customer service | David Lee King

Remind People you are Open

August 3, 2020 By David Lee King

Well … this has certainly been a weird year so far.

One thing I have found odd (besides politics and a global pandemic) is simply having to let people know that the library is, in fact, open again!

That’s a REALLY strange thing to have to tell people. This year my library just celebrated its 150th anniversary. That’s 150 years of being open. Sure, we closed for things like snow days … but otherwise, we’ve been open for one hundred and fifty freaking years.

So having people ask “is the library open yet?” is a pretty strange thing to hear!

Here’s how we have been letting our community know we’re open:

Website – check out our What You Can Do Now page. As things change, we update this page.
Social Media – the image in this blog post came from a Facebook post letting people know we are open. We have shared similar messages on Twitter and Instagram.
E-News – we do a weekly enewsletter, and we have shared there that we are open.
Signs outside the building – we have signs out front saying we are open (and to wear a mask)!
YouTube Video Ad – we just created our first YouTube video ad (Koios helped us set up our Google ads account). The ad goes out to people living in our service area, and lets viewers know that we are open again.
Phone message – call our main number after hours, and you’ll hear my voice, letting people know we’re open, what our hours are, etc.
Traditional media – we’ve also been on the local TV news and had some newspaper articles written about what’s been happening at the library.

I’ve probably missed a few things, too.

My point? It’s important to let your community know that you are open (if you are). It’s also important to let people know when something changes – like opening up a curbside pickup service for the first time, or if there’s a change in service levels, open hours, meeting room use, etc.

Let your customers know what’s going on, and what to expect at the library. And make sure to keep sharing about your digital services, too!

You got this – keep going strong!

Image by Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

Sweetwater Sound, Customer Experience, & Hashtags

February 26, 2019 By David Lee King

Thank you materials that came with my purchase — Thanking me for buying stuff!

I recently bought a new bass guitar from Sweetwater Sound, and loved the customer experience they provide.

I’ll walk you through some of the stuff they did to make my buying experience a good one, then share something fun that could work well for libraries.

Here are some of the things they do to make sure my experience buying stuff from them is a good one:

When I sign up for an account, I’m assigned a specific “sales engineer.” That person calls after I buy something to make sure everything’s ok.
My bass guitar was backordered, so Randy (the sales dude) called to let me know what was going on, and to share when my bass guitar would ship.
Sweetwater does a 55-point inspection on all their guitars, from the pricey ones to some of the cheaper ones too (mine was a cheap one). Most online music stores don’t do that.
They warned me to not open the box for 24 hours (via a sticker on the box), so the instrument could slowly acclimate to a warmer temperature (musical instruments can be picky that way).
See the image with this post? When I opened the box, I was thanked for buying something, given a bag of candy, and provided with a hashtag to share what I bought on social media.

I’ve bought a TON of stuff online – probably you have too. This level of service is not normal, at least for a “big box” online music store. So … very nice customer experience!

How does this relate to libraries?

How often do we thank people for using our services? For checking stuff out …. For asking a question … for using one of our databases … for attending a class or event at the library?

Yes, mine was an online experience, so it’s easy enough to stuff something in a box before you ship it. But we have the opportunity to thank people in person, which can have a much greater impact than stuff tossed into a box (though the candy was … sweet!).

And I LOVE the idea of the #newgearday hashtag. That’s certainly something we can do. Does your library have a hashtag? If so … print out a bookmark or postcard that encourages people to share their #nextread or something like that.

And then share those photos on your website (here’s how Sweetwater shares some of the #newgearday images). Use them in promotions (and yes, get permission). It’s a really simple way to connect with your customers, and to let them share their joy of reading with your community (and a sneaky way to share them with you, too).

Chatbots and Libraries

October 2, 2018 By David Lee King

This is my continuing series on emerging technology trends and libraries. This week’s trend explores the world of Chatbots.

What’s a Chatbot? Chatbots are called many things besides just “chatbot.” You might also know them as conversational agents, intelligent chatbots, interactive agents, or talkbots.

Chatbots are pretty much apps that talk back to you (my definition). Here’s a better definition from Wordstream: “… software applications that mimic written or spoken human speech for the purposes of simulating a conversation or interaction with a real person.”

This interaction is mostly done via chat boxes on websites. But they can also be found in call centers. In a call center environment, chatbots take care of very low-level transactions, like changing a password, requesting an account balance, or scheduling an appointment without having to talk to a real person.

The same basic transactions can be handled with a text-based chatbot on a website.

Chatbots use Natural Language Processing, much like virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, or Apple Siri. They attempt to sound (or read) very “real,” so the transaction has a more human feel to it. Very different from a phone tree in a call center or typing answers to questions on a web-based form.

Examples of Chatbots include:

Health-based. Some chatbots are used in medical diagnoses, dementia patient monitoring, and basic information gathering.
Facebook Messenger and Twitter DMs – these are both good places to see chatbots in action.
Chatbots within mobile apps. My bank app has one (Erica in the Bank of America app). The Starbucks app has a chatbot that helps you order coffee. Lyft has one that works with Facebook Messenger and Amazon Echo. Fandango also has a app that works with Facebook Messenger.
eBay’s chatbot works with Google Assistant.

Chatbots in the library?

How about having a chatbot for the library? Chatbots answer basic, always-asked questions. A library chatbot could answer a variety of questions, like:

Questions about hours, locations, and upcoming events. Maybe it could even capture event registrations.
With a good API connection, a chatbot could tell a customer when their books are due, or take fine payment information.
Facebook Messenger chatbots. You could build your chatbots to operate within Facebook Messenger. If you get a lot of questions there, it’s definitely something to think about.
Chat-based reference. Have a chat-based reference service? It’s very possible your chatbot could answer basic questions, freeing up your staff’s time to answer harder questions or focus on other tasks.

Articles for more information about Chatbots:

Build your own chatbot! Here are a couple of chatbot builder tools to check out (all mostly built on the Facebook Messenger platform):

Chatfuel
Manychat
Octane AI
Recart
Facebook Messenger: If you use Facebook a lot, and know how to code, you can make your own chatbots without using a 3rd party tool.

Does your library use chatbots? Please share!

Convincing Staff to Learn a New Thing

January 9, 2018 By David Lee King

Last year, I attended a presentation focused on convincing staff to use a new tool the library had purchased. The presentation offered up different ideas on how to do that.

The presenter (and, I assume, the library) didn’t seem to want to make learning the new tool mandatory, and were concerned that they might have to do that at some point.

Anyone else hear a problem with that concept? I sure did. I think there’s a better way to function.

Now … volunteering to do something can be perfectly fine, in the right context. For example, maybe the task isn’t in your job description but it needs to get done while someone else is out on extended leave, or maybe you do it in an interim capacity until someone else is hired.

Also, volunteering is fine during a pilot project phase. You know, that “we’re just testing this out and need feedback” phase.

But once the job or function or service is more formally offered by the library? Don’t take volunteers. No “convincing” needed.

Instead, assign the new service or tool or project to someone (a person, a department, everyone, etc), and expect that they will do that thing (whatever it is) or learn it in order to help customers. Also think about making sure someone is in charge of getting everyone trained, if you don’t already have a training program in place for it.

After that? No convincing needed. It’s now part of someone’s job – just like working the reference desk, building a website, or cataloging a book.

image by Marc Falardeau