Scott County Library Staff Day Customer service is dead

@infoactivist | @scottlib_mn | #sclstaffday
Customer Service is
Dead: Long Live the
Customer Experience
Anthony Molaro, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, St Catherine University
Wednesday, March 4, 15

Who Am I?
• Assistant Professor at St Kate’s
• Management & Leadership
• Public Services
• Maker Spaces
• Associate Dean of Libraries and Instructional Technology, Prairie State
College
• Director of Highwood Public Library
• Head of Technology and Technical Services
• Various Roles

My Mission
My mission is to inspire and nurture a
generation of imaginarians and information
activists whose deepest desire is to create an
environment where library members can
explore and discover their world, relate and
connect to their community, develop and
foster their identity, grow and expand their
mind, and ﬁnd and inspire their creativity.

Imaginarian
An imaginarian is built on the concept of
imagineer from the Disney Corporation.
The term imagineer is the blending of
imagination and engineering. So I deﬁne the
term imaginarian as the blending of
imagination and librarianship.

Imaginarians
Imaginarians are tasked with designing and
building the human imagination. We focus on
the creative and learning processes that take
place in the human brain and soul. We help
people construct realities and worlds that
meet their desires. Imaginarians help people
ﬁnd their voice, identity and creative-self.
We foster an environment in which these
can soar.

Library Perspective
Bad libraries build collections, good libraries
build connections, great libraries build
community.
~David Lankes

Customer Experience...

Customer What?

Well We Do Know
What it Means

Customer experience is the sum of all
interactions a customer has with an
organization and its products over the
duration of the relationship. It can also
include the feelings that has a customer
towards the organization based on their
perceived beliefs about the organization.

It’s not transaction-
based but experience-
based

A customer experience oriented
organization appeals to every sense
and emotion of the customer and it
does this by paying attention to
every detail

Customer Service vs.
Customer Experience
Customer Service Customer Experience
Who Department All
What Consume Participate
Where A point of contact Everywhere
When Single point in time Sum of all interactions
Why Problem oriented Feeling oriented
How Reactionary Proactive

History of Customer
Expectation
Customer)
Experience)
Customer)
Service)
Friendly)Staﬀ)
Easily)Locatable)
Dependable)Product)

Revenue & Profit
Customer)
Experience)
Customer)
Service)
Friendly)Staff)
Easily)Locatable)
Dependable)Product)
Customer)Experience)
Customer)Service)
Friendly)Staff)
Easily)Locatable)
Dependable)
Product)

Customer
Experience

Why Should I Care?
• Beyond proﬁt and revenue
• Loyalty
• Forgiveness

The Words Customer
Service Have Become
Cliche

What Does a
Customer Experience
Organization Look
Like?

If a customer service issue has
arisen more than once or
twice in the last year, its no
longer a customer service
issue but an organizational
failure

Culture

• Deliver WOW Through
Service
• Embrace and Drive Change
• Create Fun and a Little
Weirdness
• Be Adventurous, Creative and
Open-Minded
• Pursue Growth and Learning
• Build Open and Honest
Relationships with
Communication
• Build a Positive Team and
Family Spirit
• Do More with Less
• Be Passionate and
Determined
• Be Humble

• Zappos is so serious about this that
they offer all new employees $2,000
after their ﬁrst week of training to
quit

Anticipatory

The Engineer on a
Ladder
• Suppose an engineer on a ladder at a hotel
sees a women with her hands full enter the
building...

Story

Humans naturally seek comfort and stability.
Without an inciting incident that disrupts their
comfort, they won’t enter into a story. They
have to get ﬁred from their job or be forced to
sign up for a marathon. A ring has to be
purchased. A home has to be sold. The
character has to jump into the story, into the
discomfort and the fear, otherwise the story
will never happen.
-Robert McKee

You don’t know a story is happening to you
when you’re in it. You slide into the ﬂow of it
like a current in the ocean; you look back at the
beach and can’t see the umbrella, and your
hotel is a quarter mile behind you.
-Donald Miller

• Story allows us to relate to patrons better
• Story pushes us to achieve important tasks
• Story provides meaning to our lives

Participatory Culture

Participatory Culture:
Patron to Patron

Patron to Library
• Provide lots of feedback loops
• Create multiple advisory boards
• Develop avenues for your patrons to talk
to you

Employee to Employee
• Don’t forget the staff
• Staff book club
• Staff potlucks
• Staff get togethers

Staff

Ordinary
• If you hire ordinary staff for ordinary work
then you will have an ordinary organization
with ordinary results

Nice & Passionate
• Interview questions
• Are you nice?
• What are you passionate about?

Fearless
• Apple hires:
• 10% for knowledge
• 90% personality
• 100% fearless

• Hire for core values
• Train for everything else

Rethink Roles and
Duties
• What if circulation clerks’ primary job was
not to check books in and out
• But was to greet everyone single patron
that entered the building because being
welcoming is part of your core values

Purpose/Passion

Purpose

Fayetteville Free Public
Library
• The Fayetteville
Free Public Library
(NewYork) is
bringing the
purpose and
passion of the
community to the
community.

Today’s Date:
What do you love to do?
What are you passionate about?
Would you be interested in sharing what you know/ teaching
it to your neighbors/ to the community?
Can I have your contact info?
Name_______________________________
Phone_______________________________
Email________________________________
Do you want to speak in person? Please have the Executive Director contact me ______
Susan L. Considine, Executive Director
Fayetteville Free Library
300 Orchard Street
Fayetteville, NY 13066
315-637-6374 X 307
sconsidine@fflib.org
Staff Initials_______
Date_____________

Environment

Experience Audit
• IDEO and the hospital experience

Learning and Growth
Occur in Circles not
Rows

The
Apple
Way

Simplicity

https://www.apple.com/retail/galleries/lincolnpark/images/lincolnpark_gallery_image8.jpg
Beautiful

@infoactivist | @scottlib_mn | #sclstaffdayhttp://librarygraphicdesign.blogspot.com/2012/05/library-helps-you-ﬁnd-your-way.html

Radical Trust
• Apple has an app that allows you to self-
checkout in their store
• 2% will steal, so why do we create a bad
experience for 98% of our customers
based on the 2%?

A.P.P.L.E.
• Approach customers with a personalized warm
welcome
• Probe politely to understand all the customer’s
needs
• Present a solution for the customer to take home
today
• Listen for and resolve any issues or concerns
• End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return

One of the best means of making a library popular is to mingle
freely with its users, and help them in every way. When this
policy is pursued for a series of years in any town, a very large
portion of the citizens receive answers to questions, and the
conviction spreads through the community that the library is an
institution of such beneficent influences that it can not be
dispensed with.
-Samuel Swett Green (1876).

• We should design experiences and solve
problems
• We often try to solve experiences and
design problems

• If patrons wanted quiet they’d likely stay
home
• But we also need to ensure that we have
quiet spaces too

Practice Radical Trust
Radical trust is about trusting the community.We
know that abuse can happen, but we trust (radically)
that the community and participation will work. In
the real world, we know that vandalism happens but
we still put art and sculpture up in our parks.As a
online community we come up with safeguards or
mechanisms that help keep open contribution and
participation working.
~Michael Stephens

not to say that public service isn’t sexy because it
deﬁnitely is but that’s not why we do it... we do it
because we get the chance to work hard at work worth
doing along side a team of people who we love

Lightning Round: Quick
Tips for Today

Show Don’t Tell
• Never give verbal directions
• If you must give directions, write them
down
• Never point to a location
• Per Se restaurant guideline #20 “When
asked, guide guests to the bathroom instead
of pointing”

Phones
• Every patron phone call is precious, never
let an automated system upset your patron
experience

• Hand written note for every new patron
• Follow up with a birthday card (at least for
the kids)

Make Waiting Enjoyable

• Know your patron by name
• People want to be recognized

“Remember that a person’s name is to
that person the sweetest and most
important sound in any language.”
~Dale Carnegie

• Patrons long for a positive and personal
connection
• It may be the only time they experience a
connection all day

ThankYou
Questions?

Scott County Library Staff Day Customer service is dead

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