Top Ten Tips for Excellent Customer Service to Adults

How can we provide excellent customer service to adults? By relying on the Model Reference Behaviors and developing strong customer service skills, we can keep our customers satisfied – and coming back!

1. Set the tone: Be approachable and friendly. Be a good listener. Put the customer at ease.
   
   
2. Get the facts: Use open questions (those that require more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer). Clarify, probe, and verify to make sure you understand the customer’s information need.
   
   
3. Give the information: Use a search strategy. Keep the customer informed as you search. Make sure the customer understands the answer. Cite the source.
   
   
4. Follow-up: Ask follow-up questions to find out if you’ve answered the question and if there’s anything else the customer needs.
   
   
5. Have a positive attitude: If you feel good about yourself and your job, it will show!
   
   
6. Make your customers feel important and appreciated.
   
   
7. Develop a rapport with your customers: Treat them as you like to be treated when you’re a customer-- as an individual and with respect.
   
   
8. Take ownership: Be accountable and responsible.
   
   
9. Help customers understand your library’s policies and procedures.
   
   
10. Exceed your customers’ expectations by giving value-added service: Go the extra mile. Give them something unexpected.

Top Ten Tips for Excellent Customer Service to Children

1. Provide a warm, welcoming environment.
2. Provide furniture and signage that is child sized and friendly
3. Know your collection.
4. Share your knowledge by showing the child how you found the material they need.
5. Make sure you offer multiple formats for differing learning/interest needs.
6. Treat each interaction with sensitivity; it’s not a one size fits all situation-each child is different.
7. Be honestly interested in their needs; kids can spot a faker a mile away.
8. Be patient with young patrons who are trying to learn how to interact with you; give them your undivided attention.
9. Adults should not take priority over children; adopt a first come, first served approach.
10. Provide services and programs that reflect children’s needs and interests and take into consideration the caregivers who may have to bring the children to the library.
    

I have a customer who is really interested in getting their novel published. How can I help them learn more about the publishing process?

There are a lot of questions to ask customers who wants to be published. Will they want to publish online or in a traditional paper format? Will they want to do desktop publishing and self-marketing or find a publishing company?

Many of the customer’s questions can be answered by going to the How to Get Published guide and the section on novels.

Contacting local organizations for writers is also a good idea. The Maryland Writers Association, for example, has links to helpful blogs and other information. These organizations are also helpful for networking and learning about proofreading and other necessities for readying the manuscript.

Books such as The Writer’s Market, are indexed according to the types of fiction that publishers are interested in. Whether the novel is inspirational, adventure, mystery, or romance, there are publishers interested in seeing manuscripts. Remind the patron to look at the individual entries to make sure they will accept unsolicited manuscripts. The American Directory of Writer’s Guidelines will aid the customer in making sure that his or her manuscript is in the proper format for the publisher.

Learning about the market for the type of fiction marketed is also important. Checking on Amazon.com’s Bestseller’s List or consulting with The American Book Trade Directory might be helpful for this.

Top Ten Reference Interview Dos and Don'ts:Top Ten Reference Interview Dos & Don'ts for Children

Do

1. Treat children and their requests with the same respect as those of adults
2. Use welcoming verbal/body language e.g. eye contact, smile, tell the child your name; speak to every child who comes in and/or let them know that you know they are there (tap on the shoulder/wave as you pass by)
3. Meet the child at his level; this may mean kneeling or sitting on a low stool.
4. Base recommendations on reader’s interests and desires
5. Match children with developmentally appropriate materials, both print and non-print
6. Direct your questions to the child even if an adult is with them.  Ask an easy nonthreatening question to get the child accustomed to speaking for him/herself e.g. “What grade are you in?”
7. Be prepared to both assist AND instruct the child (e.g. show how to use the index)
8. Model good information seeking skills e.g. “If I were looking for this, I would start with the catalog and search for…”  followed by actually doing the search
9. Be patient and prepared for side trips as the child tries to articulate his/her needs.
10. Personalize your follow-up questions e.g. “Please let me know which cookies you decide to bake in that cookbook.”

Don’t

1. Patronize the child.
2. Hide behind the reference desk or computer.
3. Rely solely on the type of open-ended questions that work with adults.  You might have to offer choices such as “Is this too hard, too easy or just right?”
4. Assume the child understands the full context of his/her request.  For example, if it is an assignment, they may have difficulty generating alternative search terms or they may insist on an exact title match, when a similar title would be equally useful.
5. Assume the child knows how to use a table of contents or do an online search, etc.
6. Question the value of a child’s request.  For example, both the “need” for a book on the Civil War for a history assignment and the “desire” for a graphic novel are equally valid.
7. Take it personally if a child rejects your suggestions.  In fact tell them that it won’t hurt your feelings; that you want to find just the right book for them, so you need to know the truth.
8. Make assumptions based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, etc.; an older child may want to read a picture book; a boy may want to cook, etc. 
9. Rush the child; give the child time to present his/her question.  Forcing could easily lead to misinterpretation.
10. Point

I’ve heard a lot of talk about brain development in young children. How can I incorporate activities to help with brain development into my story times?

The following activities will enhance brain development in programs for babies and preschoolers:

A Balance of Repetition and Variation

Learning is enhanced when a known thing changes patterns or routines.  For example, using the same rhyme every session, but perhaps having a different puppet recite it.

Or use the same book in multiple sessions, but present it differently.  For example, you may read it the first session, tell it the second session, act it out in a third session, do it as a flannel board in the fourth session, do it using puppets, etc. Every story in your presentation does not have to be repeated, just the one title

Ritual

This is another type of repetition that helps define the program.  The best example is to always use the same songs at the beginning and end of your program.

Movement

Physical activity can actually create physiological changes in the brain.  It correlates with increased attention levels which can often lead to greater memory performance.  Make sure you have both large and small motor activities throughout your program so that  there is something for children who are too shy to get up and move their whole body as well as those who have no inhibitions whatsoever.

Music

Music teaches children vocabulary words painlessly; it can incorporate patterns of speech and voice inflection.  It also improves children’s ability to concentrate, which enables them to make the most of their intelligence.  Even just having music playing in the background will inspire creativity and a pleasing response from children. You don’t have to be able to carry a tune to get a positive reaction!

For more information on brain development and children, try:

Mother Goose on the Loose: a handbook and CD-ROM kit with scripts, rhymes, songs, flannel board patterns for promoting early childhood development by Betsy Diamont-Cohen (2006).

School Readiness: Birth to Age Three How-to Guide

Gaming seems to be every where in libraries! Where can I learn more about gaming in libraries?

Gaming in libraries is a new way to reach beyond the library’s traditional patron base and encourage new participation at the library.  Board games, card games, and video games are being recognized as new ways to tell stories and information while they entertain and educate patrons. “There is no doubt gaming and literacy go hand-in-hand,” says Carla D. Hayden, Chief Executive Officer of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.  “If you can’t read, you can’t play. Games are educational and it involves critical thinking, problem solving, and a constant learning cycle based on hypothesizing, experimenting and evaluating.”

Here are a number of resources to learn more about gaming in libraries:

Librarian’s Guide to Gaming:  An Online Toolkit for Building Gaming @ your library 
This toolkit offers content contributed by expert gaming librarians across the country and includes a wide range of resources to help librarians create, fund and evaluate gaming experiences in the library.

ALA’s Gaming News Blog 
Check out this blog for information on all of the latest developments in library gaming.

ALA’s Games and Gaming Resources Wiki
This wiki includes National Gaming Day resources, bibliography, compiled lists of online games, equipment, model programs, and more.

Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki - Gaming
Library Success provides success stories, gaming resources, and information on libraries hosting gaming programs, including using Wiis, circulating games, and creating games.

What are the best resources for answering health questions? Where do I find reputable information online?

The vast amount of health information on the Web can be daunting. Where do you start?

Easy! Start with the best consumer health Web site out there: MedlinePlus.

MedlinePlus was developed by the National Library of Medicine to help consumers locate high quality health information online. Available in English and Spanish, it has more than 750 listed health topics with links to symptoms & treatment, information on drugs, herbs and supplements, recent news, directories of health care providers. There is a section devoted to Senior Health and even a collection of narrated videos of surgeries.

You may also want to try these Web sites also:

NOAH (New York Online Access to Health) provides high quality health information in English and Spanish that is specifically geared for the consumer. Much of the information concentrates on care and treatment. There is some overlap with MedlinePlus. Start with the A-Z index.

KidsHealth has separate areas for kids, teens, and parents. You can search all three areas, and then limit your results. Although the specific categories are different, each area allows browsing by broad categories like recipes, drugs and alcohol, growth and development, or infections.

Cancer.gov is from the National Cancer Institute. It is a comprehensive resource with accurate and up-to-date information on all types of cancer, clinical trials, and cancer statistics.

Through SAILOR, you also have access to three health databases that index magazine and journal articles. The databases, together known as the “Ebsco health databases” are Health Source – Consumer Edition, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, and Alt HealthWatch. Most, but not all, of the articles in these databases are full-text.

For other health Web sites, try the State Library Resource Center’s Health & Medicine Subject Guides.