Training Library Staff and Volunteers to Provide Extraordinary Customer Service

Citation

Turner, R. (2007), "Training Library Staff and Volunteers to Provide Extraordinary Customer Service", New Library World, Vol. 108 No. 5/6, pp. 298-300. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074800710748885

This recent, and well presented, Facet publication has been written by two American information specialists. Julie Todaro is Dean of Libraries at Austin Community College and Mark L. Smith manages the Riverside County Library System in Southern California. Their approach to customer services is perhaps more dynamic than many UK libraries are used to, but it does provide a well structured work that is rich in ideas for the training of library staff in customer relations.

Of course there are already hundreds of books about providing good customer services. These existing works do contain useful information for the library and information sector, but they are often written for the commercial, profit‐based workplace, and a specific book for library and information staff is very welcome.

Todaro and Smith's philosophy is that “it is crucially important that customer service training be a perpetual process, a fundamental part of the life of the institution”. In the UK, customer service has usually been part of a broader training programme either provided as a rolling programme or as specific sessions.

The stated, and ambitious, aims of this book include:

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  enabling learning to be built into an organisation's goals and strategies;

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  providing a structure for organisation and employee needs;

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  providing managers and trainers with content for formal and on the job training;

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  creating a framework for customer feedback;

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  describing techniques for training in customer relations;

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  matching diverse staffing levels' training needs;

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  developing an in‐house training curriculum;

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  integrating training into work routines and responsibilities; and

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  building and system for assessment and outcomes.

Throughout the work the authors stress the importance of practice in dealing with customer relations. This is particularly important in the opening chapter about determining customer service essentials. The importance of customer service training to be considered within a broader training strategy is emphasised by a whole chapter dedicated to examining general training guidelines.

After the organisational training structure is in place, then preparing specific training for library staff and volunteers is addressed. The authors have considered public, academic, school and special libraries in the book. Within these sectors, guidance on tailored training is provided, including such additional factors as learning styles, communication, costs of training and record keeping.

The needs of staff are logically followed by a chapter on assessing and anticipating the needs of customers. This includes a realistic understanding of the issues faced by library staff in dealing with customers. The approach is strong on proactive and positive action, including role‐playing, using scripts of common concerns and the use of policy and procedures to anticipate problems. Tracking and responding to customer feedback includes surveying methods of collecting feedback, using feedback in training, teaching staff to take complaints and sharing customer feedback.

Following these specific sections, the book then reverts to a look at planning staff‐development days, instituting continuous learning in libraries and integrating continuous learning with customer service. Therefore, although the book seems to be about specifically customer service training, in practice it is about much more than this and will be useful for any organisation developing a broader training strategy.

The main sections are supported by appendices that provide print and web sources of information for customer service managers and trainers, and works consulted; an intriguing anthropological assessment of how people interact and “reasonable expectation of adult behaviour”; a very detailed assessment of the customer service environment and assessment tools; using focus groups, response forms and incidents from the feedback process in developing customer services. The index is short but effective, and the whole work is especially well structured.

Training Library Staff and Volunteers to Provide Extraordinary Customer Service will be valuable to any library and information service. It is essential reading for any manager developing a strategy not only for customer service training but also developing a broader training strategy. The authors obviously have widespread experience of customer relations, which is clearly reflected in this very practical book. The use of such tools as model forms, role‐playing and using customer feedback throughout the work make this particularly useful. The book is a practical and structured guide for training staff in customer service, but as importantly shows how to integrate the training into a variety of interactions by staff members, both empowering them and improving wider communication skills.