Fi Emberton and John Stanley suggest some simple low-cost strategies to improve customers’ perception of your service and also put the customer at the centre of your Service transformation.
This month sees an improvement to the approach for the assessment of the ‘Charter Mark’ status presented to Services in recognition of their responsiveness to customers. The new transition is that of now putting the customer at the centre of Service development and rather than only respond to customers, rather anticipate their needs at the planning stages. Part of this work will be the mapping of various customer journeys; such as the typical route that for example a migrant worker or a bust student would take to access services either in person or remotely via the library website. In this article, we suggest the very simplest of strategies to smooth the average customer’s physical journey.
When we work with retailers or library services, we aim to increase their awareness of the value of their key spaces. A retailer will understand the income per square metre of their shop and maximise the return from every corner. Workrooms, offices and storage areas are minimised, especially in the prime retail spaces such as the ground floor and inside left-hand side of the entrance.
In addition, every web page is valuable space and must be managed accordingly. First impressions count here too. Understanding the key links to create on a page, and the optimum word count (so that key messages will not be lost) are both important.
The following can be read with all your products in mind, whether it is the physical buildings, a brochure or a digital service.
The first objective of a business serving the public is to provide a positive and friendly message to visitors. Research shows that eight weeks after a visit, the following experiences will be remembered rather than the actual services accessed. These are known as the Moments of Truth (MOT) and are:
1 ‘Street and door appeal ’
2 The transition or decompression zone
3The farewell
Street appeal
In our recent national project across Wales, 62% of customers (from a sample of 400) reported that they had noticed an improvement to the exterior of the library. This was achieved by training the library team to concentrate on those things they had control over such as managing landscaping contracts more heavily, ensuring windows are clear of clutter and that litter is dealt with. All of this costs nothing. It is all to do with staff culture and creating regular quality audits tied into individual staff performance plans. If your supervisors aren’t happy with garden maintenance or window cleaning, do not pay the contractor until you are. For landscaping, we recommend the use of compact, prickly evergreens around library walls – to discourage vandalism and to lower garden maintenance costs.
In addition the library must be easy to identify , through bold signage, banners and lighting, especially for buildings not readily distinguishable as libraries. In Leeds and other cities, classic buildings are often highlighted using coloured lighting at night, some of which moves or changes colour.
Make sure your organisation puts your library service on the front page of its website. The library web page is usually the main driver of web traffic to the corporate page in most organisations with which we have worked.
Your doors need to be stripped of all those dated stickers (Eucalyptus oil and a guitar plectrum help with any gluey residue) and replaced with a ‘welcome’ sign.
A friendly welcome
We often carry out mystery shopping in libraries and other businesses, spending several hours watching the interactions between the library team and their customers. Often we see customers trying to engage with the team members, looking over to say hello to unresponsive staff or having to talk to the top of the librarian’s head while he or she talks to the computer screen instead.
Wherever possible, we recommend that team members try to make eye contact and smile at people as they enter. Not only does this create a welcoming ambience,research has shown it significantly reduces shrinkage (the retailer’s term for theft). Do not rush up to all customers with a welcome, as this can seem overbearing to many (see our article on Hunters and Gatherers)[i] Rather, stay alert to those customers who are looking for help – keep your ‘customer radar’ on.
Transition zone
The transition zone is the area just inside the entrance and is sometimes known as the ‘decompression’[ii] zone. This area should be reserved to promote YOUR business. All too often – and as a result of our ‘amiable’ personality type in the library profession – we allow everyone else’s business to overpower ours. Library use has dropped considerably in the UK and it is essential to now reclaim this area. Good practice that will calm your customer on entry and excite them about your Service necessitates a clean, uncluttered foyer, promoting large, easily read messages and images around reading, information and community space – our core business.. People can be overwhelmed by too much information or choice at this point so it is necessary to concentrate on creating a simple ‘wow’ moment and ensure lighting, aroma and colour are appealing and contribute to this effect.
Common problems include narrow entrances, sign ‘pollution’, unappealing sightlines and cluttered notice boards. This is not the place for depressing posters about ailments or crime prevention.
Vinyl banners promoting services can be displayed either side of the door as you enter and should have spotlights (a simple clip-on spot lamp is good) to enrich the graphics and colour. Go to your local graphics design company for ideas, as you can then incorporate local images of people and places. If your organisation demands that you display corporate promotions, instead of them dominating your key zone with a boring static display, ask that they staff an interesting display further into the library on a Saturday that will create more impact and lead to greater community engagement. It’s your space.
Within this first area inside the library, or on your opening web page, make space available for promotions and make them exciting – every time. Show that you are in touch, avoiding dull and ‘worthy’ displays.
A great example comes from Lancashire Libraries where two librarians, Tracey Brennan and Alison King promoted themselves as being better than Richard & Judy’s book club selectors. They selected their books and placed them on a power pyramid in the transition zone. This personalised their service and highlighted the value of their professional services.
The final and lasting impression
We have been encouraging our clients to remove counters from libraries for many years, and this ‘Counter-counter Revolution’[iii] is now at last becoming the norm, with large desks being removed and information work being carried out at small pods where the information professional sits next to the customer, showing them the searches in order to transfer the information skills and give the customer the choice to DIY next time.
The view behind the typical counter can be improved by removing all clutter and internal ‘administrivia’. We are meant to be information professionals and yet often I see files and folders of unmanaged information behind desks, and brochures all over the library. This information should be available in a frequently asked questions area on your web page, 24/7.
Research carried out by David Lewis[iv] indicates queues are the greatest stress factor for people in public spaces.. When a queue consists of four people the average customer starts to become agitated.
Of course, RFID solves most problems with queues if you are lucky enough to have it (Our latest projects are achieving 90-94% of loans through RFID machines) . If you do not, look at any process that may be causing queues, such as unwieldy procedures for registering for membership or internet use. All of our clients now leave reservations out for the customer to pick up themselves. Joining Hull library service was delightful. I was asked for no form of ID, given a plastic card and key-ring with my barcode and provided with a Wi-fi access code straight away for my free broadband access across the city. No queues for me!
All team members should wear name badges displaying their first name.. Part of building a friendly image is giving the customer the opportunity to use an individual name if they want to (don’t waste money on badges that say ‘staff’). Research shows that customers tend to trust staff who wear name badges.
All irrelevant signs and pamphlets must be removed from the counter area and placed in proper pamphlet holders. Encourage staff to throw away excess brochures that may not be very relevant to local need. One good tip is to stop the person at HQ from sending them out in such huge numbers in the first place.
The queue zone is the ideal place for a ‘browse’ product such as events information – either in the form of posters or, even better, on screen. We have seen some good examples of this latest technology in South Australia and the UK, and some types can be tailored to show a changing range of material depending on the time of day and which groups of people are likely to be using the library.
In summary, these are the key strategies to use that can simply and easily (and at no cost) improve the customer journey and turn members into raving fans;
1. Ensure supervisors understand their responsibility to manage cleaning and landscaping contracts
2. Take a fresh look at the outside of the building and remove any clutter that is on view in windows
3. Reclaim your foyer for bold messages promoting your business
4. Remove all visual noise and clutter so that customers can see what’s on offer more easily
5. Look at your customer’s journey and remove as much as possible that delays them such as queues at check in or items they have to request at a desk.
Fi Emberton (fiona@embervision.cc) has her own consultancy company, Embervision, and is based in Brisbane Australia and now also in England. She has been working on the CyMALWelsh library innovation project, and with several academic and public library services, rolling out RFID technology for Service transformation using layout, leadership, process improvement and culture change techniques.
John Stanley is a leading retail consultant who for the past seven years has been working with library services around the world to reinvent their work using innovative retail techniques.
Thank you to Chris Tyrel, Charter Mark consultant
For more information on CILIP - the Library Association in the UK see www.cilip.org.uk
[i] www.johnstanley.cc Articles archive
[ii] Paco Underhill Why We Buy
[iii] Source unknown but widely used in the Love Libraries project from the Reading Agency, 2005-06
[iv] David Lewis and Darren Bridger. The Soul of the New Consumer. Nicholas Brealey, 2001
