CUSTOMER SERVICE
In Academic Libraries
SERVICE
Definitions
 Purpose
 Planning, Policy, and Process
 Evaluation and Outcomes

2
CUSTOMER SERVICE
“To deliver effective and high quality services,
libraries have to assess their performance from
the customer point of view”
“At a time of fiscal retrenchment, meeting
changing customer expectations becomes very
challenging”
Lakos & Phipps (2004), 345.
3
DEFINITIONS
What is “customer service”?
 What entails good (or bad) customer service?

Identify one positive and one negative customer
service experience you’ve had.
4
WHAT ARE OUR “SERVICES”
To which aspects of the library could we apply
customer service?
 How would it work in each of these areas?

5
CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS

Service Quality:
Viewed as the
interaction between
users and the library
 User expectations
measured against user
experience


Satisfaction

“happiness” with
service
6
WHOM DO WE SERVE?
Patrons
 Users
 Customers
 Guests


What difference what we call them?
7
WHY?
Why focus on customer service?
 What is the purpose of our focus?

8
PLANNING, POLICIES, & PROCESS
What goes into implementing a customer service
policy?
 What do we base our policy on?

Is the customer always right? To what extent can
library customers determine expectations and
quality?
 To what extent can a “customer service model
accomplish the goal of meeting user needs
without creating a set of conceptual and practical
problems” (Budd, 1997, p. 310)

9
PLANNING
Review mission, values, goals
 Set goals/ outcomes specifically for customer
service
 Define your customer base, segment markets
 Define your approach (i.e. customer, patron, or
guest; commodities, services, or experiences)

10
POLICIES
Guidelines for behaviors, transactions, and
processes
 Delimits parameters
 Requires training


http://www.ncl.ac.uk/library/about/care.php
11
ASSESSING & EVALUATING
12
Customer Service
SERVICE QUALITY (GAPS MODEL)
Gap 1: Customer expectations of service and
management’s perspective on these expectations
 Gap 2: Service quality specifications and
management’s perspective of customer
expectations
 Gap 3: Service quality expectations and service
delivery
 Gap 4: Service delivery and external
communication to customers about that delivery
 Gap 5: Customers expectations of service AND
perceived service delivery

13
EXPECTATIONS
 Subjective
 Comprise
desired wants, or the extent to
which customers believe a particular
service attribute is essential for an
excellent service provider
 Expectations change over time
 Perceptions
are judgments about service
performance
14
HOW TO MEASURE SERVICE QUALITY
Self-reporting (SERVQUAL, LibQUAL+, and
Hernon/Nitecki)
 How go beyond self-reports…

15
SATISFACTION
Emotional
 Influenced by overall experience and “experience
of the moment”
 How measure?

For instance, satisfaction with library’s home
page?

16
RESISTANCE…
17
To Service Quality
REASONS FOR RESISTANCE TO SERVICE
QUALITY



Teaching faculty and librarians may not
regard users as customers, dismissing
the value of knowing such information
(may not translate the data into service
improvement)
Customer service and idea of users as
customers may be seen as a shift away
from “core values” of profession. Service
may not be a high priority
Librarians may perceive themselves as
educators not service providers, or more
as educators than service providers
18

Staff might resist the adoption of a program or
attitude of quality improvement because they
think that a focus on improvement implies an
initial baseline of inferior or substandard
service.. Or, they may believe that they already
provide high quality service and that an
emphasis on assessment detracts from
completing their regular tasks, duties, and
routines
19
 There
might be a perception that service
quality only applies to public service, not
the entire organization
 In a climate of organizational downsizing
and restructuring, libraries may increase
staff workload and responsibilities, and
decrease the importance of service or at
least the time to which staff feel they can
devote to service.
 There may be a concern that improved
service adds to the workload—staff fear
success adds a burden
20
Library administration may not favor customer
focused service. They might now empower staff to
help users
 If the staff feel they already know what
customers want, need, and expect, there may be
reluctance to set outcomes and engage in
benchmarking—dismissing customers and their
expectations

21
 Staff
may believe that customer service
applies only to private section and
businesses
 Library staff may think that customers
lack the expertise and judgment about
what resources or information are good for
them
 There may be a belief that libraries do not
face competition or that libraries need not
be concerned about competition
 Some staff believe service is not crucial to
the library’s survival
22

Some resistance might be inferred from two
questions:
If libraries develop a service will customers come in
sufficient numbers to justify the continuance of that
service?
 If they do not come (or if they seldom do), do
librarians really care?

23
Libraries may prefer to gather outputs showing
how busy they are and seek to use the data for
request additional resources
 Catering to customer expectations makes staff
appear less professional


Thus, how customer focused are we really?
24

Libraries can tell you what they purchased for
their first “one millionth” holding, but they
cannot tell you about their millionth customer
and how they honored that person.

Is this important?
25
WRIGHT STATE PLEDGE
Adapt it for a particular setting
26
SOME RELEVANT READINGS
Assessing Service Quality (ALA, 1998)
 Budd, J. M. (1997). A critique of customer and
commodity. College & Research Libraries, 58(4),
310.
 Delivering Satisfaction and Service Quality (ALA,
2000)
 An Action Plan for Outcomes Assessment in Your
Library (ALA, 2002)
 The Journal of Academic Librarianship (Jan.Mar. 2002)
 “Measuring Service Quality” Library Trends, 59
(4) (Spring 2001): entire issue

27