CustomerFriendly Is More Than An Attitude

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Customer-Friendly Is More Than An Attitude

• An Infopeople Workshop
• December 2004-April 2005
• Elaine Z. Jennerich
• jenneric_at_u.washington.edu

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Agenda

• Introductions
• Customer-friendly attitude and actions
• Confusing the customer
• Listening
• When saying no

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Introductions

• Name
• Library
• Position
• One thing you like about serving your librarys
  customers

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• To create a positive first impression, we
• need to know how to connect immediately
• with others regardless of their age, gender,
  ethnic background, mood, or the
• situation. Jeff Mowatt

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Rapport

• Making the customer feel important
• Small talk Big return

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Exercise 1 Building Rapport

• Break into small groups

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Look at the library users in the pictures

• Create rapport building questions or comments for
  each picture
• Share one example with whole group

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Artistic Give And Take Exercise

• Sit back to back
• Artist assistant describes picture
• Artist creates the picture
• Reverse roles

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GIVE AND TAKE OF COMMUNICATION

• What happened?
• Language/terminology
• Nonverbal
• Feelings/emotions
• Outcome?
• What did you learn?
• What would you do differently?

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Customer-Friendly Basic Attributes

• Expect to have a good day
• Smile
• Greet the customer
• Eye contact
• Simplify language
• Make the customer feel important

• Open body language
• Listen, listen, listen
• Ask open-ended questions
• Is there anything else I can do?
• Thank the library user

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Personal Action Plan

• Write down one action
• you can take to improve rapport with
• your library users.

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Confusing The Customer

• If confusion is the first step to knowledge,
  then I must be a genius.
• .Larry
  Leissner

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Clear Explanations And Directions

• Remember the Artistic Give and Take?
• What did you learn about giving clear
• explanations and directions?

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Avoiding Biblio-Language

• What is the alphabet soup in your library?
• Jargon?
• Abbreviations?
• Acronyms?
• Biblio-language?

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Exercise 2 Simplifying The Language

• Write down ten biblio-language examples.
• Create sentences
• Exchange sentences
• Simplify sentences

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Personal Action Plan

• Write down one action you will take to simplify
  communication with your customers.

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Exercise 3Customers With A Difference

• Watch video..then
• take the quiz Communicating with ESL Customers

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Phone Customer (ESL)

• What techniques work for you?
• What doesnt work?
• What difficulties do you have?
• What difficulties do your customers have?

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Personal Action Plan

• What action will you take to improve your
  interaction with users who are not native English
  speakers?

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Listening

• We have 2 ears and one mouth
• obviously, we should be listening
• twice as much as we speak.
• .anonymous

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Listening Myths

• Listening is a natural skill.
• Listening is passive
• Interrupting is bad form.
• You can stop listening when you get the general
  idea.
• Listening and hearing are the same.

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4 Types Of Listening

• Inactive
• Selective
• Active
• Reflective

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Main Barriers To Listening

• Noise
• Distractions
• Movement
• Physical surroundings

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Additional Barriers To Listening

• Other barriers to listening?

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Just React

• Licorice
• Liberal
• Crutches
• Toddler
• Muslim
• Retarded
• Stutter
• Piercings

• Hockey
• Teriyaki
• Hip-hop
• Prayer
• GED
• Old
• Librarian
• Disfigured

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Emotional Reactions

• The human mind always takes the emotional road
  first.

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Listener Filters

• Prejudice/bias
• Assumptions
• Listener thoughts
• Feelings about topic

• Feelings about speaker
• Conflict of values
• Difference in style

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Listening Exercise

• In your group, discuss what you might do to
  overcome at least 3 barriers and 3 filters from
  the list that are assigned to your group.
• Someone from your group will report to the whole
  class.

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Personal Action Plan

• What specific step will you take so that you will
  be listening to users more effectively?

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Saying No
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No Situations

• In what types of library situations are you
  unable to fill requests or have to say NO?
• Lets create a list of some those situations
  together..

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Cant Fill A Request?

• Do you understand the problem?
• Form a team with customer

• What can you do?
• Create a neutral zone on paper

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Neutral Paper Zone

• Takes emphasis away from feeling and makes it
  more tangible
• Focuses on facts
• Lessens effects of personality and biases
• Creates teamwork
• Stresses options, solutions.

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Neutral Zone Examples
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Personal Action Plan

• You must say no to a customer or cant fill a
  request.
• What is one way you will do that better?

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Lets Review the Day

• What did you learn today?

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Personal Action Plan

• Using the 5 actions you chose throughout the day,
• write a paragraph describing your overall action
  plan!

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• Please fill out your evaluations