Student Worker Manual : Customer Service

Our basic customer service philosophy is simple:

Greet - make sure to greet the user as they approach you - you should see them before they reach the desk, and be ready to say hello and offer help.

Listen - listen carefully to what the user asks, and make sure to follow up to confirm you understand what they are looking for, or what their problem is.

Answer - answer their question! Get them their book! Basically, provide what they are looking for.

Offer - don't leave the user with just the answer to their question, make an offer! Whether this is "is there anything else we can help you with?" or "let me get your contact info - I'll pass your problem along to my supervisor and they will check in with you," make sure that the user leaves, if not happy, at least assured that we did everything we could to help.

Northeastern University is incredibly diverse - we have students and faculty from all over the world, from different ethnicities and different backgrounds. As a result, it is guaranteed that on the job you will work with or help people with/from: 

• different countries 
• different cultures 
• different genders 
• different sexualities 
• different religions 
• different political beliefs 
• different abilities 

Snell Library works hard to make sure everyone in the Northeastern community is welcome to use our services and facilities, regardless of their cultural, racial, religious background, etc. Our job is to serve our students, faculty, and staff, and their individual identifiers should make no difference in what we provide. The same goes for our student employees. 

Part of providing customer service, especially in a library setting, is remembering to respect others' cultural and personal differences. This may look like: 

• Respecting others personal space and privacy 
• Displaying neutrality regardless of a patron’s topic or request 
• Being patient with customers who need additional assistance  
• Speaking clearly and concisely and avoiding or explaining library jargon
• Recognizing unique needs that will impact how service is delivered (e.g. location, disability, status, affiliation, English skills, etc.) 
• Allowing patrons with service animals to enter the building without conflict. 
• Allowing patrons to use personal assistive devices 
• Offering writing tools (paper, pens) for patrons who may have issues with verbal communication. 
• Providing written documentation and pamphlets about library services. 

Complete this training on diversity and unconscious bias 

• Diversity and Unconscious Bias

In addition to answering questions in person at the desks, you're also responsible for answering the phone! Our customer service policy still applies on phone calls, so use the following script (or something similar) when answering the phone: "Hello, thank you for calling Snell Library, how may I help you?" 

Communicate with the patron as you work to find them an answer. Remember that they can't see you, so if you need to look something up, ask if you can place them on a brief hold while you look up the answer, confer with a supervisor, etc. You can also transfer the call to another phone line if the question is best handled by another university department like ITS.

• When the phone rings, answer it! Picking up the receiver should answer the call, but sometimes you might have to press the blue "Accept" button as well (the phones can be a bit slow at times!)
• If you need to place a call on hold to talk to a supervisor or step away from the desk, press the "Hold" button. First make sure to ask the patron if you can place them on hold!
• If you need to transfer the patron to a library staff member or another department, press the "Transfer" button. When transferring make sure the patron knows the name and number of the person you are transferring them to, so they can call back if needed! 

• Once you have put a call on hold, the screen will look like the one below. To return to the call, press "resume" and make sure to announce that you've returned by saying hello.
• After you press the transfer button, you'll see two options on the bottom of the screen - choose transfer now.  After choosing transfer now, you'll be able to choose the person you want to transfer the call to. Search by name or number using the search bar at the top of the screen. Once you choose someone here, the call will be transferred and you should be able to hang up.

Ref Analytics is the library's system for capturing data about patron interactions. We use the data entered here to make decisions about services, staffing, budgeting, and more, so entering transactions while you're at the desk is especially important!

You should fill out a ref analytics transaction whenever someone asks you a question at the desk or on the phone. Any question, EXCEPT for Alma related questions and certain AP issues, can be put into reference analytics. You can check the desk guides stored in the IDEAS Students Team files for help with what questions to document, and what topics to use.

Firstly, make sure you can log into your LibApps account. An account will be made for you by your first day of work. If you do not have an account or don't know how to log in, talk to your manager.

You can add transactions to Reference Analytics directly from LibAnswers by clicking on the Ref. Analytics dropdown and selecting "Add Transaction."

This is the Add Transaction interface. Outlined here are the data points you should include each time you enter a transaction.

1. Question: In this text box, type the question that you were asked by a patron. The most important thing is to make sure it is clear what you were asked! If someone asks for directions to the printers, you can be brief and write "printer location." If they ask something more complicated or if you're not sure what to put, it's best to just type the whole question as it was asked!
2. Answer: You DO NOT need to type out the answer to your question, UNLESS you think it was a particularly unusual question. If it's a common question, just leave this box blank!
3. Topic: Choose the topic that most closely aligns with the question you were asked. You can always check the guide for your position for examples of common questions and what topic they might go under!
4. Referred To: ONLY choose something from this menu if you refer the patron to someone else. You don't need to choose "Library Dept/Staff" if you refer the patron to the supervisor on duty or get help from a coworker. 
5. Origin: Origin will always be walk-in or phone when you're at the desk.
6. Your Location: This will be either Help & Information Desk or Access Point, depending on your position.
7. Submit & Clear: ALWAYS click "Submit & Clear" when you are done choosing all of the fields. This will clear previous selections and prevent you from getting stuck with selections where you don't want them! If you forget to use Submit & Clear, you can click the blue link at the bottom of the page that reads "Click here to unselect the above fields."