After-lunch course with Pat Wagner: Customer service
The pandemic has created new customer service challenges for libraries. Staff and library users rely more on virtual communication, including email, text, phone, and video conferences. More people in your community, as well as your library’s employees, are feeling overwhelmed, and libraries are seen as a haven, even if limited to delivering materials curbside or digitally. In these times, great customer service is more than finding the right information or checking out materials promptly. If you want to boost library usage, earn political and financial support, influence library user behavior and reduce frontline stress, learn how to take your customer skills to the next level.
Topics include: How is library customer service different from working at a retail store; email and phone manners; what approaches work better, even with people experiencing stress from the pandemic; why good customer service can make library staff feel better, and details that count.
Pat Wagner has been a library trainer and consultant since 1978. She specializes in those skills that support the success of libraries, such as supervision, project management, marketing, strategic planning, leadership, ethics, and customer service, and is known for her good-humored and practical programs. She is a frequent visitor to Kansas libraries going back to the 1996 KLA/MPLA conference!
Attendees of the live or recorded session are encouraged to fill out the course evaluation: (Google Form)
Slides: (PDF), (PowerPoint)
Recording: (YouTube)