NOTE: My article, "Mapping the Information Landscape," from the April issue of Searcher, is available online, minus the actual maps, at http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/
apr02/block.htm
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THE REAL PUBLIC FACE OF OUR LIBRARIES
by Marylaine Block
I've often argued that the library web page is our public face, one of the first ways our users find out about libraries and the services we offer, and that it behooves us to make those pages warm, inviting, and easy to navigate. But it is equally true that for many people, their first experience of the library is through the telephone. I've been calling a lot of libraries recently in connection with articles I'm writing, and I have to tell you, I have not enjoyed the experience. Perhaps we need to consider what our users will think about our library on the basis of their first telephone contact with us.
Try calling your own library at various times during the day -- the central number, not the specific numbers you are already familiar with. What happens? Does a machine answer your phone? [You may think calls are always answered by a staff person, but do you know what happens to the second, third or fourth caller trying to get through at the same time?] Do you think callers get warm fuzzy feelings from talking to machines?
If a machine does answer, what is it telling the patron? The hours during which you're open? That always gets my back up, since I'm thinking, "I AM calling during those hours, so why aren't you answering my call?"
What happens then? Does the machine recite a list of options? If those options do not include the question you actually had, does it give you a chance to talk to a human being at that point? Does it make it clear what you have to do to talk to that human being?
When this happened to me recently, I was told I could wait for an operator OR, to expedite my call, I could punch any key on the keypad. I punched a key and got another lengthy menu recited at me, which is not my idea of expediting. On the other hand, when I tried again and waited for the operator, it paused briefly and then re-recited the hours of operation. Since I was calling long-distance, I got to pay for every glorious minute of this.
Another interesting wrinkle I came across is a library with multiple branches that only gives out the main library number -- all calls to branches need to be made through that main number, another waste of the caller's time. It was even moreso in my case since the people who answered the phone did not even recognize the name of the librarian I needed to speak to, and spent several minutes trying to identify which branch he was at and switch the call -- at which point they disconnected me.
When somebody asks to speak to a particular person, does the person answering your phones ask what the call is about? Many people consider this intrusive. It may well be justified by the fact that the person you're trying to reach is quite busy, but ONLY if your explanation of the reason for your call is actually passed on. Amazingly often, it isn't. Sometimes you even have to deliver that spiel to yet another intermediary before finally being connected to the person you were calling in the first place -- who has no idea why you were calling because that person hadn't passed it on either.
If you do have human beings answering your phones, are they knowledgeable enough to either field the question or route you to the person most likely to be able to answer it? Has everyone who answers the phone been made familiar with all the basic services of the library and who is responsible for each?
Remember, people tend to assume that government agencies will be automated, rigid, bureaucratic, and minimally helpful; they assume that calls to government agencies will be time-consuming and inefficient. Do we want our library to be just like the Drivers License Bureau with books, or do we want to be the UnCola, the friendly agency that is not only eager to serve citizens, but good at it?
If the latter, perhaps we should do the same kind of user testing for our phone systems that we do for our web pages. Enlist volunteers, give them a list of questions people might reasonably ask when they call the library, and analyze their experiences. [Don't cheat and ask for Reference, because many people don't know to do this.] You might even include one person who doesn't speak English very well. How long did it take for the caller to be routed to the correct person or department? How friendly and courteous was the service? Were the calls successfully put through or disconnected? Did the caller get a satisfactory answer? Analyze the success rate.
I DO like libraries, and I feel betrayed when I get poor service from them. My recent experiences suggest we may be unnecessarily throwing away our users' good will because we simply don't understand -- and maybe have never asked -- how badly our phone systems may be serving them.
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COOL QUOTE
The comfort that his library time afforded him was unexpected, welcome. As the weeks passed, he became aware of how much the place, the press, the steady flow of people, the scent of glue and binding, the scent of books pleased him. At first he could not articulate what he felt about it, and then one day he realized that he felt invited into meaning there, that the world seemed large when viewed through the library's broad windows.
Kathleen Cambor. In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001.
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You are welcome to copy and distribute or e-mail any of my own articles for noncommercial purposes (but not those by my guest writers) as long as you retain this copyright statement:
Ex Libris: an E-Zine for Librarians and Other Information Junkies.
http://marylaine.com/exlibris/
Copyright, Marylaine Block, 1999-2002.
[Publishers may license the content for a reasonable fee.]
