Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal February 2009 Volume 7(1)

Customer service

Winners all round

Being ‘Highly Commended’ in Scotland’s Colleges Annual Awards was only one element of her library’s commitment to good customer service, says Christine Barclay.

FE college libraries have always worked within their local context, supporting students and staff in their diverse needs. In recent years the challenges we have had to face have increased as funding has, in many cases, contracted.

Our library service here at Elmwood College is no exception. We are a small college with a friendly and caring atmosphere but our library accommodation no longer caters for the varied learning styles that students require. In this climate of financial constraint, with minimum staffing levels, it is a challenge to find creative ways of supporting students. However, we decided to turn these challenges into opportunities and our efforts became the basis of a submission for an award. What ensued has raised our profile within the college and has been a great motivator for library staff.

Our library has a reputation for providing high levels of support for learners. A key factor in this has been the development of good relationships between curriculum teams and library staff, all of whom bring different skills and personalities to the mix.

Two years ago one of our library assistants completed an MSc focusing on customer service, comparing FE libraries with the retail sector. His research confirmed that we were already meeting many of the expectations of our customers but that we should not rest on our laurels. We should continue to develop our awareness of our customer needs and expectations.

Embracing these findings, and those from a library survey, we identified three attributes of customer service that we could develop further:

• Access: ‘rovering’, with staff getting out from behind the issue desk and being located where our customers were, becoming more visible.
  
• Responsiveness: developing the response to a query by going back a few minutes later to enquire if further assistance is required.
• Courtesy: the simplest but most often forgotten aspect of customer service.

Working with these elements we fostered strong relationships with student groups and evidence of the success of these measures was found in the next annual library survey.
In the process we had identified a number of student groups who had not engaged very well with their library inductions. We decided to explore ways of improving this situation. One was a group of hospitality students. Liaising with their course tutor, we devised a ‘Bake a Cake’ competition in which we guided them to access different types of resources (ingredients). During the exercise library staff recognised that some students were experiencing difficulties in completing it and this was fed back to their tutor. This resulted in individual learning plans being developed to ensure that these students now have the appropriate support to complete their studies. In addition to the positive feedback we received from students in the group and their tutor, we have fostered good relationships with these students.

A second group offered an opportunity for a different model of support. The HNC Health Care group consisted of mainly female students who, in the main, only came into college for their tutor contact. Other commitments necessitated studying at home and this had created retention issues with the previous academic year’s group. What customer service model would support these students with their learning? With support from a member of library staff from St Andrews University we explored digitising key texts, under our copyright licence, and making the material available electronically via our library catalogue. Having ascertained that this would work technically we offered, with the agreement of the tutor, to run a pilot of four key texts for the final term of the session. Time was spent with the class group explaining the project and supporting them during the pilot exercise. This concluded with an evaluation and feedback session. The pilot has been extended to cover all units of the HNC Health Care course for this academic session.

These two activities formed the basis of our entry to the annual Scotland’s Colleges Award in the Customer Service category. In November 2008 we were shortlisted, and received a ‘Highly Commended’. 

The judges commented on the tailoring of the initiatives to two very different student groups, how we had moved beyond the issue desk to meet students where they were studying, and that knowledge gained in one environment had been transferred to another. 

We feel that we are all winners – our students, colleagues, library staff, Elmwood College and the library profession. As a profession librarians are not traditionally given to broadcasting their successes; we didn’t set out to submit an entry for an award, but achieving one has certainly been a huge motivator.

Christine Barclay is College Manager Learning Resources, Elmwood College, Fife.

Information Scotland Vol. 7(1) February 2009

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