When You Think of Great Service - A Dog's Tale

What do you think about when you think of great service?

In Access & Delivery Services, this is the question I try to keep at the forefront of my mind when training staff and when dealing with my patrons. Great service is the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary. It is the difference between a minor hassle and convenience. It may be the thing that makes someone's day and causes them to talk about you, blog about you, twitter about you, or send a really nice thank you note to you or your boss.

When I think of great service, I often recall the story about a woman who had intended to return her shoes to Zappos, the shoe mecca, but her mother died. A Zappos rep contacted her about the delay of her return, and not only arranged to deal with pickup of the shoes (against corporate policy), but sent flowers. The story is available here on Consumerist. It was such a strong display of simple humanity and kindness that I remember it often. That is above-and-beyond great service.

Today, Otto (who many of you know as my beloved basset hound of doom) presented a huge tennis-ball sized lump beneath the right side of his jaw. I, a doting puppymama, was horrified. Tumorcancerabcessdeathomg-thoughts sort of horrified. (You have heard of crazy cat ladies? Well, I am a crazy dog lady. Otto is my constant companion and only child, essentially.) Payday rolls around once a month for we university folks, and of course, what with the holidays and such, there's no way I was going to be able to afford to drag him in to the emergency clinics. I called them all anyway - cash or credit up front required, initial charge $15-$200, plus $500 and over for any testing and/or procedures. Cue the stressbarf. I emailed my usual vet, where Otto boards when I am away and does doggy daycare on occasion to set up an appointment for payday, hoping he didn't hatch an alien from his lymph nodes before December 22nd. I expected an email back Monday, when the vet re-opened.

Imagine my surprise when my gmail account coughed up a reply at 7:34pm, obviously past the noon closing time, long before the office reopens at 7:30am on Monday morning. Imagine my *greater* surprise to read the following:

Dear Ms. Harris,

We can certainly see Otto on Monday, December 21st. We have an opening at 8:40am or you could drop him off for the day and pick him up later that afternoon. If you think the lump is uncomfortable or cannot wait until the 21st, we can see him sooner and hold a payment until the following week. We do not want him to be uncomfortable. Just let us know.
Sincerely,

Staff of KAMC
Kildaire Animal Medical Center

I was flabbergasted. I have never heard of such a thing. Otto now has an 8:30am Monday morning appointment with his vet, and I feel much less like I am killing my dog by having to wait to get him in. I already loved my veterinary staff and docs at KAMC - Otto is the only dog I know who runs *towards* the office rather than away from it, they treat him so well. I was already a loyal customer because of the nice treatment we had received in the past and the friendly staff. This, though - well, this is, as they say, "a whole 'nother level." This is great customer service. This is why I will not consider another vet, and will tell all my local friends to trust their furbabies to these folks. Because I was treated as not just another person with another want, but with compassion and understanding.

Thank you, Kildaire Animal Medical Center. You are a shining example to those of us who provide services to others. And I (and Otto) appreciate it. I am considering this an early Christmas gift, and am quite sure it will be the best one I receive.

Happy holidays to all, and please think on this - what have you done in your service provision to really make someone feel like you cared? How have you shown *your* customers/patrons/users/clients that they are more than just numbers on a spreadsheet, dollars on the bottom line, or transaction statistics?

Computers in Libraries: Here We Come!

In a bout of fabulous good news, I got an email from Jane Dysart today confirming a speaking gig Mary Chimato & I pitched for the Computers in Libraries 2010 conference. Mark your calendars for Wednesday, April 14th - we'll be presenting on Track E (Learning: Expanding our Knowledge) at 10:30am. Description of Track and of our preso slot below:

Track E - Learning: Expanding our Knowledge

It's critical for library staff and library patrons to be life-long learners, gaining new understanding and new skills. This track focuses on ways of engaging staff and users in learning activities, leveraging technologies and exciting their minds. Moderated by Jill Hurst-Wahl, Hurst Associates.

10.30-11.15

E301 Staff Development: Soft Skills, Firm Results

Janie Hermann, Program Coordinator, Princeton Public Library

Colleen Harris, Associate Head, Access & Delivery Services and Mary Chimato, Head, Access & Delivery Services, North Carolina State University Libraries

What does it take to create information fluency in library staff in an increasingly technological environment? How do we best blend the so-called "soft" skills such as teamwork, active listening, and decision-making with the "hard" technical skills expected of today's library staff when we have to train across boundaries of race, gender, age and technical agility? Hermann looks at how, despite diminishing budgets, to hold innovative Staff Development Days and offer other staff development opportunities throughout the year that actively teach technology and other important skills while engaging all staff in the learning process. Harris and Chimato discuss the managerial skills necessary for library staff who must adapt to rapidly changing technologies, and how to help your staff develop and maintain the technical skills your library needs to keep its competitive edge.

Random Passing Thoughts

Random thoughts with little (or no) connection to anything. because this is the internet, and I can do stuff like this.

• I checked a Kindle (original version, not DX) out from the NCSU Libraries and took it with me to Louisville. As a booklover, I was skeptical, but it was actually quite nifty to not have to pack 14 paperbacks with me for my traveling and multiple flights. I can see checking out the Kindle when I do some traveling, but at home I found I still prefer an actual page-turny book. Still, it was a nice test drive. Not yet willing to blow a few hundred bucks on it, but I now understand the attraction better.


• Deciding between doing what makes you happy and doing what makes you a responsible adult is difficult. Even more difficult? Debating with yourself about what makes you happy. And then trying to figure out if you're willing to take the leaps to make that happy happen... /mindboggle


• We don't give managers enough credit. If I had known how mentally and emotionally exhausting it was to manage people, I'd've brought my old bosses cookies on a regular basis, and wouldn't have been so flip about criticizing their decisions. (Well, maybe I would have been, but I'd have added more compassion.)


• My favorite current commercial: the Geico talking pothole commercial. "I don't HAVE a cellphone! 'Cause, I'm a pothole?" *snicker*


• You know the old "If a tree falls in the forest..." question. But, if a library service disappears, and nobody notices it, was it a service at all? If a book is written and nobody reads it, does it count?


• I just finished the latest degree (MFA in Writing), and start the next (MS in Technical Communication) in January 2010. I then found myself coveting the JD, and have an acceptance letter into an EdD in Higher Education Administration program. I am also noticing that I haven't really been thinking about what I'd *do* with all of these, just that I like the comfort of letters after my name. It makes it look like I know what I'm talking about.


• I wonder if having pets helps us expand our natural compassion-reservoirs for other humans, or if the patience we exhibit with our furbabies helps us be more patient with other people. if so, I may need another dog *grin*


• Lots of writing to do - I have four book chapters due with varying deadlines but none later than March 31, 2010, and a book contract with a finished manuscript deadline of July. And I have two poetry manuscripts I want to polish off and start sending out - one with a deadline of February and the other with a May deadline (both self-imposed).


• Super-random: the smell of mint makes me happy. Peppermint and spearmint. It relaxes me. If you spritz me with mint, I may well fall asleep where I stand. But I'd do it with a smile on my face. (Oddly enough, the Moonlight Sonata has a similar effect on me.)


• A month or two away from buying a new desktop. The wee little lappy just doesn't get me into the writing zone.


• The colder it gets, the more attractive the Snuggie becomes. I would love one in a black and white moo-cow print. I adore cows. And moose. But I doubt there's a moose Snuggie in the works. I would like to break the bun-wearing librarian stereotype and become the Snuggie-wearing librarian.



This ends the randomness for today. I'm stretching some unused bloggy muscles *grin*

Why I Do What I Do

Because students like NCSU's Jake Goldbas write student newspaper articles like this, in the North Carolina State University student paper, The Technician.

Because when he says, "In fact, every time I have been to the library, I’ve made my life better. I don’t think I can say that about any other place I’ve been to", it means I, my staff, and my colleagues are doing it right. And it gives me the energy to come back and keep doing it.

Thanks, Jake. This is the nicest thing I've read all month *grin*.

A Heartfelt Request

A heartfelt request to all of you budding young professionals out there on the job hunt:

Please do not use clip art in your resumes.

I am not sure for what sort of position that would be appropriate. I can't think of any, offhand. Unless it is original art you've digitized and are including as proof of your skillz, but that is not what I am seeing.

Seriously. No clip art. And no fonts that look like kindergartener handwriting.

I thought Comic Sans was the worst. You've proven me wrong. For real, people. The mind, it boggles. And my eyes, they burn.

Maximum Absorption, Slight Discomfort, Success Imminent

No, not a tampon commercial. I'm just talking about the past few weeks in Access & Delivery at the North Carolina State University Libraries. Over the summer, we closed our Media & Microform Center (MMC) due to budget cuts, which required reallocating staff into different positions and absorbing the service into the daily routines of the rest of Circulation. Moving the collections, documenting (and in some cases, rewriting) policies and procedures, and training the old/new staff member for their new roles in ADS has been time consuming, but ultimately rewarding. The time spent preparing for and dealing with the changes has paid off, and the service has been absorbed with minimal (but notable - and fixable) hitches.

Access & Delivery is also the new locale for all of the NCSU Libraries' technology lending, which used to reside in our Learning Commons. We were lucky enough to also get the previous staff member who helped manage the service to move into ADS. Unlike the MMC move, this one happened just as the semester began, without months and months of preparation, as we had for the MMC. However, being the transactional creatures we are in ADS, if it has a barcode on it, we can circulate the sucker. more absorption of policies and procedures, with some rewriting and a good bit of training, and we took off running with this service, too. Another batch of interesting kinks and procedural tweaks to work out, but so far the move has been a success. With both tech lending and core textbooks (not to mention the usual to and fro of those checking out traditional materials), our desk has been hopping.

Ah, yes. Core textbooks. NCSU Libraries place a copy of every required textbook for university classes on reserve behind the circ desk. No, I am not kidding. Yes, the students love it. Yes, we drown in traffic. Yes, we love feeling needed and being swamped means we are doing our job and providing necessary services. And I say "we" because everyone in the department works the service desk - the department head, myself, all the librarians, even the folks in the ILL unit come over and lend a hand. We run a 24/5 (plus weekends) operation, and we have two - count them, two - service desks - an exit desk (single person) and a main desk, where we often have all five terminals staffed and still see incredible lines of patrons. This requires an extraordinary amount of manpower.

It has been incredible to see such a large institution be so nimble when it comes to change and flexibility. And not just the library as a whole, which I find fascinating in its many moving parts, but the good nature of the number of staff who were reallocated due to workflow changes often caused by an anemic budget. It has been an exercise in growth for all of us, and it demonstrated the compelling reason why we need good library managers: change may be inevitable, but the skillful manipulation of circumstances to enable the library to absorb, deal with, and profit from change is not. I'm proud to be part of a library team that can make that happen with an eye toward the long-term satisfaction of our patrons.

So, this explains part of why I haven't blogged much lately. Other things, such as the Great Flying Snot-and-Vomit Flu that decimated our department for a couple of weeks and is finally dying down is another reason, as is the "trying to get things organized, flowing, and simply *done*" thing. Expect more from me soon on absorbing services, staff reallocations, and general management hoodoo. Right now I'm trying to dig myself out of the hole I've gotten myself into, and paring my inbox back down to manageable proportions.

Three Years Out of the MLS

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly life moves. While talking (well, commenting within a Friendfeed thread) with a fellow librarypal, I noted that as of this month I am three years out of the MLS. My trajectory to date:

Colleen's Timeline

August 2004: Became third shift Circulation supervisor at the University of Kentucky's William T. Young Library.

January 2005: Entered UK's School of Library & Information Science.

August 2006: Received the MS in Library & Information Science from the University of Kentucky.

August/September 2006: Became second shift Reference supervisor (still parapro).

August 2007: Became reference and instruction librarian on the tenure track at Assistant Professor rank at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

January 2009: Became Associate Head of Access & Delivery Services at the North Carolina State University Libraries.

Looking at this surprises me for a number of reasons. First, I enjoy being a creature of habit. While I don't mind change at work, it takes me a very long time to settle into a place and a personal routine, so I don't like moving all that much. Which is interesting, since I do so darn much of it. Secondly, some of the jobs I've left to get where I am were jobs I genuinely enjoyed, and it was an even shoot as to whether I should leave or stay. It always surprises *me* when I make the decision to move on, since I consider myself someone who prefers to be static, but my friends usually assume I'm moving on, when given the choice.

Finally, it surprises me because while getting my MLS, my intent was to get a reference and instruction position, be good at it, keep it until I died or retired, and spend my free time working on other master's degrees for fun. It looks like I've strayed a bit in the career area, if not the further schooling area. I can't even say "Oops," as I'm enjoying the crazy rodeo that is ADS at NCSU.

I wonder what the next three years will look like...