17 March 2011

Excellent Customer Service

LIS prides itself on its customer service and has just increased its score from 87% to 95% in an assessment for Customer Service Excellence awarded by the Cabinet Office. The assessor measures 57 standards for customer service, based on an evidential submission, observation of practice, and interviews with students, LIS staff and colleagues from around the University. He was amazed at the difference made by the refurbishment , and said that feedback from students about both the service and the refurbishment was overwhelmingly positive. The question he was asked most often was “When is the rest of the Library going to be done?”
Posted by: Library
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18 comments:

  1. Anonymous17 March 2011 at 18:29

    seriously?Bring the stapler back

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  2. Anonymous17 March 2011 at 18:30

    Nice, filtering comments according to what you find appropriate. Is that how the assessment was done?

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  3. Library18 March 2011 at 13:15

    The assessor meets with key Library staff to review a submission on changes made since his last visit. This submission has to contain evidence of practice, not just theory or policy. He scrutinises documentation including the website for further evidence to weigh against the LIS submission. A large portion of time during his assessment visit is allocated to observation of staff practice, interviews with academic colleagues and observation of and informal discussion with students. He reports back on all comments he has received, both positive and negative.

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  4. Library18 March 2011 at 13:36

    There is currently lots of discussion amongst libraries to try and find a solution to the provision of staplers which all seem to jam and not stand up to heavy use.
    Like many other libraries, we have decided that we're not able to provide the use of a stapler but have encouraged students to set their work to staple as it is printed. Please see this blog post for more details: http://theblogworm.blogspot.com/2011/01/stapling-your-documents.html

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  5. Anonymous21 March 2011 at 12:36

    Ahhh i see this you have to check the comments so that only the positive ones can go through, that makes this whole thing rather pointless

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  6. Library21 March 2011 at 15:56

    We have to moderate comments to ensure that material that could be offensive is not published.

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  7. Elaina21 March 2011 at 19:10

    The actual library staff are very helpful indeed but I am afraid I can not say that about the staff working in the cafe of the library. Oh my gosh, I have never met staff with so much hatred towards their job. They deal with students in a very disgusting manner. Getting a snack or a drink has never been so unpleasant.
    I would highly recommend that library retrains their cafe staff and teaches them how to be polite and talk pleasantly with their customers and not talk down at them and suck their teeth at them.Students- non students must all be treated in nice manners.
    I love our new purple library, it has all the facilities I wanted and is so pleasant to work there, however, it is unfortunate that the cafeteria staff makes me want to give the library a miss if I need long ours of study, since getting a snack will always make me want to leave.
    Please do something about their attitude.
    Thanks!!

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  8. Rich22 March 2011 at 12:02

    I would have to disagree with that to be honest; the desk staff are polite enough but certain members of staff are completely incompetent at dealing with “customer” feedback. I asked a simple question regarding library policy and a member of staff was highly dismissive with regards to what I had to say and was not willing to help resolve my issue. This to me would show a certain failure with regards to customer service, as I for one am certainly not satisfied. Far from excellent

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  9. Library22 March 2011 at 12:02

    We are happy to publish critical comments, but if the commenter wishes to remain anonymous we cannot investigate them, or even determine if they have any validity. Any complaint about the service that the complainant feels has not been properly addressed may be escalated to the Director, in line with the University’s Complaints Procedure (http://www1.aston.ac.uk/registry/for-staff/regsandpolicies/complaints-procedure/). If the commenter is not willing to do this, this comment will be deleted by the end of this week as being spurious and/or vexatious.
    Customer service excellence does not mean that every customer will always be satisfied with the service they receive. In a university library we have limited resources and we have to balance the needs and wishes of some customers against those of others.

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  10. Kate Glynn, Head of Catering22 March 2011 at 14:29

    Thank you for your comments, Elaina, they are important to me in order to ensure we provide the right facilities and environment for students, after all that’s why we are here! Please could you contact me directly? A time, date or even a description of the staff member involved would be useful as I have several members of staff working over there.

    Going forward we are currently in the process of having name badges printed which will identify the member of staff.
    My contact details are; k.glynn@aston.ac.uk

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  11. Anonymous22 March 2011 at 16:36

    I'm far less interested in what a bureaucrat from the Cabinet Office has rated the library and much more interested in actual experiences and student ratings. I'd echo some of the comments above in that the 95% rating does not represent my experience, and indeed many of my colleague's experiences of the library.

    I welcome the refurbishment in terms of the new computer areas and access to PCs however alot of the books, including core texts are still massively in short supply. Would the investment not have been better spent on more resources rather than aesthetics? Additionally, even after the investment, the library has had to be closed for electrical fault, the toilets have flooded, water has leaked through the ceiling on the ground floor, the lift is still under maintenance and the printers are frequently inactive...I do not remember a time when all the printers have actually been working.

    In respect for the Staff, the help desk are generally friendly although in most cases I am referred away from the help desk to machines and even for a simple question on referencing they were unable to answer my request or provide me with advice on where to continue my search.
    The staff on the security desk however are not so helpful [last sentence modified by LIS staff member]

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  12. Samuel James22 March 2011 at 17:59

    Could the (automated) lady who screams messages to us over the tannoy please have her volume lowered.

    Working on my dissertation, i'm tired and attempting to concentrate, but the often repetitive messages are giving me a slight headache.

    Silent study floors should be for just that, not to have a screaming announcement in your ear!

    Many thanks

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  13. Anonymous23 March 2011 at 14:52

    I think the library has a fair amount of desks but the main thing they are missing are sockets! except on the first floor where there are an ample amount. When the library is finally refurbished, the same idea of having sockets on the floor needs to be adopted for floors 2 and 3! i see so many people walking around trying to find a socket and i'm suprised theres not many around the library! so many people own laptops so its only wise and common sense to implement this idea.

    Thank You

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  14. Library23 March 2011 at 16:03

    Prior to the recent refurbishment, the Library’s infrastructure remained exactly as it was at the time of construction, with the addition of some data points. It goes without saying that demands for power and data have increased enormously in recent years. We hope that when the upper floors are refurbished the budget will be sufficient to do as you suggest.

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  15. Library25 March 2011 at 16:48

    Reply to Samuel - the tannoy helps us to communicate important messages to all users of the Library. However, we do try and keep messages to a minimum. When the tannoy machine was installed we tested the volume on each floor of the Library. We will test this again to see whether the volume levels need some readjustment.

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  16. Anonymous31 March 2011 at 17:40

    Hello,

    This is a question regarding the pricing of colour printouts.
    The pricing for a single colour print is "Simplex 40p".May I ask what the pricing strategy behind that was and if the Library considers that to be a fair and reasonable price.

    Thank You

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  17. Library1 April 2011 at 12:37

    The tannoy - we have now tested volume levels on all floors and adjusted the volume. We are also ensuring that messages are kept to a minimum.

    Thank you for your input.

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  18. Stephen Colden (ISA)5 April 2011 at 09:34

    Pricing for the student printing system is set centrally and is the same cost per page across all devices around the campus. This includes some legacy printing equipment, with very much higher operating costs, which impacts on the cost per page. There are also several other costs such as the online payment system, ongoing replacement of aging equipment and to cover occasions where devices are damaged. This price is reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that it remains competitive.

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