Page:Take Five for Customer Service.pdf/1



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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.'' Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 2016) Rh