On 6/8/06, Dan Lester <dan_at_riverofdata.com> wrote:
> If the customer isn't satisfied because s/he wants it NOW, then that's a
> universal situation in any library (and any business, for that matter). But
> if the customer doesn't need instant satisfaction, which I realize is an
> increasingly uncommon situation, then why doesn't ILL do it in almost all
> cases? And can't the patron self serve via a web page to handle that? In
> fact, that could eliminate the user's need to come in at all.
Hmm, how common is it to consider a library patron a customer who
needs to be marketed to, yet also assume they have extended knowledge
of how libraries work?
Most people, when they think of libraries, I think, think of books on
a shelf. Which is really unfortunate, since there's a lot of
resources other than books on shelves, and since there are lots of
services to support knowledge gathering aside from checking out books
at a specific location.
I dunno if it's a safe assumption that Joe Patron will know that ILL
exists, or how to use it if so. I can say that my experience with ILL
is that it's a tremendous service generally poorly executed. For
example, my academic library ILL form requires a second login and just
sends a form email to an ILL librarian. When the request is filled, I
get an email stating "A work you requested is now available." No
details on what the work is, how long it will be there, etc.
If someone does a search for something not held, shouldn't the catalog
say "sorry, we don't have that, but we have these other editions of
the same work over here, or we can get that specific edition in x
days. If you request it, you'll be notified when it's available for
you." Or even, "Sorry, that's checked out. Would you like to be
notified when it's available?".
Going back out to the more general point of setting and meeting
customer expectations, you can assume the users are ignorant not
stupid-- and serve their needs by informing them of their options in
as straight-forward a way as possible.
Received on Thu Jun 08 2006 - 11:44:30 EDT