Please hold..your call is important to us

Jane Core

Northumbria University

Call centres and customer service

• There are over 4,000 call centres in the UK. • 10 billion calls are made to call centres every year. • Every household in Britain spends the equivalent of a

whole day on the phone to call centres each year. • Customers are calling ‘on the move’• Customers trying to contact call centres are getting

impatient and quicker to hang up• Customers are getting used to the idea of an 'always

available' society • Only 60% of requests are resolved at first referral

Our students are those people

• Are members of the ‘always available’ society • On the move – often remote from us• Using Tesco online, Amazon, home banking • Juggling home, work, and study• Have expectations of service all in one place• Need help to do things without becoming experts• Are diverse and individual• Want choices and may be paying for them

Making the library say YES

• We need to avoid:• Customer service at our convenience• Learning in a virtual vacuum• Anti social learning spaces• Professional incest

Customer service at our convenience

• Induction: things you need to do and have• Welcome: emphasis on security and control• Circulation: process driven, sanction ridden• The body swerve to around service points• Frequently asked shelvers cannot help you• If you fail to comply with our requirements - you may

be fined/have access withdrawn• We remind you what we don’t want you to do• If we fail to meet your expectations… use a comment form

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Y1 R2 Q7 How do you learn about information resources such as those listed above?

Customer support preferences: the reality

At their convenience

• Present the evidence to students that the library will make a difference to their performance

• Self service should be made a feasible alternative• Review circulation systems and policies and simplify• Assume that frequently applied sanctions are service

design weaknesses• Empower staff at all levels to answer the FAQs and

make sure they pass and don’t swerve! • Involve student feedback at all stages in designing

services and encourage evaluations by students as partners

Learning in the virtual vacuum

• The library was laid out on a plan which has remained obscure to all over the centuries, and which none of the monk's is called upon to know. Only the librarian has received the secret,from the librarian who preceded him, and he communicates it, while still alive, to the assistant librarian, so that death will not take him by surprise and rob the community of that knowledge. And the secret seals the lips of both men. (Umberto Eco: Name of the rose)

– Passwords– Authentication– Links to documents describing documents

• No full text at the end of the journey

The customers are giving up..

• 73% of undergraduated used the internet more than the library (US RLG survey)

• EDNER (2002) found that – 45% of students used google as starting point– 10% used the library catalogue– 9% used Yahoo

• We need to – google the library!– cross search resources – federated search engine– simplify authentication

Library and Learning Services

Norayour library search engine

Quality information for successful assignments.

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Y1 R2 Q5 In the course of your studies, which information resources do you expect to use?

Bring virtual worlds together

• Northumbria learner in BlackBoard every 4.5secs• Library web pages are highest entry point for access

to BlackBoard and search engines• Service and system integration both required• Place library resources at course level• Place support at course level• Develop a library toolbar that can be added• Develop reuseable learning objects that can be used

in course materials and refer back to library resources and support services

System integration

Anti social learning spaces

• Learning is not exclusive to classrooms or libraries– All spaces are learning spaces with mobile technologies– Learning is a social process

• Online activity shifts authority / offers independence– Can the well designed library space support social learning?

• Different ‘spaces’ reinforce different ‘authorities’ – We need to offer choices and rethink our culture/sanctions

• Learners spend 12-16hours pw in ‘formal learning’– Where are what/where/how are they using their time?– How will we reach them in their informal learning space?

What are they doing?

Where are they doing it?

Has what you were studying in class led to conversation with others not in that

class?

US National Survey of Student Engagement (2003)

How are they doing it?

Figure 2: Technology most likely to impact by 2010

Designs for learning?

• New styles of learning and assessment– groups/individuals: quiet/noisy: with IT/without– mobile: connected: interactive

• Evolving technologies– interactive: audio visual: rich digital resources as simple as google

• Customer expectations – flexibility and choice to draw everything around you– new ‘authorities’ related to learning process not library process

• New services to support all of the above– opening hours and self service operations– just in time support ; multi channel delivery– The reference lounge? Shift the authority and remove the desk!

Library study environment

Before and after

City Campus Library

2001 39 PCsTraditional lab layoutsOpen 70 hrs per week2 hour queues at peak times

City Campus Library

Sept 2006450 workstationsInformal/social layoutsOpen 108 hours per week 30%+ opening as self serviceNear capacityOccasional queues

Social learning approaches will be evaluated with CETL and will inform future development

What did learners say?

JISC (2005) Innovative practice with e learning video and print based case studywww.jisc.ac.uk/elearning/innovation.html

Professional incest

• Professional hierarchy may dilute customer service• Rigid service boundaries perforate the student

journey• Multiple enquiry/help points can confuse and deter• Professionally protected skills sets limit imagination• Customer service lessons in other areas are not

heresies• Failures in cross service cooperation undermines our

raison d’etre e.g. student services

Professional promiscuity

• New service relationships needed• Library and other student facing services

– Joined up enquiries / call centre/ navigation

• Library and other learning spaces– new group learning and teaching space– creative learning zones/ learning grids

• Library and other skills sets– Changes to mindset and culture needed

My Library Room 101

• The old authorities: – any person or process who thinks non compliance = sanction– authorities that fail to recognise that people will eat drink and talk– signs that say no or use the colour red

• Turnstiles and security presence as proxy for ‘welcome’• User education based on assumptions that they need to learn

how we do things• Design of space based solely on library processes or without

understanding of learning processes • Virtual libraries and search tools which make advanced

understanding of boolean logic prerequisite to getting started• Professional incest and protected values and beliefs

‘The worst thing in the world varies from

individual to individual..

There are cases where

it is something quite trivial,

not even fatal’

Your library room 101?