-newsletter. While we love flexibility, nobody wants to reinvent the wheel each and every time he or she shows up to work!

You see, when you strip away all the official language and legal jargon, our people are our greatest asset. By hiring the best, providing ongoing training, and trusting the staff to do their jobs, we open the door for great customer service. And judging from our ever-increasing levels of circulation, attendance, and usage, our customers agree!

The “Aha!” Moment That Leads to Good Service
Nikki Ehlers, Director, Humboldt (Iowa) Public Library

Customer service has a personal meaning for me. We moved several times when my children were growing up. A school, a church, and a library were our first stops in every new town. In each my family needed the same thing: to feel welcome.

I remembered that concept when I returned to library work fifteen years ago. I remembered the places that had welcomed me over the years and I remembered the ones that hadn’t. I hoped to convey that message to each customer and staff member every day. “I am glad to see you. I am glad that you are here.”

For years I’ve attended every customer workshop or seminar that I encounter. I share what I learn with my staff. They listen. We provide satisfactory service to our customers. But, over the years at this small, rural Iowa library, one or another of us has irritated, offended, or repelled a customer with some regularity, albeit unintentionally.

Because, as the director, the telephone is almost always within my reach, I usually answer it. On one occasion I politely but firmly told a telephone salesperson that we don’t purchase materials over the phone. A few minutes later the same saleswoman called back and asked to speak to the director. I identified myself, as I had the first time. She reported on the very rude, nasty woman to whom she had just spoken. She wanted to make sure that the boss knew how the employee (me) had represented herself (myself) on the phone. Since she hadn’t realized she had spoken to the same person twice, I duly apologized and promised to address the unpleasant employee in short order!

That was one of my “aha!” moments. What I judged to be firm, another person interpreted as rude. What do I have to lose by being so extraordinarily pleasant that no one will misunderstand my intention? A few seconds longer on the phone or in conversation with a patron won’t alter my day. To ride up and down the elevator with a toddler who is begging to ride the “alligator” while her mother chooses books won’t hurt me a bit. Someday that toddler will be able to vote. She may remember that day long ago that I was so glad to see her. Every little kid who comes into the adult library is allowed to date-due stamp one scrap of paper and ring the service bell one time each visit. I always tell them that since they only get one chance, they’d better hit that bell as hard as they can.

Libraries attract the lonely. We are a haven for the folks from the sheltered workshop next door to practice their social skills. We offer a kind ear to those who live alone and just need someone to listen to them occasionally. We have a steep flight of stairs to offer physical therapy for a patron with a new hip or knee with a friendly face at each floor to encourage him on.

Another “aha!” moment came when I visited Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. The employees were having fun . . . it’s much easier to provide good customer service when I’m having a good time than when I’m having a bad day. I decided from that moment on, I was going to have fun. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I had to work at it. I began by answering the question “How are you?” with “I’m terrific, thanks.” After hearing myself say it over and over, I realized that it was true. I can have a really great day, every day. For a while I tried responding “the sun is shining, my boys aren’t in jail, the girls aren’t pregnant, and the car started first thing this morning, what more could I want?” but I think I may have offended a patron or two with less stellar offspring than mine.

I try to convey to the staff that if we aren’t having fun, we aren’t doing our jobs well. Along the way there has been a grump or two or three on the staff. I find that they weed themselves out. Those who enjoy personal misery seem to move on eventually. Sometimes I nudge them. A couple of winters ago, the
staff and I had fallen into a real rut. Winters around here can do that to the most cheerful of souls. We weren’t miserable, but we weren’t very happy. I happened across the little book The Power of Nice.¹ I read it through twice, ordered another copy, and made it required reading for everyone on staff. Sometimes a gentle reminder can work wonders.

At the PLA National Conference in Portland this year, I attended a couple of truly great customer-service sessions. In one, the take-home message was to consistently provide superior customer service. Aha! What a novel approach! Everyone, each and every customer, deserves the same service. It’s always easy to be nice to people I like. Being nice to the unwashed, lonely, or needy patrons is more difficult.

In the months since I returned home, I have made an effort to be nice to the especially irritating customers. I have found that being nice doesn’t mean giving each and every customer exactly what he or she wants. It means saying no when necessary in a pleasant way. When someone comes in just before closing planning to use a public computer, I can apologize sincerely and explain that we shut them down fifteen minutes before we close in order for them to acquire any new updates that are available. I may not be giving that customer what he wants, but I deliver the bad news regretfully.

I was proud of myself. I was beginning to think that I had perfected this service business when I was struck by reality again last week. I overheard the father of a large, unruly family of recalcitrant library patrons say that I “wasn’t very nice” to his family. Fortunately, just as I was googling the Hemlock Society, I heard the staff member to whom he spoke answer “Nikki?” in a shocked voice. Had she not been at least a little surprised, I would have felt a complete failure.

After a chocolate bar and a good night’s sleep, I decided that consistently excellent customer service is a goal. Our batting average is pretty good, but not perfect. We will keep working on it. And smiling.

Counting NOs to Get to YES
Gretchen Pruett, Director, and Kit Ward-Crixell, Teen Librarian, New Braunfels (Tex.) Public Library

When Gretchen Pruett came to the New Braunfels (Tex.) Public Library (NBPL) as its newly minted director, she was faced with the challenge of teaching the staff to see themselves as public servants rather than just as “keepers of the goodies.” Patrons didn’t always believe that the library was there to serve them. Rules and practices had gone unexamined for too long: hefty fines for DVDs had been set back in the day, when DVDs were rare, not available for $5.99 in the supermarket checkout lane. And many times staff didn’t realize how often they were denying patrons’ requests because they weren’t actually
saying the word “no.”

Kit Ward-Crixell, for her part, was in the difficult position of trying to improve customer service to teens when no one was sure teens counted as customers. The catalog of people who thought teens and libraries went together like fingernails and chalkboards included elderly patrons, all other patrons, parents, staff, and the teens themselves, who took the rule-based atmosphere as a sign that no one wanted them in the library in the first place. That this happened in a county where, according to a 2008 study, over half of the teens reported spending zero hours a week in any extracurricular activity was even more frustrating.²

Kit once tried to convince the president of the board of directors of a local teen organization to get a library card to check out books for their young patrons. “Aren’t you worried that our kids will mess up your books?” he asked. “You have a highly idealized view of our regular patrons,” she responded.

The library’s transformation began when, supported by city management and an advisory board that was committed to extraordinary customer service, Gretchen focused on removing the barriers our patrons were encountering. Several steps turned the library into a vibrant place with a whole new energy—as well as a new set of volunteers, a friendly clientele to talk manga with, and a great reputation with moms, dads, and grandparents.

Making staff aware of how often they told people “no.” We put a form at each desk to capture the details of every request that was denied. Inevitably it turned out that some creative (or renegade) staff member had found a way to say yes in the same situations. We applauded them and made changes so that their solution would be possible across the board. As a bonus, the forms gave city management statistics to justify our expenditures.

Creating escape clauses in rules and policies. This is the Captain Jack Sparrow principle: “They’re more like guidelines, really.” Initially some staff members were uncomfortable having freedoms like the ability to waive fines. Suddenly, instead of the security of knowing that they were doing their job as long as they were following the rules, the staff had to treat every patron encounter as a unique situation that required active listening skills, a problem-solving mind set, and a focus on getting to yes. To help them make the leap, the next policy had to be, “If you err on the side of the patron, you are never wrong.” We adopted library consultant Pat Wagner’s technique by instituting an “I broke a rule today because . . . ” form to capture the details of any variance from policy. Then we reviewed the form to see if the policy needed revision.

Focusing policy on behaviors rather than circumstances. Many kids were in the library “illegally” under our unaccompanied children policy, because they traveled the neighborhood in groups, ranging in age from four to fourteen, without an adult. Obviously if patrons are skateboarding through the building or getting Doritos dust on the keyboards, they need to leave or change their behavior, whether they are kids or adults. But the fact that more than one kid is gathered in the building breathing library air is not a crime and shouldn’t be treated like one.

Eliminating rules that no longer made sense. Teens in particular are experts at telling the difference between legitimate rules and ones that only exist because of “what might happen.” But no one, teen or adult, wants to be subject to a rule that seems pointless, and eliminating those rules makes the library instantly more welcoming. People are still shocked that we now allow food and drinks in the library. But since we made the policy, we haven’t had a single spill—and it’s not as if we don’t let people take the books home and eat while they’re reading there.

Two years later, circulation and visits have more than doubled and public satisfaction is at an all time high. Participation in teen programs has quintupled from twenty kids three years ago to over a hundred now, with teen volunteers contributing 350 hours of volunteer work every summer. The expanded teen
collection is 30 percent checked out at any given time. No one’s job will ever again be predictable or routine, but it has been worth the effort.

Kit’s first inkling that things could turn around happened when she was hosting a videogame tournament at the library and observed a teen talking urgently on his cell phone while waving his arms. Then he handed the phone to her and said, “Here.” She took the phone and said, “New Braunfels Public Library, this is Kit, can I help you?”

There was a long pause before a maternal voice said, “Um . . . do you work at the library?”

“Yes,” Kit said. “Can I help you?”

“Um,” the voice said. “What time is the thing going to be over?”

“Two o’clock,” Kit said.

“Thank you,” the mom said, and hung up.

When you’ve attracted a teen to the library whose mother cannot believe that he is in a library, even when he tells her repeatedly, you know you’re doing something right. This is the new library service paradigm for NBPL. If we want public libraries to continue to thrive, maybe it should be the new paradigm for all of us.

Great Service Comes from the Heart
Pam Tomka, Director/Caregiver, Washington (Ill.) District Library

“Great service comes from the heart. You cannot mandate it. You can’t threaten, reward, or coerce people to care. You can only awaken the desire and then give them the permission and encouragement to make it come alive in their work.”³

What makes people want to care? Can you make it happen the way you teach a small child, through rewards and punishment? Good service is all we have to give in a library. It’s not about profit margins or market share. But how do you turn your good service into great service?

It starts with a staff that is happy and positive. A library director, or a manager, is responsible for encouraging everyone from pages to professionals to find the good side of a situation and creating positive messages. When everyone is feeling overworked, underpaid, and stretched to the max, donuts left in the staff break room on a busy morning with a note of thanks can lift everyone’s spirits. Staff need to feel appreciated and if you support them when they are
dealing with challenges—whether it is a difficult patron, a problem computer, or a personal crisis—it goes a long way to letting them know you care and are there for them.

If the staff knows you care, it’s much easier for them to care about patrons. Everyone’s job, from pages to catalogers, impacts the quality of service we provide. Some staff have more direct contact with the public but everyone should be made to feel that what they do matters when providing good service. When hiring new staff it is important that they are positive and cheerful people, since that is what you will expect of them while they are at work. Also, let them know how they are important in the overall scheme of things and emphasize that working together makes a difference for everyone.

Working together also means following the rules, without being bound by them. Empower staff to make decisions that lets them feel like they’ve made a difference in someone’s life. Let them control the outcome. Talk with staff about parameters for using their good judgment. For example, “circulation staff may waive fines up to $XX.” When staff stretch or break a rule in order to give good customer service, let them know it’s okay and praise their efforts. Also let them know that they need to let the patron know they are breaking the rules on their behalf and they’ve made an exception just for them. That way the
patron realizes that she has received special treatment and the staff member feels like they’ve been able to take control of a situation and make a decision about doing a better job.

Emphasize how important it is to greet everyone as they come into the library. It’s much like you would welcome someone when they are entering your home. Waiting until the public approaches us often leaves people feeling ignored or like they are interrupting us. A friendly greeting might also help open the door to better relations if the patron is unhappy. A good rule of thumb is to “kill them with kindness” by being apologetic and offering solutions to fix the problems. Sometimes just letting the patron vent, and then letting someone else jump in to deal with the problem once the patron has aired her emotions, goes a long way to better customer relations.

At one point, a few years back, we were trying to get a new building constructed and there was lots of political upheaval going on. Patrons were complaining to the board about bad service, although nothing had really changed at our end. So we instituted an “Exceptional Service” report to be written up by staff whenever they went above and beyond the call of duty to help a patron. Sometimes it meant bending the rules and other times it was staying late because someone called right before closing to say they were on the way to pick up a book. The reports were turned in and then copied and given to the board each month. The board was impressed when they saw all the fantastic ways staff members were providing good customer service. Today we are in that new building and still giving the same quality service we always have.

There have been many customer service training modules over the years, from Nordstrom’s method of maintaining its superior customer relations to FISH!, the fun-infused workplace philosophy of the Pike Place Fish Market, and beyond. While many, no doubt, have been used in libraries, both big and small, they normally endure about six months to a year and then die out. Why? Partially because they come from the outside and may be innovative and catchy, but ultimately the message is that you must teach someone how to care about their patrons. You can’t do that! It’s the same as telling your child that she has to love her brother, even though five minutes ago he was beating her up and taking her toys. Our staff gets beat up by our patrons every day. On a good day, we can make light of it and hope for a better day tomorrow. But in the end, as good leaders we have to show staff how to handle the challenges. It is important for staff to see good examples of great customer service and who better to do that than the boss? Offer to take someone’s shift at the circulation desk so they can have time to work on a special project because it also helps for the supervisor to see just what staff members deal with on a daily basis. They can then let them know, individually or in a staff meeting, ways to find solutions to problems they have. It is also important to share positive stories at staff meetings.

Not every day is a bad day. Often there are good days with patrons who are appreciative of the hard work the staff does to get the special book they wanted, or forgiving their fines because they said they were out of a job. It is also important for staff to understand that while they may be the recipient of someone’s anger over a thirty-cent fine, there is probably a more significant matter in the person’s life causing the anger—such as being diagnosed with cancer or losing a loved one. The person behind the desk can’t ask the true reason for their anger but can only treat the person with kindness and empathy. Frequently that patron will come back later and apologize for the way they acted.

Providing great customer service can’t be required or even taught. It has to come from somewhere inside a person because they want to help others. As a manager or director it is important to communicate regularly with your staff and let them know you care. Feeling appreciated and cared about does go a long way to helping staff care about others.

Customer Service: Hold the Pickles
Vanessa Uribe, Library Director, El Dorado County (Calif.) Law Library, (formerly of Roseville [Calif.] Public Library)

A few years ago I received a phone call from my friend Eric who was spending his summer in Ann Arbor. “Vanessa!” he said excitedly, “There’s this amazing place in town that’s a deli, and a bakery, and has all that fancy olive oil stuff that you love.” Eric was definitely on to something, and his call intrigued me enough to explore the website of the company he suggested—Zingerman’s Delicatessen and Mail Order.

Now I could spend this entire column raving about how Zingerman’s is the palace of all things tasty, but after many years of ordering from this company I have become fixated on another aspect of Zingerman’s— its customer service. You see, Zingerman’s is so renowned for its customer-service practices that it
started a training company just to meet the demand of other organizations who sought to know how Zingerman’s runs such a unique and service-oriented business. I was among the many business and nonprofit folk who wanted to learn more.

Meanwhile, back at the public library where I worked as a librarian and staff trainer, I found myself pondering how I could create a customer-service program for library staff and weasel my way into a trip to Zingerman’s. I successfully convinced my director that I needed to go to Ann Arbor and attend a
Zingerman’s training session in person. So off I went to that Midwestern foodie paradise. I attended a fantastic three-day “Art of Giving Great Service” seminar, and came home energized and full of great ideas about how to apply the customer-service principles of a delicatessen to my library.

I titled my staff training program “Customer Service: Hold the Pickles” in homage to the deli that inspired me. The first training went swimmingly, and the level of enthusiasm and discussion about customer service it inspired surprised even me. I took my show on the road to the California Library Association conference, and to a number of other libraries who had heard about my program and graciously invited me over to talk about it. Though I met with some resistors here and there (at one presentation a woman shouted at me that “customer service is something only rich libraries do”) the response was  overwhelmingly positive.

I believe that Zingerman’s customer-service principles resonated with library staff because they are easily applicable to every type of organization. Here are the elements of my program that participants reported liking the most:

Bottom line: Most organizations discuss customer service as just a means to an end, as in “if you’re nice to the customer, they’ll keep coming back and supporting us.” At Zingerman’s, creating a great customer experience is elevated far above a means to an end into something they consider a “bottom line
result.” Zingerman’s places as much importance on providing great customer service as it does on turning a profit and offering quality products. The notion of providing great customer service is even included in the company’s mission statement.

Culture: Organizational culture isn’t something that is built overnight; it is the byproduct of consistent behavior.⁴ Organizational culture is quite difficult to change but it is possible through a concerted effort of management and staff. Zingerman’s has identified five elements that are important in developing a culture of great customer service:

1. Teach it: Highlights the importance of teaching and facilitating discussions about new ideas in an organization.


2. Define it: In order to be able to teach a concept in the workplace, you need to come up with specific examples of what that concept looks like for staff members. Instead of the “here is why customer service is important” workshop, you should say “in order to be great practitioners of customer service
   at this organization you should do this . . . ” (and list specific examples).


3. Live it: Once customer service is properly defined and taught in your organization, you should practice what you preach and work to get rid of any barriers and systems in the way of providing great service.


4. Measure it: Measuring how successfully customer service is provided in your organization. Zingerman’s records two things in order to gauge how well they are living their customer service principles; customer complaints (called a “Code Red” form) and customer compliments (a “Code Green” form). Staff members who record complaints are praised because Zingerman’s actually uses Code Red and Code Green forms to evaluate their products and services.


5. Reward it: An organization needs to let staff members know that customer service is valued by offering meaningful rewards for practicing great customer service. Zingerman’s has instituted a system of staff promotions, peer recognition, and monetary/product rewards.

Fairness is on Another Planet: This section of my presentation always generates the most discussion. Zingerman’s teaches that in order to be the best practitioners of customer service you have to let go of the notion of fairness. I think this definitely applies to libraries. Library staff members are so invested in the value of libraries that when they encounter a complaint that is critical of the free and wonderful services they provide it is often met with indignation and hostility. In fact, most complaints aren’t fair so deal with them and quit taking them personally!

Systems in the Way: This is a section I developed based upon the Zingerman’s idea of “Breaking the Rules.” It is an extension of the Zingerman’s “live it” and “measure it” principles in that libraries need to have an open and ongoing discussion about the systems in the way of great customer service. A system can be any library resource, practice, or policy such as an unhelpful computer system or a rule that receives so many complaints that staff members spend more time arguing about it than enforcing it. The more open discussions about these systemic barriers to great customer service, the higher the likelihood that these systems will be tossed out or revised, thus improving the library environment for customers and staff members.

Although I was inspired to create a training program by admiring the service-oriented culture of another industry, what keeps me interested in my customer service studies are the experiences I’ve had presenting my ideas in libraries. Even where I thought my presentation bombed, a new program or idea— initiated by library staff—emerged as a result. It’s been an enlightening experience for sure, and I am convinced that we can radically improve our libraries if
management regularly encourages all staff to engage in honest discussions about the systems in the way of a great library service culture.

References

1. Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness (New York: Crown, 2006).


2. Comal County Assessment Team, UT School of Public Health, “Social and Environmental Determinants of Well Being: Data for Planning and Policy Making,” October 2008, (accessed Aug. 27, 2010).


3. Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz, The Simple Truths of Service (Ambler, Pa: Blanchard Family Partnership, 2005): 71.


4. Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Rework (New York: Crown Business, 2010).