Full Description
From librarians to volunteer workers, staff to student workers, all library personnel need to deliver great customer service. This book presents innovative instructional methods that will inspire you to take a fresh approach to customer service training.
Customer service is one of the most critical staff development training areas in the library world. Every member of a library's staff who interacts with the public needs the specialized skills and tools to work with a diverse clientele. This book addresses the need for staff training for various kinds of libraries, covering public and academic libraries of various sizes, medical libraries, law libraries, and state organization and joint-use libraries.
Each chapter of Stellar Customer Service: Training Library Staff to Exceed provides practical advice and creative solutions for showing staff how to handle customer service issues. The book identifies the essential skills and tools staff at all levels—from librarians and staff to student workers and volunteers—must have to contribute to your library's success. Readers will learn innovative training methods, see how a wide range of libraries have approached this perennial staff issue, and get excited about approaching their own customer service training in fresh new ways.
Contents
Introduction
Mou Chakraborty
1. Customer Service Training: Advice from the Business World
Alice Bahr
2. Creating a Comprehensive Training Plan for Better Customer Service Experiences in Your Library
Karen Glover
3. Cultivating an "Always Say Yes" Attitude without Causing Chaos and Confusion
Cheryl McGrath and Paul Bellenoit
4. Instilling a Service Focus in Student Workers
Jordan Jefferson and Mike VanderHeijden
5. Secret Shopping and Training Mini Detectives
Sarah Hammill
6. Using Volunteers to Expand the Walls of the Library: Books for Wider Horizons at Oakland Public Library
Laurie Willhalm
7. Customer Service Training in an Academic Technical Library
Anne Marie Casey and Kathleen Citro
8. A Prescription for Creating a Culture of Customer Service
Valerie S. Gordon and Lee Vucovich
9. More Libraries, More Opportunities for Customer Service Training
Lois Albertson and Jeannette Smithee
10. Designing the Customer-Centric Library Culture: MPL's Customer Service Revolution as a Case Study in Design Thinking
Andrea Cecchetto
11. Library Reality TV: Using Improv Techniques to Transform Your Approach to Customer Service
Jennifer Laredo, Melissa Maglio, and Heidi Murphy
12. Providing Stellar Interlibrary Loan Service to Borrowing Libraries and Your Own Local Patrons: It's All About Sharing
Sue Kaler
13. Providing Remarkable Customer Service and Resources across a Healthcare System
Donna J. McCloskey
14. Values-Based Customer Service: 21st-Century Customer Service for Public Libraries?
Lewis Belfont
15. Give a Pickle, Get a Smile! Sweet, Isn't It?
Mou Chakraborty
About the Editor and Contributors
199
Index
