Lessons of Good Customer Service

Before going to library school, I asked a friend why he'd decided to become a librarian. His answer, in part, was, “because I don't have to sell anything.” I never really thought about what that meant until I worked in retail.

Prior to my current job as an academic librarian in Bowling Green, OH, I spent 18 months in a state of unemployment or underemployment in San Diego. During that time, I volunteered, temped, learned foreign languages, and watched a lot of reality TV. I also held four part-time jobs, including subbing at two different public library systems and working for minimum wage at Barnes & Noble (B&N). These jobs have informed my current work at an academic library more than I expected they would.

At B&N, I learned about the “up-sell,” wherein you try to sell an additional, related item to someone already making a purchase. (Buying a kitten calendar? Why not buy these kitten bookmarks, too!) A related concept is the “hand-sell,” wherein I was to be personally committed to promoting a specific item during my shifts at the store.

I realize now that, in a way, everybody's got to sell something; indeed, marketing is an important element of my work in the academic library field. True, unlike my experience at B&N, I'm now promoting collections that are free to patrons and services that will really help students and faculty succeed in their primary pursuits: education and research.

Still, what would happen if I applied the concept of the up-sell and the hand-sell to the reference desk. What kind of academic library “add-ons” could I promote with each patron interaction?

We didn't always keep statistics at the public library, but when we did, I was astonished at the numbers, thrilled to discover reference activity to be relevant and thriving in the public library.

I believe it was these libraries' service-oriented attitudes that made the difference. From resetting bike locks to printing online organ music, my public library colleagues were repeatedly demonstrating a “we're here to help” attitude, covering a huge range of questions and problems.

In the academic library, we have higher expectations of self-service from our patrons because our emphasis in the reference transaction is on teaching. But why not extend that teaching to any problem that needs figuring out? If my expertise as a reference librarian involves, in large part, a talent for figuring things out, then certainly I can, and should, cover questions beyond the standard, “Do you have this book?”

Both at the cash register and at the public library, patrons really expected me to know the answers to their questions off the top of my head. Do you have that book that was on Oprah about dogs? Can you recommend a fantasy novel my wife will like? In most cases, it was possible for me to fulfill those expectations, as the collections were small.

At the academic reference desk, naturally, the questions are more complicated and so are the answers, and the potential sources of information are much greater. Still, my working experiences have taught me that there's nothing inherently wrong with the expectation of knowledge and answers.

When students ask us questions, they probably don't want to hear, “It's complicated,” or “You have to learn to do that yourself,” even if that's the real answer to their question. They are coming to our reference desks with expectations they have been taught are reasonable. Maybe we can look at it as our job (along with that of their professors) to broaden their expectations from simple answers they receive to complicated ideas we help them discover and that they discover on their own.

As the economic forecast grew increasingly bleaker, the B&N higher-ups decided that the people who worked at the customer service desk would be called “greeters.” The idea was to make their job less task-oriented and more people-oriented, specifically, by greeting everyone who came into the store. This, they felt, would improve sales, the core concept being that personal interaction promotes profitability.

On his Designing Better Libraries blog (dbl.lishost.org/blog), Steven Bell, associate university librarian for research and instructional services at Temple University's Paley Library, Philadelphia, and author of “The Bell Tower” column for LJ's Academic Newswire, has written a lot about changing the atmosphere of libraries, arguing that a key component of this change should be personal interaction and personalized service.

As many promoters of “roving reference” have long believed, reference doesn't have to be a passive activity. Making an effort to connect with our patrons encourages them to develop a relationship with us that should, if retail managers are right, increase the likelihood that they will use our services and materials.

One of B&N's four “service principles” is physically handing a requested book to a customer. When someone asked if the store had a certain title, you were required to walk with her to the section, take the book off the shelf, and put it in her hand. The first thing I noticed at the public library was that this service principle exists there, too. Whenever I looked up any title or subject for a patron, I didn't just tell her where to go to find it, I got up and went with her to find it and made sure we did find it.

In my academic library positions, I have often told patrons how to find a book on the shelf only to have them return 20 minutes later and sheepishly admit they couldn't. I'm sure many others have just given up without asking again.

While it is not always feasible to go with every patron every time, especially in large libraries with multiple levels, I've discovered that when I do accompany a patron into the stacks, I have the opportunity not only to illuminate how the call numbers work and help browse for additional sources but also, if the book isn't on the shelf where it should be, offer to put a search on the title or order it from another library. This not only guarantees success for the patron, it is good for our collections, helping us to identify missing materials and track them down.

Both bookstore and public library collections primarily reflect current interests. Public libraries are weeding constantly. One of the branches at which I worked was so small that any fiction title that hadn't circulated ten times a year was a candidate for removal. Another branch had recently moved to a new building with 40 percent less collection space than was available at the old building, requiring it to divest nearly half its titles.

And just as public libraries use circulation statistics to keep only the most in-demand titles, store inventory at B&N is “modeled” based on previous sales, so stores only keep on hand what their customers will actually buy.

This kind of collecting, unfortunately, does not allow most public libraries or retail bookstores to maintain collections that truly reflect the broadest interests of a community or provide real depth for research. Their missions simply do not allow this. This makes me even more aware of the crucial role our academic library collections play within the world of information and of the very real need for public university libraries to extend their collections to public users.

Many university libraries take this mission very seriously: both major San Diego universities, for example, participate in a shared borrowing program that allows cheap and easy interlibrary loan access to public library patrons.

And the benefit can be mutual. Academic libraries rarely have the travel books, testing materials, foreign-language books, or popular audio and video titles that public libraries always own—and our students always want and need. Knitting our collections together, and reinvesting in partnerships and shared goals, will help both public and academic libraries fill patron needs without diluting core missions.

Working at the public library gave me a completely different level of empowerment within reference interaction. At my previous academic library, my colleagues and I took a soft line on policies—e.g., lending noncirculating materials, waiving fines, overriding renewal limits—fueled by the sense of entitlement our students felt, their last-minute lifestyle choices, and an atmosphere of trust.

At the public library, this never happened. Too much in fines? Sorry, you can't check out. Noncirculating material? Sorry, you can't take it. No overrides, no exceptions. This extended to other kinds of requests, as well: You don't like what that person is looking at online? No, I'm not going to kick him off the computer. You don't like it that teens are talking? No, I'm not going to ban them from the library.

I'm glad that, as a librarian, I fall into the “saying yes too much” category rather than its opposite, but working at the public library helped me reframe my permissive attitude within the broader scope of what's both possible and appropriate.

As a public librarian, I also often had to say, “No, we don't have that,” and “No, we can't get that” as well as “No, I won't do that for you.” I'm happy I'm back in an academic environment where I can say yes more—both because it's appropriate and because it's possible. But, given my past working experience, I'm also probably going to say no more often, too, and with less guilt.

Today, I have a newfound respect for public librarians, who juggle competing goals, expectations, and challenges with incredible flexibility and professionalism. I also have a newfound understanding of retail workers, who face lousy hours, low pay, limited opportunities, and an immense pressure to sell with remarkable optimism and cheerfulness.

I am fortunate to have been able to return to my chosen field and to be contributing again as an academic librarian. But I also feel differently about selling, service, and patron desires, and I feel better prepared now than ever to help, however I can.