Customer Service in the Information Environment [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110956788, 9783598243622

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Customer Service in the Information Environment

Forthcoming titles in this series include: Entrepreneurial Iibrarianship: the key to effective information services management Power and influence: enhancing information services within the organization Total Quality Management in information services

Customer Service in the Information Environment

Guy St Clair

BQWKER SAUR

mm*

London · Melbourne · Munich · New Jersey

© Bowker-Saur 1993 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means (including photocopying and recording) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HH. The written permission of the copyright holder must also be obtained before any part of this publication is stored in a retrieval system of any nature. Applications for the copyright holder's permission to reproduce, transmit or store in a retrieval system any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher. Warning: The doing of any unauthorized act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data St. Clair, Guy Customer Service in the Information Environment. - (Information Services Management Series) I. Title II. Series 025.5 ISBN 1-85739-004-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data St. Clair, Guy, 1940Customer service in the information environment / Guy St. Clair. p. cm. — Onformation services management series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-85739-004-0 (acid-free paper) : $35.00 (£25.00) 1. Information services. 2. Information services industry-Customer services. I. Title. II. Series. Z674.4.S8 1993 93-34396 338.470255—dc20 CIP Published by Bowker-Saur, 60 Grosvenor Street, London WIX 9DA Tel: +44 (0)71 493 5841 Fax: +44(0)71 580 4089 Bowker-Saur is a division of REED REFERENCE PUBLISHING ISBN 1-85739-004-0 Cover design by Typesetting by Intype, London SW19 Printed on acid-free paper Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow.

The author

Guy St Clair is the president of SMR International, a management consulting, training and publishing company with offices in New York and Washington, DC. The company's clients include major chemical, pharmaceutical, and engineering firms, and information organizations connected with the federal government, medicine, the arts, and the academic community. SMR International also publishes InfoManage: The International Management Newsletter for the Information Services Executive. In London, the company is represented by TFPL Ltd, through which the services of SMR International are offered to the European market. An adjunct lecturer at Catholic University of America, in Washington, DC, Guy St Clair is also a past president of the Special Libraries Association. He is an alumnus of the University of Virginia (BA) and his graduate work was at the University of Illinois (MSLS). Guy St Clair lives in New York City and Washington, DC.

This book is dedicated to Erla Zwingle and Andrew Berner . . . and to Ann Lawes because she understands customer care in the information environment

Introduction to the series

A broader management perspective for information services For several years, decades it seems, librarians and other information services professionals have lamented the fact that there is not enough emphasis on management in their training. They learn their subjects, and librarians, especially, connect very early on in their training to the concepts of service and the organization of information. Management skills, however, are frequently neglected, or given minimal attention, and many information services professionals find themselves working in the corporate environment, research and technology organizations, government information units, or community/public administration organizations where management skills are needed. Much of what they need they get on the job; other approaches, such as continuing education programs, are utilized by those who have the initiative to recognize that they must do something to educate themselves to be managers. Some of it works and some of it doesn't. Bowker-Saur's new Information Services Management Series, for which I will serve as Series Editor, seeks to address this need in the information services community. For this series (and indeed, since the entire field of information management is strongly predicted by many to be going in this direction), the concept of information services is being defined very broadly. The time has come, it seems to me, to recognize that the various constituent units of our society concerned with information have many of the same goals, objectives and, not surprisingly, many of the same concerns. The practice of management is one of these, and for our purposes, it doesn't matter whether the reader of these books is employed as an information manager, information provider, information specialist, or indeed, as an information counselor (as these information workers were recently described by one of the leaders of business and industry). In fact, it doesn't matter whether the reader is employed in information technology, telecommunications, traditional librarianship, records management, corporate or organizational archives, the information brokerage field, publishing, consulting, or any of the myriad branches of information services (including service to the information community and the many vendors who make up that branch of the profession). These new titles on the management of information services have been chosen specifically for their value to all who

are part of this community of information workers. While much work is being done in these various disciplines, little of it concentrates on management, and that which is done generally concentrates on one or another of the specific subgroups of the field. This new series seeks to unite management concepts throughout information services, and while some of the titles will he directed toward a specific group, most will be broad-based and will attempt to address issues of concern to all information services employees. For example, one of the projected titles has to do with entrepreneurial librarianship, which would seem to be limited to the library profession, but in fact the book will offer information and guidance of use to anyone working in the information services field who is willing to incorporate entrepreneurial thinking into his or her work. Similarly, a planned title on the influence of the information unit within the organization, and how to enhance that influence, will be of use to all information services professionals, regardless of the specific core group of information work they perform. It will be pointed out, of course, that the practice of management in information services is addressed within the organizations or communities which employ information workers. This is true, and certainly in the corporate world (and, arguably, in the public and academic library communities as well), there are plenty of occasions for information services employees to participate in management training as provided in-house. There's nothing wrong with that approach, and in many organizations it works very well, but the training does not proceed from an information services point of view, thus forcing the information worker to adapt, as best he or she can, the management practices of the organization to the management practices needed for the best provision of information services. The titles to appear in the Bowker-Saur Information Services Management Series will enable the information worker to relate information management to organizational management, thus putting the information worker (especially the information executive) in a position of considerable strength in the organization or community where he or she is employed. By understanding management principles (admittedly, as frequently 'borrowed' from the general practice of management) and relating them to the way the information services unit is organized, the information services employee not only positions himself or herself for the better provision of information services, but the entire information services unit is positioned as a respectable participant in organizational or community operations. This last point perhaps needs some elaboration, for it should be made clear that the books in the series are not intended exclusively for the corporate or specialized information services field. It is our intention to provide useful management criteria for all kinds of information services, including those connected to public, academic, or other publicly supported libraries. Our basic thesis is that quality management leads to quality services, regardless of whether the information services activity is privately or publicly funded, whether it is connected with a private research institution or a public governmental agency, or indeed, whether it is a temporary information unit or whether it is part of a permanently funded and staffed operation. Writing for the series will be authors

who, I am sure, will challenge some of the usual barriers to effective management practices in this or that type of library or information services unit, and certainly there will be librarians, records managers, archivists and others who will be able to relate some of their management practices in such a way that CIOs and computer services managers will benefit from the telling. In other words, our attempt here is to clear away the usual preconceptions about management within the various branches of information services, to do away with the very concept of 'Well-that-might-work-for-you-but-it-won't-work-for-me' kind of thinking. We can no longer afford to fight turf battles about whether or not management is 'appropriate' in one or another of the various subunits of information provision. What we must do, and what the Information Services Management Series expects to do, is to bring together the best of all of us, and to share our management expertise so that we all benefit. I am honored to have been chosen as the author of the first book in this series. It is my hope that Customer Service in the Information Environment will stimulate discussion among the various segments of information services, and that the many information services practitioners who make up these branches of the profession will benefit from knowing some of my views about customer service. For this book, there are a number of people who have been especially helpful to me, and I would like to acknowledge them. Erla Zwingle and Andrew Berner, my wife and my business partner, are always encouraging and continue to support me as I undertake new challenges, and I thank them for their encouragement and support. Ann Lawes, with whom I developed many of these ideas as we organized our customer care seminars for TFPL Ltd, and Nigel Oxbrow, Managing Director of TFPL Ltd, both provide important stimulation for me in the exciting field of information services management, and I am very grateful for the good collégial relationship I have with them. Beth Duston, my strategic partner in many projects, offers on-going advice to me as I explore new ideas in the field, and I very much appreciate what she does for me. Cynthia Barrancotto in Houston and Michel Bauwens in Antwerp shared with me their enthusiasm for Tom Peters' work and put me to thinking about how much of what he says can be applied to information services management, and Corrine Campbell in Seattle shared many helpful insights about her style of management with me, and I appreciate their enthusiasm and interest. My colleagues in the Special Libraries Association have for many years encouraged much of my work, and I am grateful to them, especially for giving me the opportunity to be the editor of a special issue of Special Libraries, the organization's journal, for which I developed some of my concepts about effectiveness measurement in the information services field. Geraldine Turpie and Val Skelton at Bowker-Saur are literary colleagues par excellence, without whom I wouldn't trust myself to write a word, and I thank them sincerely for their care and good counsel. Guy St Clair Washington, DC July 15, 1993

Contents

Introduction to the Series (Guy St Clair, Series Editor)

vii

Foreword (John V Ganly)

xiii

Part I Customer service: an introduction 1 Definition and concepts 2 Why be concerned about customer service?

1 8

Part II Initial stages 3 Defining the role of the information service unit 4 Informal - and not-so-informal - intelligence gathering 5 Defining the market and selecting specific user groups

20 30 44

Part III The players 6 Nurturing the culture: management and staff together 7 Whose information is it anyway? Involving users in the process

54 65

Part IV Key tools 8 The needs analysis, user survey and the information audit 9 The marketing information system 10 Designing and implementing the customer service plan

75 92 103

Part V Benefits to the customer/user 11 Quality assurance, standards and quality services

118

12 Follow-up and analysis, evaluation and measurement

128

Selected bibliography

139

Index

142

Foreword

The years following the end of World War II saw the birth of what has come to be referred to as the information explosion and with it came an accompanying explosion in the demand for information. The combination of more information and a greater need for information has resulted in the creation of an information marketplace unheard of in earlier days. Guy St Clair, the author of this book on customer service in the information environment, has directed the work to the information services practitioner who must provide 'immediate, functional and practical' information to a wide array of varied users. It is Mr St Clair's premise that the information services practitioner must be broadly defined to include persons engaged in every aspect of information service from records management to technology-based information transfer. The connecting link in all of this information work and the basis for this book is that user needs determine the nature of the information service and that the user's knowledge of the subject area is a critical component in determining how the information services practitioner will organize the information and make it accessible in the most efficient manner possible. In defining information in terms of user needs the author make a direct and clear translation of these needs into the satisfaction of these needs through quality customer service. The concept of customer service is defined and the methods which can be utilized to particularize customer service for a specific market are set forth. The role of the manager and the staff in providing quality information service to customers is clearly defined, as is the role of the user in the information transfer process. Each step in the customer service process, as it relates to the information services arena, is analyzed and c scribed. The information services practitioner using this book can develop a customer service oriented workplace from a basic user survey starting point and follow the process through a customer service planning phase into an implementation mode and finally to a follow-up evaluation stage. There can be no doubt that the successful information services practitioners are and will continue to be those who satisfy their customer needs. Mr St Clair's

work provides a basic framework for creating an environment which will ensure success. John V Ganly Assistant Director, The Research Libraries New York Public Library, New York, NY and Adjunct Professor, School of Communication, Lnformation and Library Studies Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Chapter One

Definitions and concepts

In describing customer service in terms of libraries, archives, records management and the various other types of work that make up the field of information services as we know it today, certain definitions and concepts should be established. In fact, the first definition should be of information services itself, as this is now a field which includes a number of information providers and information-delivery organizations. In 1991 and 1992, I served as president of the Special Libraries Association, an international organization of some 15,000 information specialists and library managers. As I ended my presidency, I addressed this complicated subject, and for our purposes those remarks can be repeated here. For many years, the Special Libraries Association has been attempting to re-define itself and its membership, primarily because its members do not work in traditional libraries, although the term 'libraries' is part of its name. Some 52 percent of them are employed in the corporate sector, 17 percent in academic institutions, 13-5 percent in government libraries, etc. (SLA, p. 6). The term 'librarian' is singularly inappropriate for the work that these people do, and in my final report to the Association, I recommended that the definition of special librarianship be expanded to include a variety of the 'knowledge workers,' as Peter F. Drucker called them back in 1966 (Drucker, pp. 2-9), the executives and managers who bring their expertise to bear on information work: we must begin with our definition of special librarianship. Our Strategic Plan identifies us as information managers, information providers, information specialists, and information counselors who provide focused information to specialized clientele. And while some of us sometimes provide what are recognized as the 'usual' library services, that is, educational, recreational, or scholarly library services, our primary role is to provide information for immediate, functional, and practical purposes. We are defined by the information function. We've all agreed that we must continue to require a graduate degree in library science as the first qualification for a library management position. But we now recognize that the information services professional is just as likely to be an employee involved in records management, corporate or organizational archives, information technology, and a host of other information-related activities in his or her organization. Or that person may come from outside the traditional special library (if there is any such thing!). He or she may be a vendor, an independent information broker, a publisher, a consultant,

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or any of a number of others who do not necessarily work as special librarians but whose work provides services to the special libraries community. These people, too, are part of the information services profession, and I suggest that we broaden our definition of who we are to include them. (St Clair, p. 20)

This, then, is the audience for whom this book is written, and who in my opinion constitute the information services field. It is intentionally a broad definition, chosen to include all who work in information services and not limited by place of employment, position in the employing organization, levels of education, or even by organizational affiliation. It is a definition that recognizes, and agrees with, an earlier definition of special librarianship: While the major goals of other kinds of libraries may encompass education, recreation, aesthetic appreciation or scholarly research, the traditional major goal of special libraries has been, and continues to be, providing information for immediate and utilitarian purposes. The information function must always take priority over technical processes. The special library's users do not expect to be instructed, they expect to be informed. In every case, the common characteristic is an orientation to information and library materials which are specialized rather than generalized in character. (Strable, pp. 215-17)

Thus, in defining information services, we look not so much to the person (whether managerial, professional or staff), but to the function: information services includes all who are responsible for or participate in the delivery of information. Other definitions are required. Customer service itself, as a management concept, must be explored, and the best beginning is provided by Karl Albrecht, who with Ron Zemke wrote a seminal work on customer service in the service (as opposed to the manufacturing) economy. Service America!: Doing Business in the New Economy made a mighty impact on its publication in 1985 (Albrecht and Zemke), and in 1988 Albrecht himself published another thought-provoking volume on the subject. In the later book, Albrecht provides a useful definition, one we can translate directly into information services management: Service management is a total organizational approach that makes quality of service, as perceived by the customer, the number one driving force for the operation of the business. (Albrecht, p. 20)

Similarly, Jacqueline Dunckel and Brian Taylor have created a definition that, although prepared for the business community, works well for the information services field: Customer service, or good customer relations, can be described as expectations: •

The expectation that a product will produce the benefits promised

•

The expectation that the service will be of the standard promised

•

The expectation that, if expectations are not met, the seller will make good on the promise.

In fact, by adapting their basic conclusion, we can come up with a viable and

Definitions

and

concepts

workable definition of customer service for the information services field: Good customer relations is a continuing, mutually satisfying contract between the information services organization and the user' (adapted from Dunckel and Taylor, p. 2). Related to the Albrecht and Dunckel and Taylor approaches to customer service is a third concept which adapts perfectly for the information services manager. Leslie Harps of the Customer Service Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, gave a presentation in January, 1992, in which she outlined three key concepts: 1

Customer service must be treated as part of your marketing strategy. Good customer service and satisfied customers don't just happen. You have to work at them.

2 Your front-line people can be an incredible resource for you, if you select, train and support them properly. Do you hire front-line people for their customer relations skills, or for their data entry skills? 3 You need to determine how easy you are to do business with, from the customer's point of view. (Harps, p. 1)

With these concepts in mind, it is appropriate to proceed to the role of a customer service philosophy in the delivery of quality information services. While most of the ideas described originated in the business community, there is no reason to deny their applicability to the library or information services environment. It is commonly accepted that quality customer service is based on two requirements, a formal strategy for quality customer service, and a commitment to hiring front-line people selected, trained and supported (as Harps emphasizes) with customer-service goals in mind. These concepts enable the information services manager to examine customer services programs and to make recommendations for improved services. It is necessary, for the effective maintenance of library or information services programs, that the good will of users be maintained, and the problem can be seen as a business- or supportrelated one: The staff must treat the users as customers because, in effect, they are. Without the customers, there would be no need for the library or information services unit to exist. So the basic questions to be asked are: •

How good is your customer service?

•

How easy are you to do business with?

Although these two questions will be the underlying theme throughout this book, and will be used as the point of reference for the achievement of customer service goals, there is yet another point to be made, perhaps the most basic of all: The dedication and commitment to customer service excellence must come from senior management. We too often expect our front-line people, the folks who work the circulation desks, the enquiry telephone lines, who cover for us when we're in meetings with management, who enable us to get away to attend professional conference and courses, to work miracles, to work under conditions and with policies and procedures that we ourselves would never accept. And

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we often expect them to perform these miracles with a minimum of training, counting on a sort of osmosis to bring them up to speed in not only the delivery of information products and services, but in the practice of proper customer service techniques as well. So a first question to ask is: Would I work for me? Would I be one of my front-line people? Why is customer service so important? There are four essential motivating factors which drive us to excel in the delivery of information services and products, and the information services manager who succeeds recognizes the value of these in the work he or she does: 1

The value of the service (and the support to do what we're chartered to do for the organization which employs us, e.g. the empowerment to succeed) is determined by our users. If we cannot provide them with what they need for their success, something is wrong.

2 We want the 'repeat' business. We want to 'bring them back for more' because the more they use our information services unit for their work, the more our unit's role in the organization is enhanced. 3

We are service oriented. It is - or should be - the core of our profession. If we don't like being responsible for the provision of information services of the highest quality, perhaps we are in the wrong business.

4

It's what we're there for. The work of the information services unit supports the overall mission of the organization which provides its support. When that primary role becomes muddled or weakened, it is time for a re-evaluation of what we do.

Yet another concept which needs to be addressed has to do with when an information services unit needs to look at customer service. There are negative examples: •

Customer service is not the reference attendant who says the library does not have a particular title because she is tired of answering reference questions for this afternoon and is not about to walk across the room to fetch yet another reference book. You know the library has the book because you used it there several weeks ago.

•

Customer service is not the morning you called the information center with a quick-answer statistical query, left a message on the answering machine, and by 3:00 in the afternoon no one had called you back. You needed the data, so you went to the information center yourself, walked to the shelf, past the librarian's desk (where he was busy doing something at the terminal) and found what you needed.

•

Customer service is not the afternoon you went to the public library to ask for a recommendation for a book to take to you father for his birthday and the librarian told you to 'step aside' because it was her day

Definitions and concepts

for the car pool and she was going to have to leave the library unattended for a few minutes. Such negative examples exist (these were drawn from real-life experiences), but they are not really germane to our object here. In fact, for our purposes, it is far more productive to think positively and look at the provision of information services through the user's eyes (and in each of these quotations, the references to libraries and librarianship can be eliminated and any type of information services provision can be substituted). Michael Gorman, in an essay on the value of information technology in servicing users' needs, wrote in 1986: The library - it is also library service from the library user's point of view. Many of us too often see our library as being a discrete entity. To any library user, the question is not a building, or a collection, or an administrative structure. It is: Are the materials and services available to me, when I need them. (Gorman, pp. 325-8, emphasis added)

And Richard Ellis made much the same point in his essay on library service: The sole purpose of libraries and librarianship is to service the library users by directing them to, or supplying them with, the information and materials. (Ellis, p. 119)

The point is, information services managers, senior management, and every staff member who is involved in organization and delivery of information must buy into and enthusiastically support the concept that the service is for the users. Meg Paul, writing in The Australian Library Journal, seems to have synthesized best the requirements for quality service, especially in terms of the relationship among staff, library or information services management, and senior management in the parent organization or community. If all stakeholders in the delivery of information can agree to subscribe to what Paul calls Ά Philosophy of Service,' the information service is well on its way to succeeding in the provision of quality information to its customers. Paul's recommendations for quality service? The list follows: 1

People come first.

2

We give accurate and reliable information.

3

We are serious about our high level of service.

4

We cannot afford to give one wrong answer.

5

We are accessible and easy to approach.

6

We are doers - w e work hard.

7

We are often pleased but never satisfied.

8

We want our staff to be happy working for us.

9

Service is a state of mind. People must care and have a desire to do it right and do it now.

10

The client is always right.

11

Everyone must b e thinking about how to do his/her job better and more effectively.

5

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Enthusiasm and faith are necessary to remove barriers and increase productivity and decrease costs. (Paul, p. 65)

Michael LeBoeuf says, and we can agreeably transfer his concept to information services, that customers (enquirers) are really looking for two things: the solution to their problem, and to feel good about the interaction (LeBoeuf, p. 39)· When customer services executives accept - and convincingly enlist their staff's acceptance - in these two goals for the information services unit they manage, success in information provision is assured. As we attempt to establish some of the standards and concepts for discussing customer service in the information environment, certain data pertinent to the discussion have been reported by several research organizations. These were neatly summarized in an article published in 1991 (Kopher, pp. 3-4), and the summaries are worth repeating here: What Customers Believe: Cambridge Reports •

60 percent say having their needs met is more important than price

•

33 percent say service providers care less today about meeting their needs

What Customers Experience: Conference Board •

16 of 19 products judged satisfactory

•

2 of 19 services judged satisfactory

Customer Realities: TARP (Technical Assistance Research Programs Institute) •

If 25 out of 100 customers are dissatisfied, only one will actually complain to the business; the other 24 suffer in silence

•

The average satisfied customer tells seven people

•

The average dissatisfied customer tells 14-20 people

The message for information services managers is notably clear. The people who deliver information products and services must have an understanding of customer service, must be comfortable with the idea' of serving the users who come to them for information, and must be willing to incorporate good customer service practices into their daily interactions with users. Anything less threatens the very existence of the service they are chartered to provide.

References Albrecht, Karl. At America's Service: How Corporations Can Revolutionize the Way They Treat Their Customers. Homewood, 111.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1988.

Definitions and concepts

Albrecht, Karl and Zemke, Ron. Service America!: Doing Business in the New Economy. Homewood, 111. Business One-Irwin, 1985. Drucker, Peter F. The Effective Executive. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. Dunckel, Jacqueline and Taylor, Brian. Keeping Customers Happy: Strategies for Success. Vancouver, BC: International Self-Counsel Press Ltd, 1988. Ellis, Richard. 'Professionalism in Service.' [editorial] Canadian Library fournal, 40 (3), June, 1983. Gorman, Michael, 'Laying Siege to the Fortress Library: A Vibrant Technological Web Connecting Resources and Users Will Spell its End.' American Libraries, 17 (5), 1986, pp. 325-8. Harps, Leslie. 'Using Customer Service to Keep Subscribers.' A Presentation to the Newsletter Publishers Association, Washington, DC. January 21, 1992 (unpublished). Kopher, Susan C. 'What's Your Quality Dilemma?' Special Libraries Association Business and Finance Division Bulletin. (87) Spring, 1991. LeBoeuf, Michael. How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life. New York: Berkeley Books, 1988. Paul, Meg. 'Improving Service Provision.' The Australian Library fournal, February, 1990, p. 65. St Clair, Guy. 'Shaping Our Destiny: President's Report,' in Special Libraries Association: Annual Report 1991-1992. Washington, DC: Special Libraries Association, 1992. Special Libraries Association. Targeting Your Market: Characteristics of the SLA Membership. Washington, DC: Special Libraries Association, 1992. Strable, Edward G. 'Special Libraries: How Are They Different?' Illinois Libraries, 62, March, 1980.

7

Chapter Two

Why be concerned about customer service?

Basic to the successful management of any enterprise is a primary commitment and continual attention to customer service, and the purpose of this book is to establish workable customer service guidelines for the information services field. For many practitioners, recognized for the success of their service, the material offered here is nothing more than a codification of what they've been doing all along, which of course explains why they are successful. For others, these offerings may provide some discomfort, for the specific theme of this book is that information services are defined by the user, and the information services practitioner acts as a conduit in providing the information. Whether that practitioner operates in a managerial, professional, or delivery role (and the roles are defined by the needs of the organization or community), the underlying established principle must be that he or she is employed to provide information services which meet the needs of the defined user group. All else is rhetoric. Just how important is it for information services practitioners to commit to the principles of customer service? In a word: vital. In today's society, which is already being defined as the age of information,' the information worker who is not committed to providing information services from the customer's point of view will not survive. The competition is too great, the perceptions are too ingrained, and the cost of information is too low (and getting lower all the time) for users to be inconvenienced or delayed in their pursuit of information. Three examples will suffice: A major information organization, created some fifty years ago to provide technical information to a specifically defined user group, has recently found itself caught up in a massive reorganizational effort. New management in the parent organization, much to its dismay, discovered that the many employees in the information unit were engaged primarily in organizational functions: establishing (and re-establishing) routines, chasing paper, creating and/or recreating job descriptions, acquiring materials and electronic services based on perceived (rather then established) needs, and similar activities which kept everybody busy but didn't contribute much to the information function in the organization. In fact, marketing the services and products

Why be concerned about customer

service?

to the users was not a priority, the assumption being that 'when they need us, they come to us,' and the concept of customer service was not even considered. What happened? And why was management dismayed? It all came down to a management concern with waste, with the generation of an enormous amount of energy being used to accomplish very little, in terms of the organization's reason for being. In management meetings, when the information services unit was discussed, it was usually in terms of some senior manager's having heard about an established customer who was going elsewhere for information services. Many elsewheres, as a matter of fact, and a quick, informal and totally unempirical survey on the part of some of the management team revealed that the customers were going elsewhere just because 'elsewhere' existed. There were competitive information services available to the customers, even to some of the inhouse customers, and the inhouse information unit was making no effort to match the competition. It was too easy to use the other providers and too difficult to use the established providers within the parent organization. The managers in the information unit didn't think in terms of competing information providers, staff didn't care, and since all the employees were comfortable and secure in their jobs, thinking about information competition was not a high priority. It is now. A second example, this one about perceptions. Whether we like it or not, all information services organizations must deal with perceptions, particularly the perceptions of others who do not have our experiences and our understanding about what goes on in an information center. An important research institute, world famous for its scholarly contributions as well as for the quality of its research to business and industry, had among its assets a very fine collection of research materials and a staff devoted to providing the finest in research-level information services and products. Yet senior scientists were not using these services. Why? Because these people, many of them leaders in their own communities, thought of the institute's 'library' in the same terms they thought of public library services in their own community. They viewed all 'libraries' as sources of entertainment, popular research, primary and secondary educational resources, and the like, and although their views were patently incorrect, not only in terms of what the institute's library provided but in terms of a public library's services as well, they nevertheless represented their own perceptions of what library service is. Determined to change these perceptions, management at the institute's library bombarded the senior scientists with information about the level of services being offered at the library, but their efforts proved fruitless. These people still were not using the library. It was only when the institute (at the library manager's urgings, it should be added) changed the name of the library' to 'research information center' that things changed. To senior scientists, concerned with their role in the institute and how they are perceived by others in the same environment, their perception of a 'library' did not match their expectations of what should be available to them in a 'research information center', and to them, it was the latter which would best serve their needs. Their perception of the role of an information unit had to be brought in line with the

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reality of the situation at hand, and the only way to do that was to change the name of the information unit. Finally, an example about the low cost of information services and products, and this example comes from the traditional library environment. In an effort to provide services at no cost to its constituent users, the local public library (the main library) offers limited free searching for certain online products and, in fact, for several of these services offers the free use of CD-ROM products if the service is available in CD-ROM format. Although reporters at the local newspaper are encouraged to use the specialized news library at the newspaper offices, most of them, for their background research, go to the public library and use the products available there. The news library doesn't offer end-user searching, and in an effort to keep overhead costs down and spread the costs for operating the news library throughout the organization, mediated searches are charged back to the reporters' departments. So the reporters don't even bother; they go the public library to do their research, and they're much happier to be doing it themselves. The theme in all three examples, of course, is that the managers of the information units in each of these organizations had not sufficiently thought through the concept of information provision from the users' point of view. The customers weren't to blame because they went somewhere else. Convenience, perception and cost played major roles in their decisions about where to go for the information products and services they needed (probably without their even thinking about it) and, from their own points of view, the information services units, as structured, were not acceptable. In the first two examples, steps have been taken to incorporate the thinking of the users into the information services being offered; at the news library, it's probably too late to do anything about this particular situation, but the manager of that library, if he or she is smart, will recognize the situation and learn a lesson about customer services to apply the next time a question of service comes up. Essentially, what the examples illustrate is a phenomenon Tom Peters calls the 'inside-out' (that is, 'we' to 'them') idea of service (Peters, pp. 741-2), as opposed to the 'outside-in' (that is, 'them' to 'us'), which he advocates and which can be adopted with much success in the information services field. Peters says that the 'outside-in' version of service clashes with the typical customer service focus, what he calls 'the customer focus craze', in those organizations where some attention is being given to customer service: Customer focus still clutches the tired imagery of 'us' deigning to attend to 'them,' 'us' as active; 'they' as passive; 'us' as the sun around which 'they', the customers, revolve. In an illusory world, semantics by definition are everything - and 'outside-in', 'script-anddirection-by-customer', or 'customer-experience-created' are more appropriate phrases. 'We' are a mere derivative, the bit players in 'their' (customers) show, not the reverse!

What we want to do in information services is to re-direct our management efforts, so that the information delivered matches the needs of the users, as the users determine those needs. What it means, of course, is that we can no longer

Why be concerned about customer service?

concentrate on functions and materials; instead, we concentrate on users' needs and how we and our staff can meet those needs. For any manager of an information services unit, an early recognition that the users are customers, in the truly old-fashioned sense of the word, in that they bring their 'custom' to the unit, is an important first step on the road to success for that unit. The people who come into the information services unit (or call or fax or use e-mail or whatever method is best for them) see themselves as customers, and they expect the same customer-service values to be practiced in the information services unit that are practiced in every other sector of society with which they interact, including the for-profit sector. They expect a certain level of customer service at the bank, at the grocery store, at the dry cleaners, in hotels and restaurants and in other sales and/or service facilities, and they have led themselves, often without thinking about it, to expect the same values in an information services organization, whether it is an information unit in the workplace supplying materials and services which support the work they do, or an information services provider in the public sector, such as an academic, school or public library. It is this expectation, of a certain level of customer service, which explains why so many people, when asked in a public library if they're seeking something in particular, will respond with the classic, 'No, thank you. I'm just looking,' just as they would in a store if someone asked to help them. They see themselves in a cus tower-oriented situation, and they expect to be treated as they would be treated in that situation, which means that the employee in the information services unit, whether it is a records management department, a specialized library, or a computer services department in a larger organization, must be attuned to what the user is seeking and must be prepared to help him or her find it. So why is the subject of customer service only now coming to our attention? Why have librarians and other information services practitioners not thought about customer satisfaction before now, and why have words like 'customer' and 'client' begun to replace the library's 'user,' 'patron,' and the charmingly quaint (or so it seems now) 'reader'? The answers would seem to have to do with two changes in our society in recent years, both of which are much connected to the easy availability of information (especially with the many continuing successes in information technology) and the broad-based acceptance of information as a commodity, to be handled and treated as any other commodity is handled and treated. These two changes are the evolvement of other, more discreet methods of information management, some of which have grown out of traditional librarianship, and our society's new requirement - in this much vaunted 'information age' - for the precision of the information function. For most enquirers (except in scholarly pursuits, perhaps, or the preparation for a new theory or concept on the part of the enquirer), the route to the information is irrelevant. What they want is the specific piece of information or, at least, a referral to a source for that information. Generally speaking, today's enquirers are not interested in

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bibliographic instruction, in being educated in how to find the information. They want the information, and all else just gets in the way. Which explains, to some extent, the evolvement of other forms of information management - information services, as we generally refer to this overall umbrellalike structure - and the patterns in which these forms have sometimes evolved from traditional librarianship. For several centuries, much knowledge reposed in written form, in manuscripts and the printed book, the only organized and recognized medium for the 'storing' of knowledge. Librarianship - and the dispersal of knowledge through libraries - was based on the twin concepts of storage, as in a warehouse, and education. In some libraries, of course, the concept of the librarian as gatekeeper and moral arbiter for the knowledge 'stored' in the library - over which he or she had full control - was a third consideration, but by and large it was the storage activity, and the education function (in teaching the enquirer how to find the materials needed to answer the enquiry) which pretty much defined traditional librarianship. All that changed (in this vastly over-simplified telling of the story) when enquirers began to lose interest in doing the searching themselves and other forms of information storage and delivery began to appear on the scene. Suddenly, for many who were seeking only a particular fact or a specific point of enquiry, the barriers of traditional librarianship were too inhibiting, and new approaches - including the commercial approach - came to the management of information. Nevertheless, in terms of customer service, in meeting the needs of the user, influences from the history of librarianship continued to play a significant role in information management, and as the information services field continued to evolve and change - and grow - certain attitudes and concepts prevented librarians and other information services from exploring the full benefits of attention to customer service. Six of these can be identified:* 1

Libraries are good,' especially libraries in the public sector. But in fact any information organization with the word library' is assumed to be 'inherently good' (as one famous academic librarian is attributed perhaps apocryphally - to have said when complaining about all the emphasis on management in libraries he had to endure, as a university librarian). This attitude carries over into all kinds of information work, but especially in specialized libraries and information centers. Many librarians and information services managers still mistakenly assume that what they do is inherently good and will be recognized as such. And, significantly, many of their managers, who have fiscal control over the support of their information units, likewise fall victim to the assumption that 'library = good.'

*I am indebted to Andrew Berner for putting forth these suggestions. As we traveled to Australia in 1991 to study customer service attitudes in that country, we found ourselves intrigued with why information services practitioners, especially traditional librarians, are so resistant to the concept. These conclusions are a product of that conversation.

Why be concerned about customer

service?

2

Most libraries are thought to have no perceived competition, which leads to another mistaken assumption by many information services professionals. They believe that users, whether in the public or private sectors, will continue to see the library as the source for their information needs. Meg Paul (although writing primarily about public and not-for-profit library services) puts this idea in useful perspective: 'Often neither the level of service offered nor its relevance to efficiency has been seriously questioned or evaluated as a pre-condition for receiving funding.' (Paul, p. 64)

3

In some libraries and information services organizations, there is often a tendency to believe that users will remain 'loyal' because the service is generally free, or perceived to be free to the customer. In all segments of society, people have long recognized that there are times when 'you get what you pay for.' Free services that are not quality services are of no value. The way in which the products or services are delivered the customer service side of things - is important enough that people are quite often willing to pay for it - or even to pay 'extra' for it - which of course explains the success of those organizations that emphasize customer service.

4

In some sections of the information services profession, stereotypes and stereotypical perceptions continue to be a major concern. All professions and all fields of work - at one time or another - are forced to confront these problems, but in information services - and especially in the more traditional parts of the profession (librarianship, archives management, some types of records management, and the like) - the concern becomes almost overwhelming, frequently threatening the very growth and advancements of the profession at large. Yet, at the same time, many of the people who so expressly typify the stereotype being attached continued to be admitted to the field, resulting in great harm - in terms of public perception - to those in the profession - atypical, non-stereotypical - who are trying to move the field forward, or at least, in their own work, trying to advance their own success in innovative, creative ways. They are held back, and they, of course, see excellence in customer service as their special technique for achieving their goals.

5

Related to the concerns with stereotype, as well as to the role of the information services worker as the 'moral arbiter' regarding the dissemination of the information he or she controls, the measurement of information services is often simply not addressed. There is an almost universal perception among many information workers that the work they do and the services they provide cannot be measured. In fact, they can - and must be - measured in client satisfaction or, negatively, in what the customer does without (i.e. doesn't achieve) as a result of

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not having available the services that will provide the information he or she has determined (before approaching the information unit) is required for the successful achievement of what he or she is attempting to do. In the past, the measurement of information assets (number of enquiries received, number of volumes housed, etc.) was the criterion for establishing value in information services. Such measures are no longer good enough; today - and into the foreseeable future - information value is determined by how well the information provided enables the information seeker to succeed. 6

Finally, it is critical for those who manage information services to recognize that there are plenty of others 'out there' waiting to take over the role of the information services professional as information provider. Customer service - and the enquirer's perception of the service he or she received - will determine who gets to provide the information. As entrepreneurial thinkers come along with newer and more efficient methods for providing the same information products and services that librarians, records managers, archivists, computer services managers and similar workers provide, and if they, as entrepreneurs, incorporate excellence in customer service into the transaction, they will get the enquiries.

There is yet another possible explanation for the new interest in customer service for information practitioners, and it has to do with changing perceptions - within the field - about the role and functionality of information services in society at large. There are, from time to time, articles in the professional journals expressing considerable anxiety that the library community is becoming increasingly concerned with such things as marketing, benchmarking, downsizing and the like (for example, Gaughan, p. 914). For many within librarianship these concepts, related to management and the business community, are not seen to be good for librarianship. Why is that? Why do some information professionals fear incorporating business practices into information management? Is there some higher role that librarians are supposed to play, some higher purpose that precludes them from tarnishing themselves by using the same methods and techniques that are used in the business world? Certainly librarians are not alone in their concern. It happens in other professions as well, and physicians, for instance, have been warned not to become too 'entrepreneurial' (as some are seen to be doing). By becoming entrepreneurial,' it seems, doctors are in danger of demeaning themselves, of compromising their respected position in society. In fact, doctors have been warned that such activities could lead to their being treated as entrepreneurs' rather than as 'professionals.' The obvious implication, of course, is that entrepreneur' and 'professional' cannot coexist. They are supposedly different, at opposite ends of the social spectrum, and, supposedly, one is good and the other is bad. Phys-

Why be concerned about customer

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icians, it seems, have a 'special calling.. .. They have different and higher duties than even the most ethical businessman' (Pear, p. A26). So, at the risk of either oversimplifying or, more likely, of bringing into the open a long-simmering feud within the diverse dominions of information services, perhaps the new-found interest in customer service is nothing more than a recognition that information services is just that, nothing more and nothing less, a 'service' to a group of constituent users, who themselves determine the standards of service. At the other end of the field, of course, are those who have long carried the banners of education and the collection of knowledge into the realms of information work, and they are not, at this stage, about to 'give up' their traditional position of strength. The truth of the matter, however, is not so simple or so neatly arranged: today's various information seekers, who bring with them as many perceptions about the delivery of information as they are in number, simply go where the information is. To them, the format, the techniques, the backstage' efforts mean little; how the information is delivered is what counts, and for that, the information deliverers turn to customer service. It was Jacqueline Dunckel and Brian Taylor, writing about customer service in the business environment, who identified the most provocative checklist for information services practitioners to consider. First of all, Dunckel and Taylor suggest: As you think about why you should implement a customer relations plan, keep in mind that whether you know it or not, you already have a program in place. It may be informal or invisible, but it definitely says something about your business. You really don't have to decide whether to have a program or not. The only decision is whether your program will build and support positive customer relations or whether you'll allow customer relations to lurch along as best they can. It really is not choice. (Dunckel and Taylor, p. 8)

You, as the information services manager, and your staff may not recognize it, but the procedures you currently follow - having to do with the user's reception when he or she comes into the information unit, the attitude that comes across when the telephone is answered, the speed with which information products and services are delivered, and similar recognizable customer service attributes - define for the information unit's customer the service program in effect. So if a program exists already, isn't it more advantageous for all concerned that the program be organized, provided with a structure, and allowed to flourish? Surely the information services unit - by its very existence - has value (even if, as is sadly the case in some situations, it is only a minimal value); if, by engaging in appropriate customer service practices, the information unit can increase or enhance its value in the parent organization or community, it is worth the effort. Dunckel also identifies three demographic criteria which affect customers' expectations about customer service: 1

The general population is becoming more consumer oriented and at an earlier age than ever before in history.

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2

People are healthier and living longer; w e are consumers for longer.

3

Consumers are more sophisticated. They not only have more disposable income, but they are better educated, more informed, have higher expectations, and are aware of their rights and options in the marketplace. (Dunckel and Taylor, pp. 9-10)

There are very basic, very pragmatic reasons for looking at information services in terms of customer service. They are primarily tied to two concepts being emphasized in management these days, quality and accountability. For a long time, such intangible overhead' sorts of services as information provision were merely tolerated in our society. Certainly in the intellectual' community, where much of what makes up today's information services field was to be found, such services as libraries, archives, records management and the like were administratively tolerated because, for many, the products and services provided by these information units could not properly be quantified (or so it was thought); these services existed because they provided information that someone or some unit of the organization might need at some point in history. Likewise, in business, science and industry there was an acceptable tolerance of information service costs simply because there was nowhere else to go for the information. No manufacturer, for example, could produce his products without research information to back up the production, so the 'overhead' costs of information provision were built into the costs of doing business. Now these concepts are changing, and society at large is requiring more accountability and more measurement, so such formerly 'overhead' activities as libraries and records management departments are now being required to explain why they exist and what they contribute to the organization that supports them. By reaching out to their customers, by ensuring that they are providing the very information that the users need and, especially, by providing it faster and more accurately than any other agency or department can provide it, information services units are enabling their organizations to place a value on their services. Information services are now providing their own accountability. Similar thinking attaches to the concept of quality and its impact on the information programs attached to any organization. Not too many years ago, many industries and businesses - to say nothing of the academic or intellectual communities - dealt with quality in a sort of 'transcendental' way, as some have commented. There were no serious or professional measures applied, and quality was just assumed to be sort of built in.' Alas, those who thought that way began to come to grief in the late 1970s and '80s, and as the quality movement gained ground in the business community, it began to be attached to some of the service providers as well. Information services have generally lagged behind in quality management (with the exception of specialized libraries and information centers, which, attached to business and research institutions in the for-profit sector, obviously had to apply the same standards to their products and services as were applied in all other areas of the organizations which supported them), but this, too, is changing as academic institutions and other nonprofit organizations realize the value of quality programs in their work.

Why be concerned about customer service?

Connected to the application of quality programs is the burgeoning intolerance of error in much of what we do. In the library community especially, the last decade produced a long list of studies describing reference interactions in public, academic and school libraries in which the questions asked were answered with incorrect or inaccurate responses, or simply went unanswered. For a while there seemed to be no end of conversation among librarians about the dangers of giving out misinformation, and information malpractice' became a major concern. Certainly the many discussions were responsible for a raised awareness among professional librarians in this matter, and brought about new interest in the value of positive customer relations in the information interaction. In addition to this connection with quality and accountability, high standards of customer service bring very real benefits to the specialized library or other information services organization. In the first place, word about quality service gets out, and the information unit is used by more people. For some information services employees, increased usage is, alas, a thing to be avoided. For these people ('I've got enough to do'), any attempt to enhance services is a threat to the safe sinecures they have constructed for themselves, for they see themselves as the gatekeepers, the storers of information products and services which are disseminated as needed. But their attitude is fast becoming a thing of the past, for as companies, institutions and communities require greater accountability from all their constituent parts, including information services, the idea of an information 'warehouse' is unsupportable, and the attitudes of all employees, even those who have constructed those safe havens for themselves, must change to reflect the demands of the organization as a whole. No organization in this day and age can afford to stock an information 'warehouse.' It is in the usage and the growth of that usage - that the information unit's value will be assessed. High standards of customer service create higher visibility for the information services unit, and it is this enhanced visibility that will lead to better positioning within the parent organization. The better the services which emanate from the unit, the better the unit and its services will be perceived. As managers of various departments come to recognize how good the information unit can be in providing the products and services they use for their work, they will encourage others to avail themselves of the information services unit and word will spread throughout the organization. A third product of incorporating (and implementing) high standards of customer service into information services has to do with the conduct of those who are successfully served by the unit. It goes without saying that satisfied users come back for more services, and as these numbers grow, a group of them - satisfied customers who are also committed to success for the information unit itself - evolves into an unofficial support group for the information unit. They become, without knowing it, advocates, or political sponsors, for the information services unit. As questions of viability, expertise and/or authority of the specialized library or information services unit come up, these people are

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available and ready and willing (often without being asked) to emphasize the value of the information unit to the organization or community. All three results - increased usage, higher visibility, and additional advocates - combine to bring about increased support for the information services unit. As senior management is required - as it is - to review programs and services whose value to the organization has been reduced, or whose effectiveness has been diminished, the departments which survive are the ones which document growth, or are perceived by important people to be of value to the organization. High standards of customer service go right to the heart of these issues and the customers themselves - the users of the information services unit - are the arbiters of success for the unit within the organization. Yet the impetus for addressing customer service issues will fall on the executives and managers of the information unit, for no one else will pick up on the need. Most companies, organizations and communities which have an information services agency as part of their constituent operational arrangement do not have customer service specialists on staff. If they do, these people are usually utilized in selling or explaining the company's product or service to the public. It is very unusual for attention to be given to marketing the service to the organization's internal customers, yet these are frequently the very people who need to know what is available to them, and, particularly, the level of the service which is available. One example which comes to mind has to do with medical librarianship, for many hospitals offer consumer health information, often through the hospital library, but few hospital librarians are trained in customer service, either for the external consumers or for the internal staff who must use the hospital research library, so the effectiveness of the service regardless of its targeted audience - is not established. Similarly, many a manufacturing plant has a separate marketing library for sales, management, and the like - in order to provide staff with the information they need for marketing the products made at the plant - and these employees are expected to know how to use the materials in the marketing library and are shown how to use them if they don't know. But the research library in the same plant will probably have nothing in the way of training or informational services for its users, who are expected to know of its existence and to come to the library when they think of it. There is no customer service effort, and the research library merely exists as a reactive repository of information for those who need it and know about it. In both these scenarios, the value of the library would be considerably enhanced if the managers responsible for information services were more attuned to their users' needs and could, in fact, promote information services and products in a proactive manner, predicting information use before - or certainly as - it is needed. When this happens, the role of the library in the organization is enhanced, and those responsible for its support are made aware of its value to the organization as a whole.

Why be concerned about customer service?

References Dunckel, Jacqueline and Taylor, Brian. Keeping Customers Happy: Strategies for Success. Vancouver, BC: International Self-Counsel Press Ltd, 1988. Gaughan, Thomas. The best of times, the worst of times'. American Libraries. 22 (10), November, 1991. Paul, Meg. 'Improving Service Provision.' The Australian Library Journal. January, 1990, pp. 64-9. Pear, Robert M. 'AMA Acts to Curb Profits for Referrals.' New York Times. December 12, 1992, p. A26. Peters, Tom. Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond Nineties. New York: Knopf, 1992.

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Chapter Three

Defining the role of the information service unit

Why does the information services unit exist in the parent organization? Is it because the hospital has 'always' had a patient records section, the community a library, the chemical firm a research information center? Is it because legal requirements oblige the organization to retain certain documents, plans, and administrative records? Or is it because senior management - at some point in the organization's history - addressed the combined issues of waste and lost staff time when it was discovered that each unit in the organization was trying, usually unsuccessfully, to keep track of its own journal subscriptions, research materials, office materials and, even in some cases, financial records which duplicated those kept in the accounting department, just in case' they were needed at some point in time? Whatever the genesis of the information services unit, it came about because information was needed - at a variety of levels - to support the overall mission of the parent organization or community. The first step, then, in defining the role of the information services unit in the organization is to establish - clearly, concisely and in language understandable to all employees, the mission of the organization. In some situations (a hospital, for example, or a county art museum), the organizational mission is clearly stated, but the language is often chosen for its inspirational and rather highfalutin cast ('for the betterment of mankind,' for example), so the employees, while pleased and gratified to be part of such a mission, are hardly 'inspired' in their day-to-day work. At the other extreme, there are manufacturing firms with no publicly stated mission; they exist to research, design, create and market whatever their product is. While they may wrap their public statements in high-sounding phrases, their mission is to make a profit from their efforts, and their employees know it. Again, in their day-to-day work, the employees of the manufacturer are hardly 'inspired' by the 'mission' of the firm. Their inspiration is delivered with their paychecks, and they like it that way. Thus we have at the two extremes of the 'mission' spectrum, and at all levels in between, organizations which exist for a purpose, sometimes specified, sometimes not, and it is the role of the information services manager to relate the work his or her unit does to the overall organizational mission. When that mission has been directly stated (even if the language does border on the

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inspirational rather than the pragmatic), the information services manager and his or her staff have an easier time of it. When the mission is unstated and simply 'understood' as part of the corporate culture, the task requires additional steps so that the manager responsible for information services can discern or create an organizational mission to relate to.

The concept of a mission There is an accepted body of understanding about the concept of a mission. In any organization or enterprise, as managers attempt to identify the various roles an information services unit might play in an organization or community, it is helpful to look at what a mission statement can do. Glenn H. Tecker, training association executives in 1991, proposed four reasons why understanding and codifying the mission of an organization can have value (Tecker, p. 137), and these concepts can be adapted successfully for both the information services unit of an organization and the organization itself. In the first place, any organization or enterprise exists for some reason. By codifying the mission in a statement, management (and staff and, even, customers, depending on the type of organization being described) can specify those fundamental reasons and incorporate them into planning and implementation programs. Thus a research institute might offer as its mission the study of agricultural needs in developing countries,' and all activities in the organization will be directed toward the successful fulfillment of that mission. A scientific or technical review organization might see its mission as the determination of the best use of technology' for whatever product or service it is responsible for, and all employees work toward the achievement of that established mission. A second function of a formalized mission statement has to do with the scope of the work or the organization or enterprise, in many cases literally establishing a limit on the activity. For example, the visual resources department of a state board of education will describe itself as providing visual resources for the educational institutions of the state, and the reference to the mira-state limitation clearly establishes the scope of the enterprise. Likewise, a computer services firm, in order to strengthen its market niche, might limit its services to one or another specific environment or operating system, instead of trying to provide services to all computer products, an activity which would probably result in a variety of customer service problems. An appropriate mission statement serves a third function: it provides general direction for the organization or enterprise. Ideally, the mission statement lays out for all participants an outline or structure for the implementation of these activities, a structure that results in the happy achievement of the mission. An advertising agency, for example, clearly states that its mission is to provide the creative expertise its clients need to market their products and services. Implicit in that statement, of course, is a commitment - by all staff of the agency - to excel in their efforts, to provide advertising products that are superior to those

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that might be offered by other agencies. At the opposite extreme, the mission of a military organization is defense; its 'mission statement,' should one exist, would clearly be along the lines of using whatever means are necessary for achieving its mission. The direction for the enterprise is built into its mission. Finally, an openly stated mission serves the organization by providing the basics for the development of specific objectives as well as operational plans. Drucker, too, advocates the operational mission statement, 'Otherwise,' he argues, 'it's just good intentions' (Drucker, p. 4). As managers tackle their shortterm programs, developed from long-range plans which have themselves evolved from the organizational mission statement, the work of the enterprise falls into a defined and discernable pattern. The mission of a law firm is of course going to drive the volume and types of cases it takes on, and at the same time that mission, if clearly stated, enables the managing partners of the firm to organize the work of the firm's employees so that its objectives are met. Similarly, in a medical clinic or physicians' consortium, when the long-range plans and the firm's strategic plan, both of which grew out of the organizational mission, are arranged to direct the short-term work, the managers of the firm are able to realize clearly profitable results and the efforts of the enterprise are deemed successful. The problem with the concept of the mission as described here is that it pays little attention to the role of the customer or the user of the services, and before the concepts can be applied to the information services unit in the organization or community, the needs of the customer must be determined and included in the mission statement. For many information services practitioners, the link between their mission in the information services unit and the mission of the organization is clear. For these people, stating the mission of the information services unit requires nothing more than noting how the information their unit manages relates to the achievement of the organizational mission. On the other hand, in those enterprises or communities where the mission is not so clearly spelled out, or where the language of the organizational mission statement does not necessarily relate to the reality of the operation, the information services executive must either convince senior management to re-work the organizational mission statement, which is unlikely (and, to be frank about it, probably not very wise, as the task would be a generally thankless one and would probably result in hard feelings all around) or, using his or her best imaginative skills, 'rework' the organizational statement to fit the mission - as defined by the information unit's managerial staff - of the information services unit. It is at this point that the information services manager brings the information user, the customer, into the picture, and all components of the mission statement for the information services unit will include specific attention to customer needs. Again, it is Drucker who provides appropriate guidelines for information services managers who are wrestling with the concepts of mission for their units within the parent organizations. Drucker requires three 'musts' (as he calls them) for a successful mission: opportunities, competence and commitment (Drucker, pp. 7-8). Opportunities for successful information provision exist; it

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service

unit

is up to the manager of the information services unit to look at what Drucker calls 'strength and performance,' what they already do well in the information unit, and build on that structure for enhancing information services. If the organizational archives, for example, are the responsibility of the information specialist staff in the architectural/engineering firm, the wise manager of the information unit will not characterize archives management as an additional 'duty' added on, but will incorporate archives management, including the swiftest and most proactive information delivery, into the list of services that the unit does and does exceptionally well. The value of the archives to the engineers and architects who use them in their work and for whom they must be retrieved is clearly understood by the management and staff of the information unit, and plays an important role in driving the planning and work of the unit. The competence comes from within the unit, and it will be built into the mission. Staff members of the information unit, chosen for information expertise as well as for a commitment to an excellence of service that they have no qualms about providing, routinely expect to provide the highest levels of information services, and they are extremely frustrated when they are prevented from doing so. In information management today, for a variety of reasons, quality standards are required, and when staff recognize and enthusiastically embrace the highest standards of service, so that their users will obtain the information they need, when they need it, new standards are established, standards which go far in defining the value of the service to the organization which provides its support. The third component of a successful mission, the personal commitment, must be encouraged and kept in place by management, for it really doesn't exist on paper or in any formalized way. Nevertheless, for any organization or enterprise to succeed in its mission, the people who are to do the work, the staff as well as the managers of the unit, must believe in the work they do. They must be committed to the role of the information function within the organization, and they must recognize, without pulling back, that their interactions with the customers who come to them and the provision of information for those customers contribute to whatever it is the organization has set out to achieve. Thus, in defining the mission of the information services unit, whether it be a library, a records management department, organizational archives, a research information center or any of the various other manifestations of information services as we define them today, the concept of the mission is broadened, and looks something like this: customer (user) needs drive the information services unit, and the mission statement of the unit, which states the reason for the unit's existence, the scope of the unit's activities, direction for the unit, and serves as a basis for the unit's objectives and plans, leads to the support of the mission of the parent organization, the enterprise, or the community. To illustrate, some of the examples used to describe organizational missions earlier might be related to the information services units of the same organizations, and the needs of the users are, of course, established as part of the process. The research institute, for example, will have an information services

23

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Customer Service in tbe Information

Environment

unit for 'the support of researchers and scholars hired by the institute to study agricultural needs in developing countries.' The statement thus refers to why the information services unit exists, the scope of the services provided is stated (e.g. limited to specifically designated users), the management direction for the unit is provided (although not explicitly stated, of course), and the statement serves to guide management of the unit in the pursuit of short-term objectives and long-range plans. The mission statement of the information services unit of the physicians' consortium will likewise include a statement about customer needs, with customers being defined as those whose informational requirements are to be serviced by the unit. In this case, although most of the informational needs will be internal (research, patient records, etc.), if the clinic offers consumer health care information products (brochures, article reprints, and the like) for patients, the information services unit will include those requirements in its statement as well. Once the mission statement for the information unit has been devised, and the connection between that mission statement and the mission of the parent organization or community established, it is possible to move to a consideration of the role of the information services unit within the organization or community. The information function will, of course, depend on what the information is used for, who the primary users are, and the value of that information to the successful achievement of the organizational or community mission.

The mission: establishing agreement It is critical that senior management in the organization or community and information managers agree on the role of the information services unit, but before negotiations begin, certain questions must be asked. These were first brought to the attention of the information services profession in 1984, when Herbert S. White challenged library managers to determine, from their managers, what the information needs of the organization are to be. The questions continue to be valid, as the managers of information services units within organizations struggle to align their departmental missions with the missions of the organizations of which they are a part. White's questions for senior management? Here is the list: What do you do at present and what do you hope to do five and ten years from now? What products do you presently manufacture and what concerns do you have about your continuing share of the marketplace? Without divulging sensitive information, in what areas of research are you particularly interested? What sort of information problems are you having? What sort of frustrations and time delays are you encountering?

Defining the role of the information service unit

Is your organization growing - in number of people, in number of locations, in diversity of products and services? What is being done now when information is needed, because even in the absence of library service something happens? (White, p. 26)

These are not easy questions for organizational executives to answer, but by presenting them, the information services manager is offering senior management an opportunity to be part of the process of determining the mission of the information unit. Ellis Mount, on the other hand, directs the question of mission to the users, for the users will bring to senior management their satisfactions (or lack thereof) about information services: 'If experienced professionals had to pick the major factor governing the success and stability of these units, they would probably name the level of service given to clients. Successful [information services] managers who make sure that the service their units provide stays at a high level usually retain the support of top management, even in times of tight budgets' (Mount, p. 36). Nevertheless, according to Mount, part of the process is adopting 'clearly stated long-range goals directly related to those of the sponsoring organization,' and in determining its mission, a statement of goals will be drawn up by information services staff and circulated, for comment, to selected representatives of the unit's user groups (Mount, p. 37). Such data gathering, regardless of whether it originates with senior management or ends there, is of course basic in determining the organization's position as far as the information services unit is concerned. A variety of responses will be put forward, and it is the information manager's responsibility to organize the responses, determine what is or is not viable for the organization, and provide direction for the organization in the establishment (or reorganization) of information services. The role of the information service unit will ultimately be determined by the information needs of the organization. In some companies and institutions, 'library'-type information services, the storing of books and periodicals, the answering of questions, online database searching for specific citations, and similar activities will take place in one unit, often called a 'library' or 'information center'. In other organizations, records management and/or corporate or organizational archives will be combined with such library services, often connected in some way with information technology and the departments with IT responsibility. The positioning of the service, and its organizational composition, will be decided by management based on a number of factors, including such things as the requirements for connecting records management and/or library services, the different constituencies for external and internal information, the number of users accessing each type of information, the physical layout of the organization in which these materials and information products are stored and accessed, the commitment to end-user accessing of information, and similar considerations. In some organizations, the library function will be kept separate from other information functions, and the corporate information center, brought into exist-

25

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Customer Service in the Information Environment

enee as a way of keeping up with massive amounts of data without involving mediation via the library or other departments, will flourish. Sometimes these corporate information centers (not to be confused with special libraries which are called 'information centers' but which, in fact, provide research-type services) will be positioned to work in tandem with the organizational library, archives or records management functions, but they are discrete information units. Their mission, according to an early American Management Association report, includes four objectives which are less connected with the provision of research information. These information centers exist: •

to train and support people in the use of information technology;

•

to allow access to corporate data while maintaining necessary security;

•

to standardize end-user technology and ensure company-wide compatibility;

•

to mediate relations between the MIS/DP function and other departments. (ΑΜΑ, pp. 13-14)

Thus we have a pattern of information-providing units or departments within the organization which are often separated more by their products and services and their technology than by anything else. They are, however, coming closer together in many organizations, and there are predictions that, in the near future, these separate components will be operating more alike, primarily due, it would seem, to the realignment of duties and professional skills brought to the workplace by those who are involved in information delivery.

The role of the information services professional Information services, as a discrete support function within the organizational framework, has entered into a new era of management recognition, and as senior management has acknowledged the role of the information function in the success (or failure) of the organization, the people managing the function have emerged as the true heroes (or villains) of the day. It has long been accepted in library circles that special librarians, the renegades of the information services field, were capable of being 'more' than librarians, and now this same thinking is infiltrating other fields of library and information management. Special librarians, seeing themselves first as employees of the sponsoring organization and only secondly as librarians (e.g., as members of a specific branch of the educational, professional establishment), long ago put away their 'professional' allegiances to bring to the organizations that employed them a different way of looking at information requests. In fact, during the last decade or so, many people trained as librarians and working in special librarianship found themselves bringing far different skills to their organizations and thus, to no one's surprise, re-wrote some of the rules characterizing library' management in the specialized library

Defining the role of the information

service

unit

community. As a result, many senior managers who employed these people discovered remarkably useful roles for them within their organizations, and an entire generation of information services people, trained as librarians, now find themselves working as information specialists, as information counselors or information coordinators, as, in fact, in-house information consultants for the organizations which employ them. Such dramatic changes in information services have not gone unnoticed, and as early as 1982, L. J. Anthony was writing for Aslib that while the basic tasks of information management (which he identified as selection, organization, analysis, evaluation and communication) were still required for the effective management of an information services unit, the 'most important' is communication: 'The provision and management of effective systems for communicating information within an organization is a task which falls squarely within the information manager's responsibility since it is an integral part of the information function' (Anthony, p. 5). In mastering these communications skills and integrating them into the provision of information for the organization (regardless of the type of information), today's information services professional plays a much broader and more influential role than many ever expected. Management, on the other hand, has no such qualms and delights in finding the best people to provide the best services, regardless of the kinds of services, to meet the needs of the organization. Thus we find special librarians taking on a variety of different functions relating to information services, whether they be in organizational archives, information technology, records management, or a host of other areas where specialized librarians have shown themselves to be remarkably resourceful and innovative in meeting the information needs of the organization. In fact, there are responsibilities where equally innovative employees have found themselves moved into the library/research function, as Veronica Davies described: As the records/information manager becomes ever more closely involved with the provision of current information, so his or her role becomes more akin to that of the information scientist/librarian. By the same token, the old link with the archivist becomes increasingly tenuous. The archivist was historically concerned with the management of dead records, the records manager with semi-active ones, which were usually internally generated. Now, however, in the wider role of information manager, the records manager is providing current information from internal and external sources. (Davies, p. 136)

As a part of this almost natural evolution within organizations, the adoption of a sort of best people' and best practices' rule, regardless of what the employee is called (or what he or she was originally hired to do), we find many information services employees embracing a new role as information consultant or information coordinator. It would seem to be a natural fit, for there are going to be more and more demands within organizations for such information advisors. In 1988, when asked to talk about information needs in the future, Joseph A. Rosenthal predicted librarians would find themselves going in this direction:

27

Customer Service in the Information

Environment

. . . librarians will advise scholars, particularly people who are doing advanced research, on what the best sources of information are, what the best formats are, what the most economical means are, for the scholar's purpose. Librarians will become more like special librarians. They will deal more in information and less in simply saying, 'Here's the bibliographic apparatus; it's up to you to find out which things you want.' In certain situations, they may come to function more as part of a research team . . . There will be different protocols for accessing d a t a . . . librarians will be kept busy trying to translate those protocols into simpler language for the researcher and trying to train people to use, to access, these different spheres of information. The better librarians are at doing this, the more their services are going to be in demand. So to the extent that we and our successors are good, we will be building demand for our services. (Riggs and Sabine, p. 7) The d e m a n d is there, and as more and m o r e organizations recognize the value of information services - high quality information services - in their s u c c e s s in achieving the corporate or organizational mission, the role of the information services professional b e c o m e s more structured, m o r e responsible, and, yes, managerial. T h e best description of what these p e o p l e d o w a s provided by L. J. Anthony, w h o writing in 1982 might have b e e n a c c u s e d of wishful thinking. T h e d e c a d e since has validated Anthony's claims and, if anything, today's information services professional, especially those w h o have managerial authority for information services within the organization (regardless of the type of organization), must look even b e y o n d what Anthony w a s requiring in 1982. At that time, Anthony wrote, the present tendency w a s for the information function to become more closely integrated with the total objectives of the organization which it serves and to do this the information manager and [the information] staff will need to: 1

study continuously and monitor the current and long-term objectives of the organization;

2

study the communication pattern of the organization and identify the prime movers, the technological gatekeepers and organizational entrepreneurs who act as catalysts in the innovation process;

3

provide information sub-systems to meet particular and often temporary needs, e.g. the attachment of information specialists to study groups and decision-making teams;

4

be capable of tapping a wide range of external information sources and ensure that information provided is as accurate and reliable as possible;

5

adapt information by repackaging and reformatting to the various functional needs of the different levels of users;

6

provide a corporate memory;

7

monitor the performance of the information function itself to ensure that it is constantly in tune with the objectives and needs of the organization;

and be willing to seize opportunities to become involved in any aspect of the organization's activity which might benefit from the specialized knowledge and experience which [the information manager and the information staff] possess. (Anthony, pp. 5-6)

Defining the role of the information service unit

For the organization seeking a structure for information services within the organizational context, full and frank discussions between senior management and information services management will produce useful parameters for service. And with attention to the role of the information services staff, especially in terms of the guidelines proposed by L. J. Anthony and adapted to the needs of the particular organization, excellence in information services can be established.

References American Management Association. The 1986 AMA Report on Centers. New York: AMA, 1986. Anthony, L. J. 'Information Management.' Handbook of Special and Information Work. London: Aslib, 1982.

Information Librarianship

Davies, Veronica. 'Records Management or Information Management?' Management Skills for the Information Manager, edited by Ann Lawes. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 1993. Drucker, Peter H. Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Principles and Practices. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Mount, Ellis. Special Libraries and Information Special Libraries Association, 1991.

Centers. Washington, DC:

Riggs, Donald E. and Sabine, Gordon A. Libraries in the '90s: What the Leaders Expect. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1988. Tecker, Glenn H. Symposium for Chief Elected Officers and Chief Staff Executives. Washington, DC: American Society of Association Executives, 1991. White, Herbert S. Managing the Special Library. White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1984.

29

Chapter Four

Informal — and not-so-informal — intelligence gathering

In information services management, the successful customer service program requires an understanding of two things about the people who use the services. Obviously, since the unit exists to provide information services and products to a defined user group within the organization or community, information services management and staff need to know what types of services and products to provide, what the users need to know. The information audit provides that. Just as important, however, is an understanding of customer perceptions and attitudes about information services in the organization, and in fact about information services in general. In order to obtain this information, management uses techniques, both formal and informal, designed to tell it what it needs to know about its users. Karl Albrecht calls this activity 'customer perception research,' which has as its objectives 'to identify the characteristics of the service product that are most critical to its acceptance by the customer and to isolate characteristics that can form the basis for successful differentiation of your service product from others in the market' (Albrecht, p. l 6 l ) . In information services terms, customer perception research enables management and staff in the information services unit to identify exactly which characteristics of the information make it acceptable to the customer and which characteristics of the information bring the customer to the specific information services unit, rather than going elsewhere for the information. Other authorities, too, have studied customer attitudes and perceptions, and much of what they have learned can be applied in the information services field. For Michael LeBoeuf, for example, although he writes about customer service in general, his primary focus is on the business community. Nevertheless, much of what he say applies in information services. LeBoeuf believes that It's not the quality of service that you give but the quality of service the customer perceives that causes him to buy and come back' (LeBoeuf, p. 52). Of course this is true in information services as well; perceptions make all the difference, and when users come to an information service, whether it is a specialized library, a records management department, or a computer services unit or EDP department, how that person's expectations are met will determine whether or not he or she will judge the information interaction positively or negatively.

Informal - and not-so-informal

- intelligence

gathering

LeBoeuf makes a very important point for information services managers when he offers: 'Perceived service quality is the difference between what they get and what they expect.' How does an information services unit prepare to meet user expectations and comply with - or at least try to change - users' perceptions? There are a variety of methods, some more formal than others, and all can yield useful results, information that can be organized and incorporated into the information unit's customer service program. For our purposes, an information services manager can begin by adapting a basic management technique. We've all heard of MBWA, 'management by walking around.' Certainly one of the most effective customer service techniques is direct contact. By going out into the organization, the information services manager and his or her staff have an unparalleled opportunity to elicit from users (and non-users, of course) what they think about information services. Perhaps the best prompting in that direction came from Shirley Echelman, whose comments about the responsibilities of the special librarian have been quoted often, and continue to hold true nearly twenty years after she identified them. In an article that received much attention at the time, Echelman admonished information services professionals to see their work as a business, that is, to perform the duties and manage the operation in a businesslike manner (but not, obviously, to attempt to run the information services unit as if it were expected to make a profit). She listed two responsibilities for the information services manager, in this case the director of a specialized library or information center in the corporate environment: The primary responsibility of the corporate chief librarian is to establish and maintain liaison with other department and division managers, to ascertain needs and evaluate trends, and to direct the work of the library so that it meets current needs and is prepared for changes in direction before they occur. The second responsibility of the chief librarian is to manage the operations of the library . . . (Echelman, p. 410)

Certainly what Echelman was advocating in the mid-1970s is even more appropriate today. The effective information services manager, in order to understand the organization, must know the people and of course must know their information needs. Just as important, however, is an understanding of the organizational culture. The information manager and his or her staff need to understand the other people who work with them, need to know them personally, and, especially in terms of providing them with the services they need, must identify how they feel about information services and what their expectations and perceptions of information services are. Examples abound. One of the best has to do with the movement of the information services staff in the organization. Certainly large organizations have internal mail systems through which information-related mail is routed with some regularity, and many smaller firms have adopted such routine routing systems as well. Information requests, however, are frequently time-bound, and

31

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Customer Service in the Information Environment

many employees in library and information services are frequently frustrated when they must send a document or a list of citations through the internal mail system. Hie solution, when time permits (and, of course, depending on the distances involved), is for the information services employee to take the material directly to the requester, giving them both an opportunity to experience an interaction about the information transaction. What does the information services employee learn? Just from the physical logistics of getting to the person, certain information can be inferred. If the person requesting the information is 'protected' by an executive secretary or administrative assistant, one can instantly deduce that when information is requested, only the information is expected. When the response is to be filtered through an intermediary, the information services staff can expect minimal interest in the 'approach' to the information or the manner in which it is obtained. For this user, the specific piece of information, without elaboration, is what is wanted, and the information services practitioner needs to know that. On the other hand, bringing information directly to information customers who are more approachable can have direct benefits both for the customer and the provider. The results can be both tangible or more fleeting. While a certain amount of attention is given nowadays to the role of the information services professional as an information coordinator or information counselor, that attention is based on some very real changes in information services delivery. It is not uncommon for an information user within an organization to seek out a staff member from the information services unit simply to 'talk over' an information interest. The user is not necessarily seeking a specific piece of information or a specific document or other information product but, in fact, merely wants to explore an idea with someone who understands the information process. For these people, a visit from an information services practitioner can be very welcome, for the user might be reluctant to get involved in such a theoretical or intellectual discussion in the information unit itself, where a busy staff might be working to answer the needs of a demanding clientele, but in the privacy of the other employee's laboratory, workroom or office, it is possible that the conversation will yield fruitful guidance for the user. And, at the same time, provide the information services employee with valuable insight about this particular user and his or her information needs. Those are the more ephemeral opportunities, and in all organizations which support an information establishment, such serendipitous interactions are of course beneficial for all concerned. However, such interactions can have specific, tangible benefits as well, and these should be recognized. In an engineering firm, say, a visit from someone in the corporate library to discuss routine information matters with one of the senior engineers can result in a better understanding of what the engineer and his people need. A recent case involved a group of engineers who were, reluctantly, about to invest a sizeable portion of the department's research funds into a particular information product. The engineers felt they needed the product as a regular and dependable source of information, and from what they could glean from vendors and colleagues at

Informal

- and not-so-informal

- intelligence gathering

professional meetings, the tool, while expensive, would be well worth the investment in the information it could provide for them. It had not occurred to the engineers to discuss the matter with the manager of the corporate information section. When the senior engineer was informed not only that the investment could more properly be made from corporate, not departmental, funds but that the product could be networked so that it could be utilized throughout the firm, he was, of course, delighted with the prospect of having the information available without having to pay for it with his department's funds. He was doubly delighted when he learned that the corporate library would be handling the logistics of acquiring the product, such things as negotiating the contract with the vendor, dealing with the service agreement and the like. Needless to say, the attitude between this engineering department and the information services unit, in this case the corporate information section, was greatly enhanced through this specific interaction. The engineer's perceptions about information services, and of course now his expectations, changed drastically. There are other advantages to going to the user's workplace. Regardless of the work done there, whether the organization is a research facility, an accounting firm, a photographic archive or some other production or service facility, by visiting the user in his or her office the employee from the information services unit is able to observe work patterns, what the workplace (laboratory, office, storage facility, etc.) is like, and how the information that comes to that user is incorporated into the achievement of the employee's work goals. After such visits, the information services professional not only has a mental picture of the user and the work environment for that employee, but is able to connect that image with the kinds of information available through the information services unit he or she is part of. Yet another example relates to the expanding role of information services personnel within the organization. It is not unusual for the information services manager, or one of the information staff, to be asked to serve on a committee, task force or study group having to do with some organizational matter, the development of an on-site child care facility, say, or an investigation of additional or replacement insurance coverage. Similarly, many organizations create specific project teams, and part of the standard plan of work in the organization is to enable interested and qualified employees to participate in some activity that will benefit or be of some specific value to the organization. A research department in a chemical firm, for example, may be interested in determining whether or not to go into a particular line of research, and a project team will be put together to determine the feasibility of the effort. The members of the team will be drawn from various departments and units of the organization, with the expectation that the various points of view will lead to a recommendation that will be in the best interests of all concerned. Many information services practitioners, for varying reasons, shy away from such activities, usually because they view them as getting in the way' of the work they are 'supposed' to be doing in the library, records management unit,

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Customer

Service

in the Information

Environment

or whatever information services unit they are part of. In fact, participating in such teams can be a primary intelligence-gathering exercise, and all information services staff should seek such opportunities. They enable information staff to observe other employees at work in a group situation, to 'read the signs,' so to speak, to get a picture of how these people, who are not part of the specifically organized information environment, think. They learn, if they are careful and ask the right questions, how these people feel about information and what role information plays in their work. The benefits go both ways, of course, for in serving on a project team or a company committee, the information services employee (whether it is the departmental manager or staff) can determine what the group's information needs are and, in effect, serve as the information resource for the group. The individual members of the child care study group, for example, may not realize that much work may have already been done in this area, but the information services employee, by participating in the group, will recognize from the first meeting that this is an 'information opportunity.' He or she can then have literature searches run, question colleagues for their experiences in providing information in these areas or simply seek materials on the subject from the corporate library. Whatever action is taken, the information services professional finds himself or herself not only serving as an active participant in the group, but indeed in a position to learn about other employees' expectations and perceptions about the services of the department he or she represents. Further opportunities for determining customers' perceptions and expectations (and changing them, of course, when that is necessary) can be found in the usual orientation programs offered in most organizations. When new employees are shown through a company, for example, for most of them a visit to the corporate records management unit, computer services department or information center is not particularly relevant. They are too new in the organization, they have no idea yet what their information needs are going to be, and certainly they have no idea how the work of this particular information services unit might affect their performance on the job. Added to this is the usual confusion of the orientation process, no small matter to incoming employees, who during these first days are usually bombarded with so much else in the way of information about the organization and their employment there that they couldn't be any less interested in what the information services staff had to say. The clever information services manager will recognize the situation for what it is and provide a brief (and hopefully, lively) orientation with a promise to contact the new employee or employees a little later (usually after a week or ten days or so). At that time, questions can be asked about information services and about the new employee's past experiences in finding the information products and services required for the performance of his or her duties. With this information in hand, information services staff can create a perceptions and expectations 'profile' to be entered into the records, in order to provide an effective and smooth transfer of information products and services when the time comes.

Informal

- and not-so-informal

- intelligence gathering

There is, of course, one group of information users who won't respond to many of the information services staff's attempts to bring information services and products to them. We're talking here about the people who, while not exactly 'information-ignorant,' are certainly not very 'information-aware.' These are the people who, when looking for, say, documentation for a long-established word processing program, might come to a colleague for a copy. 'Did you ask in computer services?' evokes an embarrassed smile, and a shy Ί didn't think of that.' Or an architect, say, looking for a set of regulations remembers a similar project to the one she's currently working on and finds herself surprised to discover that indeed, all records of the company's jobs, including the relevant regulation, are the responsibility of the firm's library and records services staff. For these people, information and the information services departments of their respective organizations exist to provide information when it is needed. At all other times, they simply don't think about information or the information services unit of their organization, just as they don't think about the accounting department, the human resources department or, for that matter, even the corporate health services department, until the need arises. For most employees, their awareness of these departments and their specific functions is based solely on need, and only when the need arises. Is there a place, then, for the work of the information services department or unit in the lives of these people? If they are only aware of information services when they need them, how does the information services manager create an awareness that carries over between the 'times of need,' as it were? For the manager, it is important to 'create' the need, to devise marketing plans and awareness programs that point out to users and potential users just how valuable information services can be for them. Information is a commodity which has value only when it is needed; the problem comes in the numbers of people who simply don't think about how using the proper information services agency can alleviate their information problems. Regardless of the type' of information being provided through his or her unit, for the successful information services manager the recognition that information marketing is an on-going part of the information management process, and that a proactive and objective analysis of users' needs is critical to the provision of information services, is the foundation on which the information organization is built. Another problem, of course, comes from the perception, held by many who have no experience or prior activity with information services, or whose experience is limited, that libraries and other information organizations can do anything and everything they are asked to do. One of the purposes of a clearly defined mission statement is an understanding of what the unit cannot do, and reference to the mission statement must be made for many users and potential users. Without an understanding of the information function, many people think of a library, records management group or other information services unit as an endless source of information, of any kind of information, and it is important that information services staff understand and share with users what the limitations of the unit are. At these times, too, perceptions and expectations about

35

Customer Service in the Information

Environment

the users' understanding about the service will be conveyed, and staff will then be in a better position to deal with these perceptions and expectations. Of course, by far the most revealing device for establishing a user's perceptions and expectations about an information services unit comes at the 'moment of truth,' as it is referred to in another customer service context. Jan Carlzon, president of Scandinavian Airlines System, is credited with conceptualizing the metaphor for service organizations, that the organization exists for its customers only during those incidents when they come into direct contact with specific aspects of its operation' (Albrecht, p. 25). Albrecht himself then builds on this idea, and puts it in service management terminology: The moment of truth: any episode in which the customer comes into contact with any aspect of the organization and gets an impression of the quality of its service. (Albrecht, p. 26)

For the information services manager and his or her staff, this moment of truth is valuable for a number of reasons, but primarily because it is during this information interaction, as it might be called, that the user and the information services staff member have the opportunity to organize their reactions to one another, to determine what it is that each perceives about the information services unit and what each expects to take place during the interaction. An example might be a curatorial assistant in a museum, who needs to establish the provenance for a particular object and has been told that the information is recorded for most museum objects in the Registrar's Office, when the objects are acquired. A telephone call to that department will reveal to the staff member who takes the call that this is an employee who calls first before he comes to the Registrar's Office, that he is interested in having the appropriate records available when he comes to the department, and that, for efficiency, he prefers to gather the information himself rather than sending someone for it. His perceptions and expectations of the service he will receive in the Registrar's Office are fairly clear. The staff member in the Registrar's Office will, for future reference, note (mentally if not more formally) this user's expectations and use this knowledge to provide quality service when the user needs information from the department. The interaction is not always so positive, and information services managers must constantly be on guard for bad customer experiences which can create negative perceptions and exceptions. A classic example is the story of the writer who approaches the reference desk in a large public library, seeking direction for how to find a standard reference work, one she has used in the past but the location of which she simply can't remember. The employee at the desk, for whatever reason (the end of a long day, pressing clerical duties, a deadline that must be met) cannot take the time to look up from his work. The patron, after standing a while, clears her throat and the attendant, still not looking up, asks, 'Yes?' Could you tell me where I can find Current Biography?' the writer asks. Still without looking up, the library employee says, 'We don't have it.' When

Informal - and not-so-informal - intelligence gathering

the patron attempts to protest, to state that she has used the material before, on another occasion, the attendant interrupts with, Ί said, we don't have it,' with his tone of voice indicating that the information interaction, such as it is, has come to a conclusion. The patron, of course, has no choice but to leave the library and, presumably, return to her word processor to write a letter of complaint to the library director. Whether she ever found the reference material she was seeking - or indeed ever returned to the library - is unrecorded. The story is telling for a number of reasons. First of all, the patron, in all innocence, has based her perceptions about library service on past experience. She has used the material on other occasions and she knows it's there. She simply needs guidance in how to find it. Her perception of the service in the library is positive; the last time she requested this reference work she was shown how to find it. Her expectations, too, were positive, for she had located the material successfully in the past, and she had no reason to think that she would not find the same material just as easily this time. What the experience does for her perceptions and expectations about future service, however, is not hard to imagine. For this particular library user, the relationship with this particular library as the information services unit of choice has come to an end. This example of course suggests a primary opportunity for influencing the perceptions and expectations of users. For any kind of information services operation, that first 'moment of truth,' in Carlzon's metaphor, requires that the information services employee have a personal commitment to the overall mission of the organization, and specifically to the information function within the organization. Referred to in a previous chapter, the concept is also important in the development of a successful plan for influencing and in fact defining the relationship between an information user and the information provider. For the employee, it is critical that he or she develop an interest in what's going on, like what he or she is doing in the organization and contributing to the overall success of the organization. Not that every employee is going to be bursting with enthusiasm for his or her work but, in fact, in a field that is as dependent on a successful interaction between parties as the seeking and delivery of information is, the employee who wants to succeed at his or her work will attempt, by taking whatever steps are necessary, to make that interaction as pleasant and as rewarding - for both parties - as possible. There are steps which can be taken to change the perceptions of those who use information services. After all the meetings, visits, informal discussions, the meetings in the hallways or the company cafeteria, the conversations among the information services staff about how to deal with this or that particular user, it's up to the management and staff of the information services unit to put together the facts they've gathered about customer expectations and perceptions. Then, by incorporating this information into the customer services program which drives the delivery of information, staff can adapt a group of techniques (developed from a concept of Michael LeBoeuf's suggested in another context) which will enable it to change users' perceptions and expectations about the information services unit (LeBoeuf, pp. 54-8).

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1 Develop a user profile Draw up a clear picture of who the information unit's customers are and what their needs are. This activity will vary from organization to organization, but basically the information services staff is looking at such things as demographics, personal characteristics, professional interests, and the like. Much of this will be discovered, of course, as the information services staff attempts to profile the user's information needs for journal routing, the selective dissemination of information, automatic announcements about new purchases, etc. At the same time, however, staff will record - or at least take note of personal quirks or requirements or any other information that can be used to make the information interaction flow more smoothly. If there are hospital staff physicians who do not utilize the internal e-mail system, the hospital library's information staff makes a great mistake in offering services for which e-mail response is required. 2 Look at the information services unit through the user's eyes A recent reorganization in an important information center grew out of a simple and frightening realization. The company's central information services unit, in order to accommodate staff in its headquarters located in a large metropolitan area in the eastern United States, was open for business from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. Unfortunately, staff at research laboratories and field offices located in New Mexico and Seattle had to do without services after 1:30 and 2:30 pm respectively, because of time differences. Needless to say, most employees at the sites in the West found their information elsewhere, and for a long time the company's headquarters information services people wondered why they had so little business from those offices. Once the error was discovered and the offering of information services was based on the needs of the users - even the users at remote locations - corrective measures were taken and of course usage from these offices increased dramatically. 3 Beware of overpromising and building unrealistic expectations One of our failings, as information services professionals, is that we want so badly to please that we are frequently prone to offer results that we can't possibly deliver. Or, in our enthusiasm, we underestimate the amount of work involved in a commitment to a task. The searcher, for example, who promises a list of citations in a couple of hours, forgetting that with one of the utilities usually searched for this particular kind of information there are frequent downtimes, will once again be disappointed and, in all likelihood, will disappoint the client, since there will probably be such a downtime this afternoon as well. In the information interview, the searcher, if he or she wants to change the perceptions of the user, would be advised to offer the search results 'as soon as possible,' in which case, if there is no downtime, the search process looks positively rapid and if there is a downtime, the user won't be disappointed in his or her expectations. 4 Use problems as opportunities to demonstrate just how good the information services unit can be. According to LeBoeuf, users judge the quality of service

Informal - and not-so-informal - intelligence gathering

in two basic ways: how well you deliver what you promise and how well you handle exceptions and problems. If we stop and think about what we've promised our customers, much of what they seek from us is not out of step with the mission of the information services unit. It's just that, frequently, the information needed at that time is not available, or isn't available through the usual channels. When this happens, the truly committed information services manager will ignore the rule, the usual way of doing things, and permit the information services staff to provide the information as rapidly and as effectively as possibly. In its simplest form, such an attitude means permitting an employee to leave work early to drive by the local public library, or a library at a local educational institution, because a missing journal, needed by a user, is known to be on the shelf at the other library. Or better yet, the reference librarian is generally authorized, without having to seek special permission, to obtain a document through a commercial vendor in order to get it into the hands of the client who needs it sooner than it can be provided in any other way. This last example, it seems, raises a basic question in information services: isn't all information work an 'exception ? From the user's point of view, whatever he or she needs, in the context of his or her own life, is an 'exception' or a 'problem' that needs to be solved and the truly effective customer services program rewards, more than anything else, a staff which is able to solve problems. If the user could find the information on his own, without having to ask anyone else, he certainly would do so. But for him, this information need is an exception to the routine work of his professional life, a problem to be solved, and the successful information services operation is the one that solves it for him. When he is left to fend for himself, when the information services unit in his organization cannot find what he needs, as far as he is concerned, the information services unit is of no use to him. 5 Develop a unique relationship with your users and treat each one as someone special One of the reasons we work so hard, in the information services field, to establish an understanding of our users' perceptions and expectations is that we want to know how we can serve them better, what their particular needs are, and how we can address those needs. This attitude is, of course, the driving force behind the SDI programs, user profiles and the other, similar techniques we use for establishing a rapport with our users. In information services, one cannot know too much about one's customer and his or her information needs, and as we incorporate this knowledge into the customer services program we establish for our users, we discover those ways in which we can treat each of the users as 'special.' As information services professionals, we do not, of course, go so far as to send birthday cards or issue special discounts' of services, as is becoming the fashion in some of the more successful customer services operations in the business world. On the other hand, as information professionals, we have a knowledge base and experience which many of our users do not have, and which, for a variety of reasons, elicit from them a certain level of admiration

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and esteem. In one fairly large library, with a respectable collection of rare books, one user, a faculty member in economics at a local university, was an irascible and difficult user. He constantly sought special privileges, and nothing the library staff did for him met with his satisfaction. He abused his library privileges and, despite the efforts of the library director, there was little that could be done to make life easy when this person was around. It occurred to the director one day, as he was thinking about a recent gift to the collection, a first edition of Hobbes' Leviathan, that the book might be of interest to the economics professor, so on the man's next visit to the library, he was invited to the rare book room to see a new acquisition.' Reluctantly, he went along, and of course once he saw the book, was allowed to sit and peruse it at his leisure, and invited to join in a conversation with the library director and one of the staff about a possible display of the book in the library's exhibit case, he was won over. He became a 'friend' of the library, and while he could still make life moderately difficult for some of the junior staff, in general his approach to the library and its services was completely turned around. The library director had made a decision to treat this user as someone special. He was, in fact, not being treated any differently, on a daily basis and in his usual interactions with the library staff. From his point of view, however, he had been singled out, had been addressed as someone who was not an ordinary or typical library user, and it made all the difference as far as his perceptions and his expectations of the library and its services were concerned. 6 Keep in touch and keep them informed One of the greatest problems, for many customers in the information services environment, is that they feel 'out of touch,' that they don't know what's going on. They therefore find themselves inhibited about using the information service, about approaching the staff for assistance because, quite frankly, they fear appearing ignorant about what services are available in the information services unit. They don't want to disrupt procedures that are already in place, but on the other hand, not knowing what procedures are in place, they generally avoid 'bothering' the information staff with their queries. The best antidote to this attitude (for that's all it is, and nothing more) is a proactive campaign on the part of the information services manager and staff to keep all users informed. Of course the usual vehicles are used regularly, things like special newsletters from the information services unit, articles and informative guides on the organization's house organ, new acquisitions lists, brochures about services available, etc. At the same time, however, and in keeping with the admonition above about making the users feel special, it is appropriate for the information services staff, as part of its profiling of users, to give them personal 'treatment,' to telephone them or send a memo (or a photocopy of a title page or an advertisement) if a new product or service has been acquired and might be of use to them in their work. In one firm, the computer services department, to inform all staff about changes in the system, took the opportunity to have in-house seminars, hands-on practice tutorial sessions and the like, but to ensure the success of the operation, the

Informal - and not-so-informal - intelligence gathering

manager of the department asked for and received permission to make photocopies of the cover of the documentation, which were then passed on to each department head with a hand-written note from the manager: 'Call me if you're having any problems.' The message was clear: it said to each department head that this was a personal note from the manager of computer services, and that this colleague was invited to speak with the head of the department, not an assistant or other staff member, if he or she wished to have any further help with adopting the new technology. Most of the other department heads didn't call - they didn't need to, as they had other people on their staffs who were on top of the situation, but the very fact that a handwritten note was sent had the desired effect: the manager of the computer services department was interested in the reactions of the other department heads to the work that was being done. 7 Remember that a large part of good service is showbiz As part of the work we do, information services professionals not only have to make the users feel 'special' in their interactions with the information services unit, we want to make them feel good as well. LeBoeuf goes even further: 'When you're in the presence of a customer, you're on stage and the spotlight is on you. Part of doing your job well is giving a good performance when you do it.' There is a manager of a corporate archives collection, in a fairly large organization, who supervises a staff of ten. This person happens to be a fairly 'glamorous' person by nature: good clothes, healthy body, just generally well put together. As it happens, she is also a very lively person, very well liked in the organization, and a good mentor and teacher to her staff. She knows her job very well, she is a good manager and has the loyalty of the people who work for her, and as a result, the corporate archives department is a well-functioning, highly productive unit in the firm. The reputation of the department, for the excellence of its services, is very high, and no one in the organization regrets being assigned to find this or that information in the corporate archives. In fact, the department attracts users with their queries (and some queries that must be directed elsewhere, it must be said) and the operation of the corporate archives is exemplary, a situation which is quite unusual in business today. Part of the success of the operation, which the manager will delightedly share with anyone who asks, is that she understands the concept of what might be called theatricality' in her work. It wouldn't do for every department and, in fact, there are those who would like to see the corporate archives department be a little less attractive in its operation, but the fact of the matter is - and senior management in the firm is quick to recognize it - that the work gets done, and it gets done very well. The customers are satisfied, and well satisfied, with the performance of the staff in corporate archives, and the fact that the employees there practice a little of what Michael LeBoeuf calls showbiz' doesn't hurt. It fits into the organizational culture, and it doesn't interfere with the work. There's nothing wrong with it, and it establishes a very positive point of reference for the department.

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What contemporary information management seeks, it seems, is an attempt to bridge the concepts of service, so long a part of information provision, with the complicated and ever-changing milieu in which information services exists. It isn't easy, and it requires new paradigms of service that match the new paradigms which create, store, and disseminate information in all its many formats. The bridge of course is the user, the customer, and it is with the customer that all information services management must begin and end. Richard W. Budd, Distinguished Professor and founding Dean of the Rutgers University School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, made this point in a 1992 essay: Our existing information institutions will be - if they have not been already - severely challenged by new and emerging institutions that will more efficiently satisfy our clients' needs for information. . . . Libraries must find new ways of storing and retrieving information in ways that can compete with commercial challengers. How will our libraries respond to this change? One thing is certain: we cannot simply do better what we have been doing all along. We need to study in great depth what it is other new and successful information institutions are doing. More importantly, we need to understand not only the technology and its potential, but the changing expectations and behaviors of the consumers as weU. How have their information appetites changed? Where and in what form do they acquire that information? How are they using the information they seek and acquire?.. . There is a need for significant change, for reshaping educational programs as well as institutional goals and philosophies, and we will not accomplish that by being timid or by giving our profession a fresh coat of paint. We need to make significant and major changes in our mission and goals and in our ways of thinking about what we do. New structures do not simply appear. They emerge as a result of seeing the world in a different light and by keeping our eyes fixed upon the future rather than looking longingly over our shoulders at the past. (Budd, p. 44, emphasis added)

Given another opportunity to address this subject, in a discussion about the future of the library and information services profession with a group of senior library managers from the corporate environment, Dean Budd was even more succinct: 'We simply don't know enough about our consumer; we haven't taken the time to learn how to learn' (Budd, January, 1993). So the call is going forth. If information services professionals are going to offer effective information services in the future, they must look to their users. They must take their expertise and their professional and technical vision and match it with the needs of the people who are coming to them for information services. No longer can the system drive the service,' as one disillusioned information services manager put it not long ago. When the information services operation becomes an end in itself, the system will, indeed, survive for a while as an entity in and of itself. But eventually, despite the best bureaucratic efforts, the unmet needs of the customers will catch up with the program, the number of programs and services not delivered will begin to outpace the information delivered, and the operation will be closed down. The only way to prevent that closure is to recognize what the users' needs are and to do whatever has to be done to meet those needs.

Informal - and not-so-informal - intelligence gathering

And it means, at the very least, recognizing that today's information customer is a much different animal than the 'patron' of just a few years ago. Amy Paster and Bonnie Osif wrote about this, and urged information services professionals, specifically librarians, to prepare themselves to work with that 'different' customer: Today's patrons are specialists, focusing on a small number of appropriate sources. Librarians, on the other hand, are generalists, and must be aware of and able to navigate through numerous sources. These new 'users' require assistance in locating and using the information sources and also in obtaining the actual materials. This patron need places additional demands on library personnel to know and understand a variety of resources, both print and electronic. (Paster and Osif, p. 195)

What this calls for, in terms of information delivery, is a clear understanding of users' perceptions and expectations about information services. Within the organization, senior management, the managers of the information services unit itself, and the staff who provide the services, must commit themselves to expending the time, energy and resources necessary for learning what these perceptions and expectations are, and to taking the appropriate steps necessary to bring those perceptions and expectations into the planning of information services.

References Albrecht, Karl. At America's Service: How Your Company tomer Service Revolution. New York: Warner, 1992.

Can Join the Cus-

Budd, Richard W. Ά New Library School of Thought .' Library Journal. 1992, pp.44-47.

May 1,

Budd, Richard W. Ά Day of Discussion.' New York, January 14, 1993. Unpublished remarks. Echelman, Shirley. 'Libraries Are Businesses, Too!' Special Libraries, 65, October/ November, 1978. LeBoeuf, Michael. How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life. Néw York: Berkeley Books, 1989Paster, Amy, and Osif, Bonnie. Great Expectations: Satisfying Today's Patrons,' in Special Libraries, 83 (4) Fall, 1982.

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Chapter Five

Defining the market and selecting specific user groups

The library or other information services organization which tries to be all things for all people is doomed. There is no way all information can be provided for everybody from a single information agency, yet many information services practitioners blithely persist in attempting to promote themselves as being able to resolve any information issue or solve any information problem. It is a foolish attempt and one that can only lead, once management begins to ask hard questions of accountability, to imposed reorganization or, which is sometimes even worse, eventual closure. The situation was strikingly described in an analogy put forward in an issue of The SpeciaList, a newsletter which goes out to members of the Special Libraries Association: Question: What retail store carries both discount and high quality furniture, food, hardware, cars, insurance, securities, clothing, etc.? Answer. There is no store (none in their right minds at least) who could make a go of all this. . . . It is not uncommon for some libraries to be able to list almost 200 services they offer and be proud of it. Therein lies the direct analogy to the question stated above. Successful businesses choose their niche markets, prioritize their services, throw all available human and other resources into those identified key services, and formulate appropriate action plans to deliver those services. These are all done with precision and care. Most of all, they are done with great attention to focusing and not diffusing . . . If proper assessments are made of the key services required and wanted by users, the 'market' will be continual and highly successful. The product delivered will be clear and wanted... . The information environment is controlled and advantage is gained within the organization or company (Monty, pp. 1-5)

An ongoing concern in the library and information services profession is that managements and other funding authorities do not provide sufficient support for information activities. Is it because information services organizations are in fact trying to do too much? Would management be more responsive to supporting information services if specific products and services offered were marketed to a specific targeted group? Certainly such a concept would meet with great outcries of elitism,' 'social irresponsibility,' and the like in the public

Defining the market and selecting specific user groups

or school library communities, but in academic, research, government, and other specialized libraries and information centers, attention to specific market groups makes sense. Marketing segmentation defined If excellence of service in information delivery is to be the guiding principle for the manager of a library or other information services unit, she must define her constituent user base. In most situations, of course, the broad-based definition is what we have to work with: the university library, for example, exists to serve the information needs of the academic community, or the branch public library the reading and information needs of the users of the immediate neighborhood. On the other hand, the constituencies of specialized libraries, organizational archives, records management units and computer departments in corporations and similar organizations are also broadly defined, but within the context of their specific organizations which of course narrows the marketing focus considerably from that of the public or academic library. In all cases, though, effective customer service planning requires some consideration of market segmentation. From the classical management point of view, market segmentation means sorting the various markets for an organization's products and services into subgroups according to customer needs. The segmentation takes place when groups of customers prefer a certain product make-up in one area and a slightly different one in another area. Some customers may value one feature of a product, while others respond to another. For the information services manager, the products and services (and the promotional efforts for those products and services) must be modified to exploit the best competitive features in each market segment (Arthur Young, p. 96). An example might be a research organization where several social and scientific fields are studied, and information services staff has identified certain scholars for whom annotated subject bibliographies are of value. At the same time, however, these bibliographies are of little use to scientists in similar fields in which the research is not specifically related to the work of the first group. In the information services unit which prepares and distributes the bibliographies, management must constantly evaluate the use that the bibliographies receive, and constantly be seeking feedback from the scientists, in order to provide bibliographies that match the needs of the people they are sent to. The second group of scientists, for whom it has been established that they do not need this specific set of bibliographies, becomes then a separate market segment, exploitable for different products and services related to their own work. In information services management, the user market can be segmented for a number of reasons. First of all, by identifying segments which have enough users or potential users to justify committing resources to the development of products and services for those users, the managers of the information services group is practicing good fiscal management. In the example above, unless the group of scientists for whom the annotated bibliographies are prepared has its own line in the information center's budget, the development of such prod-

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ucts would be prohibitively expensive, considering the amount of staff time that goes into developing such bibliographies. On the other hand, if surveys by information services management determine that a large enough percentage of the organization's total user base can benefit from the publication of the bibliographies, and if the value of the bibliographies can be demonstrated by a substantial percentage of those receiving them, that section of the market is judged large enough to support the effort. Another reason for segmenting the user base is related to this. In order to provide services to a selected group of customers, management needs to know - again to justify the investment of resources - if the group has potential for growth and increased value, thus ensuring that the work that is done for this market will not only provide an immediate level of service, but have some future value as well. The development of new products and services is expensive, in both staff time and, nowadays, in technical effort as well. The identification of, say, a group of scientists who can access a weekly annotated bibliography online must include not only the comments and enthusiasm of those scientists for whom the service would provide measurable benefits at the present time, but some investigation of growth activities in that section, the 'types' of scientists who are working there at present, and, not least of all, the concerns and reservations of current scientific staff who have no interest in the service being considered. Further considerations in market segmentation have to do with those customers in the market segment who may, for one reason or another, be availing themselves of the services of an information services unit that is, in effect, a competing library or information services organization. In the example described above, if one of the scientists happens to be active at another research institute, located at a local university with its own research library and information center, and if, further complicating the issue, she has direct access via a modem in her office to the statistical databases in the field, this information identifies her as a segment of the market for whom little information can be provided from the first research institute's information services unit. Unless there is a substantial number of researchers in her field in the organization who do not have access to the information resources she has access to, her specific interests, except for very general materials, will not be addressed in the information services program at the institute. A fourth reason for market segmentation in the library and information services field relates to the products and services that the unit can deliver. There must be a genuine need for these products and services, and unless the market is segmented, information services management has no way of surveying the users and potential users to determine what their needs are. In most cases, it is not possible to ask every user of every service about the value of the products and services, but with the market segmented and broken down by groups and/ or services, customer surveys can be managed and will produce usable data. In another approach to market segmentation in the library and information services field, instead of looking at products and services management might

Defining the market and selecting specific user groups

direct its attention to customer perceptions and expectations, as discussed in the previous chapter. It has been pointed out that customer expectations about products and services add 'a crucial dimension to market segmentation,' a consideration certainly not lost on practitioners in the library and information services field. One of the ongoing struggles in many corporate and research libraries is the presentation of information, particularly the volume of information. Judy Labovitz, writing about the management of information, notes that today's information provider provides services that go beyond the usual special services such as SDI and current awareness programs. Today's executives,' Labovitz writes, 'cannot handle the information deluge. They need an advisor who can assist them in evaluating what is important for them to keep up with and in what format, and then work with them to decide how best to do this' (Labovitz, p. 10). Thus, for the executive or senior scientist in the research institute, the package of information will be edited, made more concise, and more than likely highlighted with an 'executive summary' or similar annotation. In the same organization, for a research scientist who may need to know everything about a particular subject, an abbreviated citation list might not be enough, and she might very well ask the searcher for the entire list (even if such a list of citations would be highly impractical in hard copy). In this case, however, the searcher would have already been aware, through the information services unit's market segmentation, that the research scientist needed more comprehensive and detailed information products than the executive and would already have entered that requirement into the scientist's 'profile' in the library or information center. Thus segmenting the market by the kind of services offered can be a useful exercise, for the package of services offered - 'implicitly or explicitly' - changes significantly from one market segment to another. It has been noted that 'while many companies break down markets in terms of product features and performance, few segment markets on the basis of customers' expectations,' yet such segmentation can provide management with much valuable information about customer needs and customer satisfaction (Lele and Karmarkar, p. 200). In terms of the specific piece' of information, L. J. Anthony pointed out, as noted in an earlier chapter, that one of the basic requirements in information management is to adapt information by repackaging and reformatting to the various functional needs of the different levels of users (Anthony, p. 5). An example can be drawn from the records management field. In a corporate setting, the records of certain transactions are maintained because they are legally required. Within those records is data which must be extricated according to a specific timeframe and delivered to particular individuals in the corporation. By establishing those people as a unique market segment and programming the records so that the required data is retrieved and distributed according to a prearranged schedule, the information services unit, the records management department, is identifying customers for whom other products and services, related to that same 'type' of information, can be developed. As Monty pointed out, of course, such activity not only enables the customers to have enhanced services, but also creates a

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distinct 'advantage' for the records management department within the corporation, as its staff and services come to be appreciated for the proactive and innovative improvements that they provide. Differentiation in information services When we look at the many opportunities for developing new products and services in any library or information services organization, the concept of differentiation becomes a very realistic option. It is, of course, a radical new concept for information services management, but in fact, in terms of establishing priorities and determining what markets and what products and services the information services unit should be offering for those markets, differentiation makes a good deal of sense. Tom Peters, always a welcome source for innovative ideas, describes differentiation as it comes to Western management thought from the Japanese: A deeply ingrained habit of constant differentiation is the essence of Japan's economic success. It's called kaizen, which management consultant Masaaki Imai describes as 'ongoing improvement involving everyone.' It is, he says, 'the most important difference between Japanese and Western management.' Economist Masanori Moritani, in his book Japanese Technology, elaborates: One of the characteristics of competition in Japan is the establishment of small distinctions between one's own product and similar products made by other manufacturers. These tend to be minor improvements in convenience, function, miniaturization and the like. . . . Five, six or even as many as ten companies may be producing virtually identical products, but upon close examination, you will find a number of small innovations in each. Since each firm is rapidly making such improvements in its goods, the cumulative effect is immense. In two or three years, the product can be completely transformed.' (Peters, p. 58) We are not, in the information services field, attempting to 'completely transform' any product or service, but the managers of information services units can productively think about some of the materials and services they have access to and determine how they can be differentiated for a variety of customer groups. Take the simplest - or perhaps commonest - example of all, the mystery lovers who come to a local public library for their recreational reading. This group of people is fairly large, quickly recognizable (they're always asking the librarians for the 'latest' novel by this or that popular writer), and, as we all know, insatiable in their demand for a continuous flow of reading materials. The library simply can't buy enough mysteries for them, and each and every one of them would be willing to participate in 'special' activity which would acknowledge their special interest in mysteries and move them through the process of choosing their mysteries more quickly. A simple registration card, distributed with each mystery borrowed from the library, could invite them to 'sign up' (for a minimum fee, of course) to be part of the 'Mystery Club.' Once payment has been received and the member's' name is in the circulation files and matched to the library's registry code, these readers also could be matched against new mystery titles as they are processed through the acquisitions and cataloging process and receive prompt and 'priority' notification.

Defining the market and selecting specific user groups

Once that service has been established, of course, there are any number of spin-offs, limited only by the imaginations of the collection development and promotional staff at the library. Mystery readers could be matched with readers of adventure novels, 'classic' mystery groups could be formed, speakers and programs could be specially promoted, etc. Whatever the eventual outcome, the ongoing marketing efforts to an identified group of readers with specific interests will result in better service from the library to its public and, not coincidentally, a recognition that the library is actively pursuing its readers, not the other way around. In the research arena, the same process could be attached to marketing efforts to reach engineers and other technical professionals in a large utilities or other scientific-based company. By identifying these employees through departmental surveys (or by matching certain job titles to records in the human resources department), the research library can actively solicit their participation in specifically designed SDI programs, journal routing schemes, and the like. Once the names have been identified and coded (a standard procedure in many organizations), differentiation takes place when information services staff can design specific products (list of technical report titles, say, or periodical literature searches in a pre-determined subject field) and offer them to the employees who are most likely to benefit from receiving them. What is being suggested is something that Peters refers to as a major change in organizational thinking, a change that can be successfully adapted (and in fact must be adapted) to the promotion of products and services for information customers. Managers and staff must now 'radically emphasize 'specialist' rather than 'mass'/'volume' thinking' and, at the same time, 'constantly create new market niches via new products and the continuous transformation of every product,' adding more and more value (features, quality, services) to every product or service, youthful or mature' in order to achieve or maintain 'true differentiation' (Peters, p. 50). The Labovitz reference earlier in this chapter offers a direction and a challenge for information services practitioners. When she suggests that information management includes assisting executives in evaluating what is important to them, advising them in order to help them keep up with the information deluge (a not inappropriate metaphor, incidentally, for today's executives and managers), Labovitz is only proposing that librarians and information services professionals embrace a role for which they have been eminently qualified all along, that of information 'counselor' (as it has been described in some circles) or information 'coordinator.' The information services professional takes on an organizational responsibility that is a far cry from the librarian-as-the-keeper-of-books' tradition and one that qualified information services professionals accept with delighted enthusiasm. The concept has been successful in many organizations and corporations, especially in law librarianship, the financial community, museum librarianship and, particularly, the business world. A 1990 report described such an activity at the Highsmith Company in Wisconsin, where not only market segmentation has been implemented with highly successful results, but service difieren-

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tiation has resulted in a sophisticated SDI program in which each manager receives customized information packets from corporate librarian Silvia Watson as part of their routine information counseling.' The organization of the library and its services is 'strictly business' according to the report: The library recognizes just 15 to 20 'priority users,' the company's top managers, w h o are given full access to the library and can approach the librarian with 'information requests.' These are defined by Watson as 'more formal inquiries that cannot reliably be serviced without assistance or mediation by the librarian.' The corporate library and services of the librarian are viewed by all at Highsmith as valuable resources that must be allocated to the task of helping the firm 'sustain competitive advantage and achieve our strategic mission.' 'Casual inquiries' and browsing are allowed for the entire staff, but 'information requests' with their 'higher costs' are provided at the discretion of the librarian. (Berry, p. 40)

Clearly what the Highsmith Company and its information services professional have done is to recognize that, indeed, the corporate library cannot be all things to all people, but that for those users for whom corporate information is critical, full services are available. The other staff is not served; they can use the library as a self-service facility and, as the report indicates, be guided in their 'casual inquiries.' The same segmentation and differentiation can apply, of course, to other types of libraries and information centers as well (an engineering department, for example, or a marketing department), with the result that strategic services will be offered to the specifically identified group, enabling them to have the higher level of services required for their work. Segmenting the customer market in an existing information services program As the Highsmith example illustrates, market segmentation and differentiation can be reasonably incorporated into a relatively new operation, but what about libraries and information centers that already exist? What are some of the practical problems of beginning a niche marketing effort or segmenting the customer base when the library or information services organization is already up and running, with many products and services being offered? Much will of course depend on the size of the organization or community supported by the information services unit. In larger organizations, with much bureaucracy and (perhaps) inertia already in place, the effort will require cooperative leadership and determined effort from both senior management and the managers of the information unit. In a smaller organization, the advantages of frequent face-to-face interactions, the ease of identifying political sponsors and bringing them into the plan or design of the scheme, and the relative ease of convincing both management and customers of the advantages of the proposed program, however structured, make the job easier to get done. In both cases, though, the commitment has to be in place, and the benefits of the proposed activity, particularly if the program requires radical change or the elimination of some products or services to which some customers have become accustomed, must be clearly defined and stated as early in the process as possible. An example might be taken from the research community, where a large

Defining

the market

and selecting

specific user

groups

information organization, supporting the technical research needs of a variety of scientific groups within the parent organization, must determine if the delivery of its information products and services can be made more cost effective. As the unit's customers have already been segmented by discipline, with particular materials routed routinely to specific scientists and technicians in each field, it is early on only a matter of identifying which customer groups use which materials or services most heavily, and then analyzing those delivery efforts to determine whether they are, in fact, a large enough segment of the total customer population to justify the investment of resources into the delivery. A survey of the users of one group, say the electronic engineering group, reveals that not only are the routinely routed journals anticipated and heavily used within the group before they are returned to the information center, but the engineers are frustrated that conference proceedings and technical reports referenced in the journals are not available except through a time-consuming special ordering process. The information services staff recognizes that this is an opportunity for differentiation, so after studying the situation, decides to circulate a citations list with each issue of each journal. After further surveying the engineers, staff is able to determine which titles this should be done for, as well as the group's willingness to underwrite the additional costs involved in offering such a new service. Now, utilizing the organization's internal electronic mail system, an engineer can place an order for a cited reference when the journal in which the reference appears is on his or her desk. The process continues, for as part of the order, the engineer is permitted to suggest whether the referenced item being ordered should reside in his or her office files, be processed for permanent retention in the information service unit's collection, or simply be discarded after a suggested time period. In any case, the engineer has now been entered into the system as an orderer of a specific type of material (or material related to a specific subject or group of subjects). This record is now analyzed by information services staff, and other products and services, connected to the type of material ordered or the subject class, can be suggested. The next step might be to add the engineer's name to a group of 'advisors' in his or her respective interest areas, thus enabling the information service staff not only to go to the engineer for advice about specific projects or plans, but to put this person in contact with others who also share the same profile. As time passes, the process will continue, and information services staff, as new products and services are developed (many of them, of course, suggested by the very users they are designed for), will be able to offer the specific customer group the very products and services they need. While such activities pay handsome dividends, both in enhanced information services and in the development of new customers and new or enhanced products and services for these customers, enthusiasm must be tempered with a little caution. Mistakes can be easily made, and Peters recommends care in avoiding what he calls 'misguided' differentiation. 'Wildly exaggerated differentiation that the market doesn't want,' for example, will only backfire and cost the information services management much grief in lost resources and staff

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disappointment. The engineers described above would be carefully surveyed and much effort would be expended to determine that they really wanted the cited materials to be ordered. By asking their group to contribute from its budget to the acquisition of the materials ensures, of course, that the employees in the group view the new service as worthwhile. Peters also warns against negating useful and expensive differentiation 'by underattending to other parts of the product-service package.' Put simply, in the illustration being used here, if the engineers signed on to the project, enjoined the group manager to budget funds for the project, and then discovered that the entire project had foundered because information services staff could not process the specially ordered materials which had ended up in a backlog of tobe-processed general materials, the entire effort would not only have been wasted, but much damage in interdepartmental relations would have been the result. Another of Peters warnings has particular relevancy to the information services field: 'Don't let premature implementation of exotic technology trip you up.' Simply put, the success of the effort depends on the smooth interrelated workings of all parts of the project, and as noted above, if a breakdown occurs, it shouldn't be on the part of the information services unit. In this case, there will be the temptation to sign on with certain vendors in order to expedite the routing, ordering and processing of materials as simply and efficiently as possible. The technology will be attractive, but its attractiveness must be grounded in simple workmanship. For the project to go forward without disappointment, the technology, when implemented, must be up to the task it is being used for. Finally, Peters admonishes the information services staff not to leave the customer out of the picture. 'Don't forget,' he writes, 'that it's not differentiated until the customer understands the difference.' Obviously in the example used here, the customer is very much in the picture if the engineers' group is going to be contributing to the cost of a new or differentiated product. In many cases, however, the interaction will not have been so conducted, and it is tempting for those planning and creating the new products and services to forget that there is a customer base which should be studiously surveyed before final decisions are made (Peters, p. 59). For the information services manager, the true value of market segmentation is the impact it has on customer service. By dividing the customer base into workable sections and directing specifically designed products and services to those more discrete, 'individuar markets, information services professionals are able to include users' perceptions, expectations and identified needs in their planning. It is a happy situation in which all interested parties benefit, and the information services unit is recognized for providing products and services which bring discernible advantages to the organization and its various subunits.

Defining the market and selecting specific user groups

References Anthony, L. J. 'Information Management.' Handbook of Special and Information Work. London: Aslib, 1982.

Librarianship

Berry, John N., III. ' "Helping the Company Do Business:" Librarian as Information Executive.' Library Journal. July, 1990. The Arthur Young Manager's Handbook. New York: Crown, 1986. Monty, Vivienne. 'Why Don't You Get Your Priorities Straight?' The SpeciaList: The Newsletter of the Special Libraries Association. 16 (6), June, 1993Labovitz, Judy. Managing a Special Library.' Journal of Library 6 (3) Fall, 1985.

Administration.

Lele, Milind M. and Karmarkar, Uday S. 'Good Product Support is Smart Marketing.' Keeping Customers, ed. with an introduction by John J. Sviokla and Benson P. Shapiro. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School, 1983Peters, Tom. Thriving on Chaos. London: Macmillan, 1988.

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Chapter Six

Nurturing the culture: management and staff together

Quality service is based on one concept: every action in the enterprise succeeds or fails depending on the attitude of the front-line staff, the employees who are directly involved in the information transaction. Every time we deal with users (and it doesn't matter whether we call them 'users', 'clients', 'customers', staff', 'patrons', or any other name appropriate for our organization or community), we are providing these people with an opportunity to judge us. If our goal is quality service, excellence of service, as it were, then we are required to have front-line staff, the user's initial contact with our service, who are willing to provide that level of service. Managers of successful library and information services units recognize that quality staff provides quality service. Compromises at the front desk lead to compromises in service, and when that happens, the unit as a whole - and the people it is charged to serve - will suffer. William Davidow places the responsibility for quality service squarely on management's shoulders: Leaders of companies that produce outstanding service incessantly pronounce their beliefs and back up their words with actions, often dramatic ones that become corporate legends. Their goal is to nurture a service culture that will shape employer behavior more effectively than rules and regulations can. They make service everyone's business and empower staff to make on-the-spot decisions in the customer's interest. (Davidow, p. 89)

Such thinking can - and should - be transferred to the information environment. The nurturing of a service culture, despite the costs in time, energy and funds, is well worth the effort, for it sends two messages to staff and users alike. In the first place, the establishment (and continued enhancement) of a service culture says to users that they are primary, that their needs are the raison d'être for the information service. Second, the information services staff comes to believe (and reacts accordingly) that its efforts are important to the organization or the community. Staff comes to recognize that they are valued by their employers and by their users, and positive benefits to the service and to the user community follow naturally. Staff morale, especially morale at the user's initial interaction with the information service, does much more than any other

Nurturing

the culture: management

and staff

together

element of the information interaction to influence the user's perception of the service, and of those responsible for providing it. So in any attempt to improve or enhance customer service in the information environment, attention must be paid to the front-line staff, and management, from senior management in the organization to the direct supervisors of the staff, must make a commitment to improving the service. Such an activity is easier said than done, for there are barriers to establishing formal customer service programs, and these barriers must be successfully overcome if such programs are to be put in place. For one thing, customer service improvement programs, like all other quality programs, require a long-term commitment, as long as three to five years in some cases, before measurable results are achieved. Similarly, it must be recognized that the initiation, design, and early implementation of any formal customer service improvement program will be a major time commitment in the daily worklife of the unit, as much as 20-30 percent of staff time during the beginning stages of the project, leading later to as much as 10 percent (and certainly no less than 5 percent) of staff time once the program is operational. Finally, staff attitudes are critical, and if staff interprets the initiation of a customer service improvement program as criticism or some sort of disciplinary effort, the essential teamwork component in the process will be lost. Yet all three of these barriers are surmountable and in fact give way before the support and enthusiasm of senior management; when senior management is committed to the success of a customer service program, and that commitment is conveyed to all staff in the organization or community, the success of the program is assured. The customer service improvement process begins when there are identifiable problems in the delivery of products and services in a library, information center, records department, computer services department, corporate archives, or any other section of the organization or community which has direct interaction with its users or customers. It doesn't matter whether the users are external 'patrons' who come into the local library to research a personal project or staff researchers for whom the computer services department supplies hardware, software, and the appropriate connectivity, the techniques are the same. When it is determined that the 'customers' are not getting the level of service' they have been led to expect from the 'provider' of the service, conflict arises. How do you know? At the risk of stating the obvious, management looks to a primary source: complaints about the service. When enough complaints make their way to senior management in the organization of which the information enterprise is a part, a demand for action is heard, and the cry is usually directed to the manager or supervisor of the information unit responsible. In all likelihood, the direct supervisors and management in the information unit knew there were complaints, knew that they could be troublesome, but just never 'got around' to doing anything about them. With the desire (or requirement) to deal with the complaints, the need for a customer service improvement program is born, and it is at this point that the entire staff of the information unit is brought into the process. Not later, and

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Customer Service in the Information Environment

not as 'punishment' because the complaints got to upper management before they got to those directly responsible, but at the very point at which the need for the program has been established is the time to involve all staff. And to be fair, not all customer service improvement programs are put in place as a result of too many' complaints. Proactive managers of successful information units are always aware of the opportunities for less-than-excellent quality in the delivery of information products and services, and they do their best to see that the environment in which they and their staffs work is an environment receptive to continuous improvement in the area of customer service. For these managers, when there are no discernible problems, it is necessary to ask not just, 'How good is the service we provide?' but 'How good can our service be?' In either case, whether in reaction to a complaint situation or as a proactive approach to better overall delivery of services and products, the smart information services manager brings the staff in at this point to work with him, as a team, to develop a program that will prevent problems in customer service. It is at this point, of course, that the concept of service from the user's or the customer's point of view is brought into the discussion, for it is this concept which must guide management and staff alike as they embark on the customer service improvement program. The point is, information services managers, senior management, and every staff member who is involved in organization and delivery of information must buy into and enthusiastically support the concept that the service is for the users. When this concept is agreed upon by all parties involved in information services, the initiation, design, and implementation of a customer service improvement program becomes far less problematic that it would be otherwise. There are specific guidelines for the successful organizing of such a program, and the first step, if the activity was not initiated with senior management, is for the library or information services manager to go to senior management and enroll people at that level to support and embrace the idea. It isn't hard to do, although many managers with responsibility for an information unit are reluctant to take this step. Whether the reluctance is based more on the individual personalities of information services managers, or upon some nebulous fear' that there won't be an appropriate response, the reticence is unfounded. In today's management culture, quality management is not just the current popular buzzword (as is so often wrongly asserted by people who don't know any better), it is the very essence of success in the management of any enterprise. And the primary element of quality management (or a primary element, depending on who is being quoted) is a concentration on customer service. When a library manager or the head of a department of computer services approaches senior management to talk about customer service, he won't be turned away. And at that point, if he's smart, the information services manager will not only get support for moving forward with a formal customer service improvement program, he will use his negotiating skills and his understanding of the corporate culture to get senior management to endorse the program as well. With such a

Nurturing

the culture: management

and staff together

commitment in hand, he can return to his staff with confidence that his and their work in customer service will succeed. Having secured the endorsement of senior management, the next step in establishing a formal customer service program is a meeting of all staff, at which the subject of customer service is discussed as informally and as openly as possible. Staff will raise such issues as why the program is necessary, or how much time will be involved, or whether this one or that one should be participating. At this point, it is best to let the staff take over. The manager of the library or information service should appoint someone, perhaps his assistant, or another employee in a para- or quasi-managerial position, to be the temporary chair' of a study group, and, after having provided the group with general guidelines, steps aside. The program then becomes a staff program, with the involvement of all staff, and every member of the staff begins to assume 'ownership' of some part of the activity, a direction which Davidow recommends in a concept he refers to as 'service by design,' wherein frontline service workers are given a voice in the design of the program from the beginning (Davidow, p. 135). Obviously, at this point the mechanics of the exercise take over (as described in Chapter 10). Staff will find itself breaking up into various working groups, teams, and a variety of other organizational units, and much energy and effort will go into looking for prototypes, in seeking help in designing the program (e.g. working with external expertise and calling in a consultant, for example, or using whatever inhouse customer service expertise is available, depending on the size of the company or community involved), and in setting up the various teams, with varying degrees of involvement of management and staff in the process. But during all of this activity (while regular information services continue to be offered, of course), the staff will develop an almost imperceptible allegiance to the concept of customer service improvement. As the specifics of the program are worked out, more and more staff will originate ideas and directions to be followed. And what is happening is the real reward: a serviceoriented culture is being created. Such an activity requires a major shift in managerial thinking, both at the department level (that is, by the manager of the library or information services unit that wants to improve its customer service efforts) and with senior management. For example, in most organizations, the people at the front-line are not exactly encouraged to be open about problems, complaints, inadequacies in service and such subjects, yet in most organizations, they are the very people who come into contact with the users when these situations arise. By having these employees participate in the organization of a formal customer service program, their expertise is recognized and acknowledged. However, the acknowledgement cannot be limited to mere pieties, and management, now, must begin to pay extraordinary attention to these employees. Often the lowest paid employees in the department, these people must be rewarded, they must be given the opportunity to attend useful training (organized either inhouse or externally, depending on what is available or can be created), and they must be encouraged to participate in whatever incentive programs they and management

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can come up with. These employees must learn to recognize the value of quality customer service, and management must begin to think of them in terms of their contribution to the process. And in some cases, this new attitude on the part of management will mean looking carefully at job descriptions, especially when openings come up in the front-line staff, for new employees, when they're chosen, must be people who are drawn to and interested in treating users well. New employees, as well as those already employed in the organization when the formal customer services improvement program is initiated, will learn to look at the services and products their information unit is offering and see them for their benefits to the users. Staff considerations What is needed, in order to make a customer service program work for a library or other information services unit, is a new point of view from management about the role of the information employee, particularly the front-line employee. The people who are working as the first contact point with the customer are the information unit's most important asset, and the manager of the unit must never forget that. Which means, of course, that in hiring for those positions management must seek certain qualities and attributes in job candidates, and these must be rewarded by management. In order to find the best people who will take seriously their responsibility for building strong relationships with information customers, three steps have been suggested for the hiring process. The manager of the information services unit will want to examine each of these to determine how they can be incorporated into the search for the best individual for the position he or she is attempting to fill (Goldzimer, pp. 102-6). 1

Analyze the job. According to Goldzimer, most human resources professionals concentrate on the personal and professional characteristics needed for the position. In fact, what is needed is a concentration on what the person in that job is supposed to accomplish.' The impact that the employee will have on the information user, the way the information interaction will be handled, and whether or not the candidate for the job is capable of providing the excellence of service required for the position must all be considered in the interview process.

2

Ask the customers. When the job is being analyzed, the information services manager should think about what the customers are looking for, what they want to see or experience when they come into or call the information center with a request for information. The best way to find out, of course, is simply to ask a group of customers, people who use the facility with some frequency. They will be happy (and probably flattered) to have been asked for their opinions, and their input will provide a useful guideline once the interview process begins.

3

Identify your hiring 'values.' Each manager has a different set of qualities he or she seeks in the people who work in the department. For some,

Nurturing

the culture: management

and staff together

loyalty to the organization is important, for the employees (particularly the front-line employees in an information setting) will perform better if they think of themselves as stakeholders in the operations of the information services unit. Other managers seek initiative, creativity, innovative thinking, and similar qualities which ensure that the employee will perform to the level of service the manager is striving for. Whatever the individual traits are, they must b e considered as the interview process for front-line staff begins. In the information environment, front-line p e o p l e are often chosen for reasons other than their skills in providing quality customer service. The records management department may, for example, have an opening for a staff m e m b e r w h o will handle telephone requests for information. When not responding to telephone requests, that employee enter records into the automated system, part of the general input process. A candidate for the position with g o o d computer skills would naturally b e a good candidate, but if the records management supervisor chose that employee for those skills, without determining the candidate's customer service skills, it would not be long before telephone service would suffer. Similarly, many a special library manager has regretted a decision to hire an excellent online searcher for a job that included s o m e reference desk duty, without analyzing whether or not that candidate had an appropriate attitude for working with information customers w h o may or may not have a clear understanding of what they are seeking. So there are special qualities to look for in employees w h o are going to be the front-line staff in the information services unit. The following characteristics, adapted from a list provided by the Customer Service Institute (Harps, p. 5), can certainly guide information services managers as they seek to determine the kinds of p e o p l e they need for their operation. If a front-line employee is going to b e a good customer service representative for the library or information center, he or she: •

has above average intelligence;

•

has c o m m o n sense, is able to think quickly, and is g o o d at decisionmaking;

•

is flexible, and is able to deal with confusion;

•

can handle the unexpected well, and can juggle several tasks simultaneously;

•

is a good listener, and p r o b e s for additional information;

•

has g o o d oral and written communications skills;

•

expresses thoughts clearly and logically;

•

is quick to gain rapport with different kinds of people, that is, likes working with people;

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•

maintains a professional demeanor;

•

plans and schedules time efficiently;

•

spots his or her own errors quickly;

•

copies information with a minimum of errors;

•

can use the appropriate machinery, information tools, etc.

Should the new employee be a super salesman, be an entrepreneur for the information services operation? No, but many of the same skills and attitudes necessary for successful salesmanship can be adapted in the information services environment. In one of the publications of the American Management Association, for example, a 'superior' salesperson was defined. While the obvious differences between salesmanship and service preclude an exact 'match' in the AMA's definition, there are certain correlations that can work if we substitute wording from information services for some of the 'sales' terminology. For example, the definition says that the superior 'service representative' (as the employee might be called) has 'a penetrating knowledge of the product, [and] a genius for looking at product features and seeing consumer benefits. Sales is the center ring, the company's future in a briefcase, face to face with the buyer' (American Management Association, p. 53). If we adapt this concept to a library/ information service situation, changing the 'sales' phraseology to a 'service' one, we come up with a viable description for the superior front-line employee in the library or information services unit. This person has a 'penetrating knowledge' of information in the specific environment in which he or she is employed, can look at the specific products and services offered by the information unit from the point of view of the people who use them, and understands that excellence of service for the customers - in face-to-face interactions with the customers is the specific element upon which the very future of the organization, especially the information unit of the organization, is based. It is, indeed, a tall order, but for an information services unit to supply the highest quality of service it can provide, such employees are required. Management responsibilities Whatever the type of organization, the information services staff is going to be only as good as management wants it to be. A conscious decision will be made about compensation, motivation, and training for front-line people, and in most cases the decision will be based solely on economic considerations. The higher salaries will go to the information managers, the specialists and even, in many information services units, the administrative staff, and what is 'left over' is allocated for the front-line staff, the very people who control, in every sense of the word, the customer service interaction. Unfortunately, this vicious cycle, which has been characterized as the cycle of failure in services', is not about to let up. Traditional management continues to fill its customer contact positions with people 'who are willing, at least

Nurturing the culture: management and staff together

temporarily, to work for wages marginally above statutory minimums'. The situation is not quite so dire in information services, but even there, the practice of putting the least paid, the least motivated and the least experienced staff into direct contact with the users is common. What happens? This cycle produces indifferent attitudes toward customers and poor service, which translate into poor perceptions of service by the customer. .. . Customer dissatisfaction fuels further decreases in employee satisfaction, thus encouraging turnover. High turnover further deteriorates service, particularly where the continuity of the customer-servicer relationship is important. With the departure of each front-line employee comes the arrival of another who, at best, is just as inept. Or in tight labor markets, the customer is often greeted by a help wanted sign and an empty server position. (Schlesinger and Heskett, pp. 17) Like many management authorities, Davidow considers this a harmful practice and recognizes that successful organizations pay attention to front-line staff: To customers, front-line workers embody service. Yet service workers often are the pariahs of corporate society, the lowest in the pecking order. Not so at companies that lead in customer service. They pay extraordinary attention to their employees . . . they take pains to hire people whose personalities predispose them to serve customers well. These companies minimize turnover, the bane of good service, with an impressive set of motivational and training programs. (Davidow, p. 109) In information services today, the tendency is strongly toward rewarding' the employees at the other end of the operation, those with the professional training, the experience, etc. In fact, for the information services department to function as a unified customer service unit, management must make special efforts to reward both sets of employees, to encourage those w h o are not so educated or experienced to find fulfillment in their work as well. Besides the usual rewards of work, as conveyed by the organization at large (that is, salary, vacation, benefits, and the like), management in the information services unit must offer the same kinds of rewards it offers to professional employees to its front-line staff. Meg Paul has written that the management of quality service can be traced to the quality of the staff, and, like Davidow and others, assigns to management the responsibility for the development of quality staff: The difference between a mediocre service, a good service and an outstanding service is the attitude and commitment of the staff. Therefore there needs to be a client-oriented management structure that the staff believe in, understand, and wish to be part of. The management must be visible and approachable; have clearly stated objectives; have agreed budgets; expect a high standard of work; and an ability to deal effectively with, and to expect, the unexpected. The staff must have respect for the management. But this is not enough; the management must demonstate a care for the staff. This is not easy and it requires a great deal of continuous work at management level. The following points may be of help: 1

Have a job description for each position and a standard procedure for staff appointments.

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2

Place stress on promotion from within.

3

Have a perceived career structure to keep staff motivated.

4

Have in-house training programmes, both as a tool for increased efficiency and as a means of instilling the library's values into the staff.

5

Provide comfortable, economically designed work areas.

6

Make the work environment enjoyable.

7

Inform your staff in advance about changes that will affect their jobs.

8

Give serious consideration to staff suggestions for changes in routines and procedures.

9

Delegate - give people the freedom to get their job done with clear lines of responsibility.

10

Have informal meetings to talk about achievements and problems. You cannot expect staff who have little information to take much responsibility.

11

Show genuine respect for the individual staff members.

12

Have back-up procedures for staff confronted with rude and/or difficult clients.

In summation, if a library takes care of its staff the staff will take care of the library. (Paul, p. 65)

Certainly training is one of the best examples of a benefit of employment which should be extended to front-line staff, and the fast-growing movement to arrange programs for paraprofessional staff (even, to the extent of organizing separate professional' associations in some cases) in libraries and other information services organizations provides good opportunities for managers to see that their non-professional employees are as encouraged to 'grow' on the job as their more professional colleagues. Such encouragement does much good for the customer service practices in an information services environment, and they relate directly to the three 'principles of leadership' which Davidow recommends for any organization attempting to establish a responsible service relationship with its clients (Davidow, p. 97). First, management in these organizations does what it can to 'foster a service-oriented culture,' and certainly by engaging the front-line staff in motivational and training programs, those people are encouraged to make a commitment to the unit and its services. At the same time, much of the training will specifically address customer service goals, and staff will be made aware that the activity will, in fact, produce a better interaction with the information customer. A typical situation might be an exercise in which staff attempt to determine one another's 'CI (as in 'Customer Interest') Quotient,' with a facilitator, who can be another staff member, asking such questions as: 1

When a customer approaches the desk, do I stop what I'm doing and focus on preparing myself for the upcoming interaction with that customer?

Nurturing the culture: management and staff together

2

Do I greet each new customer as enthusiastically as I do my friends?

3

Do I listen carefully to how customers answer my questions?

4

Do I always act when I hear 'interest' signals?

5

Do I set a goal of giving extra information each day?

6

Do I control the interaction the way I want to?

7

Do I really care about each interaction?

The goal of the exercise, of course, is to raise each employee's awareness about how he or she approaches the information interaction, but the secondary benefit is that each employee has an opportunity to 'pull back,' as it were, and think about the service from the customer's point of view. Davidow's second principle is that management must make customer service 'everybody's business', to give front-line staff 'a voice' in the design of the customer service program. Certainly inviting staff to participate in the organization of a formal customer service program is important and, as is discussed in another chapter, returns handsome benefits to the information services or department in terms of building mutual respect and rapport between various staff groups in the information services unit. Additionally, though, staff can provide tangible solutions to what can otherwise be very complicated problems. For example, in asking front-line staff what they need to be better customer services representatives, management gives the staff the opportunity to participate in dealing with the very issues that determine whether the unit is well-run or not, from a customer service perspective. Asking information staff what they could do differently, asking them what they see users looking for that they are not getting, or what equipment, products or services would make them better at working with the customers are all opportunities for input that provides good direction for the information services department or unit. Declaring war' on bureaucracy is Davidow's third principle of leadership, and information services management can take a proactive position with its own staff by empowering front-line people to make on-the-spot decisions that result in better customer service interaction. With good training and operating in a milieu of encouragement and confidence, staff can learn what is expected of them, what they can permit (or do) without seriously endangering the structure of the information unit in which they are employed. Every enterprise has to operate under certain rules and regulations, for the common good of all who utilize the facility, but certainly some rules can be 'stretched' if the user has a legitimate need and no other users are seriously inconvenienced. The obvious example, of course, is the 'rule' that specifies which books may or may not be taken from a library. Certainly, all libraries forbid users to take reference books away, for the simple reason that when the book is off the shelf, it is unavailable to anyone else who might need to see it at the same time it is out of the library. On the other hand, in a small library in an organization which has a clearly defined (and limited number) of users, all of whom are known to

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the library staff, the user who requests permission to take a directory to his office to work with for a few hours, instead of working in the library, can certainly be accommodated. The directory won't be far away, it can be retrieved for another user in a short time, and the person using the directory can do so under the circumstances he has chosen, instead of working with the directory in the library, which he does not choose to do. No real harm is done, and in terms of customer service, the user is made to feel that his information need is important. In the final analysis, it is a management responsibility to see that customer service is built into the general operational structure for a library or information service. Theoretically, of course, such customer service' concepts should be operating in every department of the parent organization or community, regardless of who the 'customers' are or who the people in the various other departments are 'servicing.' But with library and information services, there is no choice. The underestimated value of information products and services, and the troubles of dealing with an uninformed and relatively unsophisticated society as far as information products and services are concerned, leave the manager of an information unit with no opportunity for blaming' someone else when the information service is not as good as it should be. A formal customer service program must be built into the scheme of things, and all staff, including especially front-line staff, must be part of the process. It is up to management to set the tone, to set the style, to set the pace, to get it done. When management is willing to lead the way, to nurture a quality service culture, quality service will follow.

References American Management Association. Close to the Customer: An American Management Association Research Report on Consumer Affairs. NY: AMA, 1987. Davidow, William H. Total Customer Service: The Ultimate Weapon. New York: Harper, 1989. Goldzimer, Linda Silverman. 'I'm First': Your Customer's Message to You. New York: Berkeley Books, 1989. Harps, Leslie [Executive Director, Customer Service Institute, Silver Spring, MD], 'Using Customer Service to Keep Subscribers', a presentation to the Newsletter Publishers Association, Washington, DC, January 21, 1992. Paul, Meg. 'Improving Service Provision.' The Australian Library Journal, February, 1990, p. 65. Schlesinger, Leonard A. and Heskett, James L. 'Breaking the Cycle of Failure in Services.' Sloan Management Review. Spring, 1991.

Chapter Seven

Whose information is it anyway? Involving users in the process

While it is well and good to give attention to the role of management and the efforts of the information services professionals in the delivery of information, it is also appropriate to focus on the philosophical issue of user input into the information process, of how users influence information delivery. If we have established that management must lead the way, by nurturing a customer service culture' in the information services environment and by empowering the information staff to offer appropriate information products and services, we must also, at the risk of stating the obvious, recognize that the customers themselves are major stakeholders in the management of information. Information managers would not be there if it weren't for the people who use the information they manage. The seeking of information is a three-part activity, and it is the information professional who provides the link between management (both organizational and information services management) and the end user of the information. The role of the information services professional as connector - putting people and things together to achieve a goal - and as catalyst - being a change agent to make things happen that would not have happened otherwise - is a role that information workers, whether they be librarians, records managers, archivists, information vendors or any of the other myriad groups that participate in information delivery, embrace with considerable enthusiasm if they are interested in doing the best job they can do for their users. Much of what is being described here has already been described for the business community in Tom Peters' work, and it seems appropriate to relate some of his thoughts and ideas to information services as we look at the role of the customer in information management. For example, related to the idea of the information services practitioner as 'connector' mentioned above, Tom Peters takes a look at the sharing of information, an activity with which librarians and other information services professionals are already expert: The 'insiderization' of outsiders and the 'informating' of all employees. There's no option! . . . Sharing information on a virtual real-time basis and encouraging, via the likes of relational databases and expert systems, access to information in friendly forms that are helpful to many different users are essential. Functional barriers are effectively

Customer Service in the Information

Environment

penetrated only when information about what's going on in other functions is made instantly available to people throughout the organization . . . (Peters, p. 121)

All of us agree, of course, that organizational structures are changing, and information services units in those organizations are changing as well. There are obvious areas wherein library and information services units can make special' contributions to the change, for according to Peters, the changing nature of the 'organizational' relationship includes: 1

demonstrating trust ([that is,] a willingness to share virtually everything with everybody, inside and out);

2

creating online databases that can be used across functional boundaries (to the extent that old functions will even exist anymore);

3

installing an 'e-mail ethos', where informal communication across remaining levels and functions becomes normal;

4

hooking into online databases and electronic bulletin boards external to the firm; and

5

using electronic data interchange (EDI) extensively to routinize and automate transactions with 'outsiders'. . .

Such changes in the handling of information requires expertise on staff, of course, and the experts are right there, the information professionals who not only organize and manage information for their own benefit and that of their defined user groups, but who also are prepared to serve as experienced advisors for those who use information but do not necessarily come to a library or other information services unit for that information. This group is made up primarily of end users, the information consumers who have their own collections of books and reports in their homes or offices, who have their own passwords and do their own literature searches, and who think of themselves as information literate. They are, of course, and for their ordinary, day-to-day information retrieval, the systems they have worked out for themselves serve them well. Yet each and every one of them has the need, at some point, for an advisor or consultant who can guide them through the more difficult terrain when they need expert help, and that is when they turn to the information services professionals in their organizations and communities for that guidance. This need for experts explains why the end-user controversy, raging for some years in the library and information services field, is for all intents and purposes a non-issue. For a long time, many librarians and others who perform literature searches disparaged the concept of end-user searching, because they felt, perhaps rightly so, that end-users could not perform these searches with enough proficiency for useful results. In fact, in the opinion of many who observed the debate, the fear was one of being forced to give up a visible and productive task, and one pleasurably performed by those who became expert at it, to wellmeaning amateurs. Two things have happened, and in both cases, the information services practitioners benefitted, not suffered, from the change to end-

Whose information

is it anyway? Involving

users in the process

user searching. First, while many potential end-users, delighted with the novelty of doing their own searching, charged into the scheme with considerable enthusiasm, they soon tired of the novelty. In some fields (notably legal and medical practices but in fact including just about every field in which end-user searching was applied), end-users were very anxious to give literature searches back to the searchers in the library or other information services unit. They never mastered the appropriate skills, they didn't want to take the time to learn more sophisticated search techniques (or they simply weren't interested), or, worse yet, they began to take a more disdainful view of searching, seeing it as an activity that someone else should do for them. So for those who could give it up (and of course some organizations don't permit such a luxury; searching is part of the job for many middle and senior management positions), back to the organization's library went the requests for literature searches. A second happy occurrence was the discovery by end-users that, in fact, their work could be made more productive, more sophisticated and, indeed, more pleasurable, if they recognized the expertise of the information services professionals in the organization and turned to them as their expert guides when they ran afoul of the complicated or esoteric, requirements for successful searches. In those organizations where such activities were supported, librarians and other information services practitioners took on new roles as teachers and advisors, much as Joseph A. Rosenthal describes in the statement quoted in a previous chapter: 'There will be different protocols for accessing data. . . librarians will be kept busy trying to translate those protocols into simpler language for the researcher and trying to train people to use, to access, these different spheres of information' (Riggs and Sabine, p. 7). While many of the end-users are, in fact, accessing internal and external information which is not under the control and authority of the organization or community's library or other information services unit, there is also a group of people who, although using that material and those services, may never physically appear at that location. These information customers have been described as fugitive' users, for they, too, make up part of the information services unit's constituency, even though the information staff may not know much about them (Duston, p. 7). The fugitive users access on-line databases and networked CDROM products at their workstations, and occasionally, in the quest for a piece of information that is not available via one of the internal or external sources accessible through their desktop computers, might wander into the organization's library or records department to get what they need after hours, when the information staff is not there. These people, too, can benefit from knowing that the information services staff is available to offer expert advice when needed, and while they may not approach the information staff for information needs (as they as users define such needs), they may very well turn to the information services unit for technical or structural advice in the pursuit of their information goals. Information experts lead to expert networks, which information services managers can assuredly assert are desired by their customers. The value of

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expert networks cannot be underestimated, as information customers begin to accept that the information they seek, while not necessarily available on site might, with the expenditure of very little effort or energy, be available through a contact or a 'connection' provided by the library or information services unit. For those who work as, or who advise, specialized librarians and information services professionals, expert networks have been a part of what they've been doing all along, for most information professionals all work together and invest much effort in 'keeping up' with what is going on in their subject field. A case in point is the great proliferation of library and information organizations and the great effort most information services professionals expend in belonging to and attending the meetings and conferences of these associations. These groups, made up of individuals, share resources willingly (whenever appropriate, of course; they do not share proprietary information) and are quite anxious to offer suggestions to a colleague when pursuing an information query. The benefits of expert networking in these associations comes directly back to the companies and organizations that permit their employees to participate. In fact, Rosabeth Moss Kanter has identified this type of activity as one of the advantages of employment for many professional workers. They recognize that reputation is 'a key resource in professional careers,' and they look for ways to make a name for themselves (Kanter, p. 92). By being active in their professional associations, information services practitioners not only become participants in expert networks that bring direct benefits to their employees, they are given the opportunity to find the very enhancement that they are seeking for their professional reputations. Part of the expert network picture, though, has to do with an ability to use the tools, to be comfortable with what is available to work with. In this context, another of Tom Peter's observations about the present state of business applies very specifically to work in any specialized library or information services unit: 'Telecommuting is becoming a way of life for millions of Americans and others. Micro-entrepreneurial specialties, located anywhere as long as there's a phone - fax, modem - connection within reach, are absorbing more and more of the ever-'smarter', ever more connected work force' (Peters, p. 119)· Of course specialized librarians and other information services professionals are already a very connected workforce, and as they and their organizations continue to experiment with newer and newer technology, the size of the information services facility is not going to be nearly as important as the quality of the materials and services that come out of the library. The connected' work force will provide better and better materials and services, simply by virtue of being connected, a major advantage in the delivery of information to the information unit's customers. An example comes from the aerospace industry in Australia, a relatively new industry in that country. When working in the Australian office of his company, an American corporate librarian was approached by an Australian special librarian who wondered if perhaps she was the only aerospace librarian in the country. She wanted to contact other aerospace librarians but she didn't know

Whose information

is it anyway? Involving

users in the process

how to go about it. The visiting librarian referred her to one of his professional associations, which offered a published directory of names, addresses, telephone numbers, fax numbers, and e-mail addresses of approximately 300 aerospace librarians worldwide. In doing so, he was able not only to put her in touch with colleagues who would - by joining her expert network - provide the means for her to provide better services for the organization which employs her, he was also able to provide the means for enhancing her professional reputation. A considerable amount of work has been done to determine what customers are looking for, and the findings of much of this work can be applied to information services management. Primarily, of course, in every case the customer comes to the information services unit to have a problem solved, and the resolution of that problem is going to determine how well - or how poorly that unit and its staff operates. When a customer requests information, regardless of how minor or insignificant the request might seem to an information staff member, to the user who has come to the information services unit for assistance, the problem is anything but trivial. In an important report on their study of service quality in the United States, a group of experts in the field identified the five 'principal dimensions' customers use for judging service (Berry et al., p. 29). Their findings are valuable for an understanding of what customers are looking for in information services: 1

'Tangibles. The appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials.' In the information environment, 'tangibles' can refer to such disparate items as the shelving of books, periodicals and other hard copy materials, the positioning of the information services staff for receiving enquiries from users, the packaging of a report, or the dress habits and demeanor of front-line staff. At a magazine publisher, a request from an editor to the editorial library for weather and demographic information for a proposed article about a faraway country could have produced a fax of one or two photocopied pages from standard reference works. When the editor received instead a handsome folder of information, including a couple of articles from magazines describing the place, together with a guidebook and a book by a former diplomat who had been stationed there, the tangibles' of the information interaction enabled the editor to make a decision based on a broader base of information. He himself might not have thought he needed so much information but with it in hand, he recognized that he was better informed than he would have been otherwise.

2

'Reliability. The ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.' For information customers, the willingness of information staff to be reliable, to do what they say they're going to do, is key to whether using the information services unit is a positive or a negative experience. Part of the picture, of course, is a willingness by the management of the information services unit to clearly state what can and what cannot be done in the department, since, as has been mentioned, many

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users will in all innocence expect far more products and services than the information unit is able to deliver. Having set the parameters, however, staff is obliged to do what it says it will do in providing the information products and services its customers need. The medical researcher who asks for 'all' citations on a given subject, without narrowing the list of search keywords, can play havoc with the staff in the hospital library. On the other hand, if after advising the researcher that a more limited search will be more useful, the searcher is obligated to provide the citations. Noting that the list is getting long is no excuse for terminating the search; if the list is too long, the searcher must advise the researcher and ask for guidance. Reliability also means that the information services unit recognizes where the trouble spots are and attempts to deal with them. In one large research organization, all incoming calls are handled through a voicemail system, in which the customer is provided with a menu of options. Orders for information products (bibliographies, videos, etc.) are also taken through the voicemail system, but no confirmation or status reports are sent out, so the user, after a certain period of time, begins to wonder if the order was ever received, much less acted on. The system might be reliable, from the information staff's point of view, but from the user's point of view, the awkwardness of not knowing what happened to the order, combined with the uncertainty of whether the order was received or not, leaves the customer questioning the reliability of the organization and its services. 3

Responsiveness. The willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service.' For the information customer, information that arrives after it is needed is no information at all. Every information user has a deadline; if the deadline is not mentioned, staff should ask for it. The user in a corporate finance library might suggest that the information she requested will be fine, 'when you get around to it,' but the librarian knows from long experience that the same user will be looking for the information just prior to an important presentation, which may be a day or a week away. At that time of the information request, the librarian must determine the deadline, and if one isn't offered, either continue the reference interview until he has some 'feel' for when the customer needs the information (in which case the librarian can set his own deadline) or, better yet, simply put the customer on the spot,' so to speak, until she clarifies her information need.

4

Assurance. The knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence.' In modern Western society, we have a tendency to think that the commitment to courtesy is slipping, that service employees don't care about how their customers react to them, but in fact visits to other countries, where courtesy in customer service is not emphasized, demonstrates that Westerners do very well. The

Whose information

is it anyway? Involving users in the process

difference is in the expectations: in Western society, customer contact employees are 'supposed' to be courteous and to convey trust and confidence. When these are denied to the customer, she is offended, sometimes to drastic effect. A user at one of the larger libraries, supported in large part by donations from the community, was unknown to the information services staff as a major donor. A prominent scholar who used the library frequently, she felt an obligation to 'give something back' to the organization which so significantly supported her work. However, the lack of courtesy in the staff, and repeated awkward encounters in which staff competence was brought into question, convinced her to cease giving, and the library lost an important source of funding. 5

'Empathy. The provision of caring, individualized attention to customers.' No information services unit serving a large group of users can expect to provide individualized attention to all members of that group but, in fact, if efforts are made in that direction and most users are treated as if the staff member cared about the information interaction, the 'tone' set in the unit will identify it as a department in which the personnel care about the people they serve. In a smaller information services unit, of course, there is no option. Either the staff will care about the users, and their success with the information provided, or the users will soon find other ways to get the information they need. In a records management department of a research institute, for example, when a customer seeks a laboratory notebook for a particular study and receives a polite query - Do you need anything else from that study, or will this do it?' - the customer knows that the staff member is interested and willing in helping her find all the information she needs for her particular project.

What customers don't want is an information barrier, and in many branches of information services, the providers of the information have set themselves us as what they call gatekeepers'. In fact, for many of these people, 'mediators', 'arbiters', or 'judges' would seem to be more accurate descriptors, for they see themselves, because they organize and store and retrieve the information, as authorities for determining how the information is used. This approach doesn't work any more, and in the companies and organizations that are moving ahead in providing excellence in customer service for their information users, new attitudes about the delivery of information are appearing. For example, in the branch office of a major multinational company, the information services manager had adopted this new approach to the work she and her staff do. She says she is tired' of the mystique' - and the baggage that goes along with it - of 'librarianship,' and she is tired of her staff being thought of as guardians, as gatekeepers, with some spurious 'vocation' to determine the validity of this or that particular request for information, to pass judgment on whether or not this particular request for information is a valid or proper use of her or her staff's time. She sees herself and her staff as just another department in the company, and she resents, she doesn't mind admitting, previous generations of librarians

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who saw themselves as the keepers of information, protectors, etc. This new generation of information managers wants to spread information around, get it out to as many people as want it, on their terms, just as Peters advocates. To her way of thinking, the more people who know about and can access the information the information professionals manage, the better those people are doing their job. According to Clay Carr, who devised his list for the business community, there are fifteen steps to customer satisfaction. The entire focus of Carr's list is the customer. If these are adapted to the information services situation, senior management, the manager of the information unit, and front-line staff can all reap benefits by thinking about, and applying, Carr's ideas to the delivery of information products and services: 1

From the point of view of your users (potential, actual, or former), your only excuse for being there is to satisfy them.

2

You don't provide information products or services or even benefits. You sell value - or you don't sell anything at all!

3

Users define value in their own terms. If you want to satisfy them, you have to look at information products and services through their eyes always!

4

If anything happens after the information transaction to prevent the user from getting at least the value he expected, he hasn't gotten the value he paid for - and the user knows it! In short, you've created a dissatisfied user.

5

Dissatisfied users are not problems; they're golden opportunities.

6

The really picky, demanding users are platinum opportunities. Keep satisfying them, and they'll keep coming back (and telling others) for life.

7

If you intend to deal successfully with dissatisfied users, focus on saving the user, not on saving the transaction.

8

Either user satisfaction and loyalty are primary, or something else is. No compromise is possible.

9

Your front-line people won't treat the users any better than you treat your front-line people.

10

When a user provides honest comments, he's doing you a favor - and that's how he looks at it. Give him a reason to do you the favor.

11

To satisfy an unhappy user, you must add extra value to make up for the value you promised but failed to provide in the first place.

12

Always treat a user as if he will remain a user. Never treat him as if this is the last time you'll see him.

Whose information is it anyway? Involving users in the process

13 Always provide a dissatisfied user with a positive reason for dealing with you again. 14 The whole process by which you create and deliver your information products or services must support the creation of user satisfaction and loyalty. 15

Every organization has customers - every one. The organizations that thrive and prosper and feel good about what they do are those that consistently satisfy their customers (Carr, pp. 254-5).

Are there, in fact, ways that information services organizations can work with their customers to determine how the unit can provide better service, if there are problems with the delivery of information products and services as now structured? Hutchison and Stolle list establishing the customer's viewpoint as one of the basic steps for managing customer service, and they recommend that three important aspects of a customer's view of service should be ascertained: 1

What additional elements of service are important to the customer? (e.g. what would he like to be getting that he lacks now?)

2 What is the economic significance to the customer of each element of service? 3 What is the customer's rating of the service levels of the information service unit's competitors? (Hutchison and Stolle, p. 98) If each of these aspects' is considered in light of the customer's information needs, and what the information services unit has to offer, the joint efforts of information services management, staff and the customers can result in a mutually beneficial service that meets customer needs. Without them, products and services will be provided, but they will not be the anticipative, proactive products and services that build strong relationships between information providers and their customers.

References Berry, Leonard L, Zeithaml, Valarie A. and Parasuraman, A. Five Imperatives for Improving Service Quality.' Sloan Management Review. Summer, 1990. Carr, Clay. Front-Line Customer Service: Fifteen Keys to Customer New York: John WUey, 1990

Satisfaction.

Duston, Beth. 'The Fugitive User.' The One-Person Library: A Newsletter for Librarians and Management. 10 (2) June, 1993. Hutchison, William M., Jr. and Stolle, John F. How to Manage Customer Service.' Harvard Business Review, November-December, 1968.

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Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. The New Management Work.' Harvard Business Review. November-December, 1989. Peters, Tom. Liberation Management. New York: Knopf, 1992. Riggs, Donald E. and Sabine, Gordon A. Libraries in the '90s: What the Leaders Expect. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1988.

Chapter Eight

The needs analysis, user survey and the information audit

However the information services unit is defined, whether it is a specialized library, a community information center, a patient records department, corporate archives or the computer services department in an established enterprise, the unit exists to meet a need. As a managerial component of the parent organization's structure, a commitment has been made within the organization's senior managerial framework to support information services as a discrete entity, a fact unfortunately lost on many information services professionals. Hampered by not having the full support (as they define 'support') of senior management for what they identify as their work in the organization, many information services managers complain that senior management doesn't seem to have a commitment to information services. In fact, as has been pointed out in many discussions about the value of the corporate library as a return on investment, and notably by Helen Manning in her presentation at a program on information as a strategy for economic growth (Manning, p. 2), the very existence of the library or other information services unit within the parent organization is, at the very least, a minimal expression on the part of senior management to the value of information services. By providing a library or other information services unit, as Manning described it (and many information services managers would agree), the employer has at least some investment in the allocation of labor, current needs vs. future needs, and an investment in human capital. For each unit or department which provides information, and as part of the organizational commitment to information services, a constituent user group exists. The recognition of that group of users and an understanding of its information needs is basic to the successful delivery of information products and services within the parent organization. Planning for information services requires, before anything else, a needs analysis, usually determined through a user survey or surveys, and an information audit. The two are much alike (and in fact some information services professionals regard the information audit as nothing more than a more elaborate user survey), but there are in fact striking differences between a needs analysis and an information audit. For one thing, the needs analysis does not necessarily require that a service be in place; an audit, as the term implies, is an examination, an accounting, if you will, of

Customer Service in the Information Environment

an undertaking already existing and, presumably, providing services in one form or another. A second distinction has to do with the depth of the survey; a needs analysis generally asks very simple questions, such as 'What do you need for your work?' and 'How do you find that information now?' A needs analysis can be developed using a written survey and, in many cases (if not most), does not require faceto-face meetings between staff developing the information service to provide usable information. An information audit, on the other hand, specifically seeks in-depth responses from those being interviewed and attempts to pull together, from a variety of both subjective and objective answers, a pattern or larger 'picture' which can be used for formulating appropriate information services. Finally, a needs analysis is primarily a reactive exercise; the information sought describes much of what already exists or is specifically required for the successful achievement of the mission of the identified users. An information audit, on the other hand, attempts a more proactive approach, seeking as much to elicit trends and concepts from potential users as to determine specific requirements for success in the performance of specific tasks. For this reason, many information services units do not, on their own, attempt the information audit, and in most organizations external consultants are called in to perform the audit, working with management. The needs analysis can, if properly designed, be performed by the information services staff as part of current work, and the results will still be usable. The time required for the successful design, implementation and presentation of results for an information audit is generally far too great for staff to undertake.

The needs analysis Why does the organization require an information services unit? Why does it need the specific unit being considered at the present time? The answers to these and other questions form the basis for the needs analysis, and the answers will serve their best purpose when the questions are developed and the responses organized in such a way as to point the information services unit in a customer-oriented direction. There is no purpose in designing an information services unit to satisfy the staff of the unit. That staff has information expertise, yes, and that expertise will be brought into play as the results of the needs analysis are organized and codified, but for the unit to be truly successful, it will begin with the information customer and the customer's needs. Thus the first step in the needs analysis is to determine what needs to be done, and who should be approached to provide information. Depending on the size of the organization, of course, the needs analysis will begin with a look around, to determine if any of the following situations, as identified by Christianson, King, and Ahrensfeld in their important book on special libraries, are in place:

The needs analysts, user survey and tbe information

audit

There is a lack of knowledge about, and control over, what information the organization has. The amount of potential information is great but there is a lack of knowledge about information sources and information technology. Information gathering is inefficient and incomplete. (Christianson, King, and Ahrensfeld, pp. 5-6)

To these can be added more prosaic but certainly equally troubling questions: Why is the purchasing department ordering individual subscriptions and memberships for large numbers of workers, and as a consequence processing multiple invoices when renewals come up? Why are duplicate (and triplicate and quadruplicate) requests for legal information about external participants in research programs sent out, resulting in embarrassing telephone calls for staff members? Why are some senior management personnel calling colleagues in other associations to seek standard and readily available cost-of-living information? Thus, in approaching a needs analysis, it is important to determine who in the organization is best qualified to do the work, that is, to design the survey and compile the results. Information services managers, experts at the organization of information, can come to the rescue, but to do so, they must be recognized for their expertise and authorized to carry out the needs analysis. In most cases, the various components of an information services effort is developed piecemeal, often without a strong commitment to overall organizational value, and the existence of a library, records management section or archives has probably come about simply because someone (perhaps professionally trained, perhaps not) has determined that that specific type of information or material needed to be organized. If this has happened, the staff in charge of this operation are a logical group for carrying out the needs analysis although, depending on the education and training of the people who work in the unit, their effectiveness may or may not result in a usable product. What usually happens is that a committee or task force is proposed, authorized by senior management to study the information needs of the organization, to come up with a user survey, and to make recommendations for future planning. The group, ideally consisting of at least one person from senior management, one staff member from whatever information units are already in place (specialized library, computer services, etc.), and two or three staff members from the more 'information-intensive' departments of the organization (research, marketing, corporate finance, etc.), will meet to determine how they can assess the information needs of the organization. The structure of the group will depend on the corporate culture in place within the organization; if the company is traditional and requires a more formal approach to such planning groups, the Information Needs Assessment Task Force (as it might be called) will be so organized, with one of the group chosen or appointed to be the chairperson. Structured meetings, complete with agendas, study documents and a secretary for taking minutes will be scheduled, and the work of the task force will be fully documented. On the other hand, a more 'free-form' corporate culture

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will permit a looser arrangement, without scheduled meetings and planning documents. The group will more than likely meet informally, come up with the questions it wants to ask the users or potential users in the organization, and distribute the questionnaire through the organization's usual distribution channels. The results will be the same, of course, for despite the style of the working group, the goal is to determine for the organization what its information needs are. The methodology chosen for the needs assessment will likewise vary, and while most organizations will implement some form of a user survey (see below) to determine their information needs, another technique, the focus group, is generally accepted as well. Karl Albrecht, for example, recommends focus group interviews with selected groups of customers for learning about them and what they are seeking in the service area (Albrecht, p. 162). The focus group approach has been successful in much of American business, despite the costs required for organizing and successfully carrying out focus group programs, and the American Management Association has found that, except for the use of toll-free telephone numbers for customer responses, the focus group approach is the highest rated method of staying close to the customer' (American Management Association, p. 21). The technique is not universally accepted, however, and in the academic library community, there is concern that data from focus groups cannot be easily generalized to the larger population,' a concern that is offset by using focus groups either as a complement to other studies or to obtain insights that can be tested and used in further work' (Widdows et al., pp. 352-9). Despite this limitation, focus groups can provide much information for information services managers as they attempt to determine what their users want in the way of information delivery. Since a focus group consists primarily of a discussion among a group of people (usually eight to ten, but sometimes fewer) and uses a facilitator to direct the conversation (usually with specific questions) and control the interactions among the members of the group, the variety of responses can be useful. In the marketing newsletter which Olson Associates produces, four possible applications for focus groups were identified for libraries and information services organizations (Olson Associates, 1 (6), p. 1, 4). Each of these is useful in needs analysis: Identification of new ideas Participating in a focus group seeking to determine information needs for a medical research firm, several young interns revealed that a substantial investment in CD-ROM products would yield a more assertive approach to literature searching on their part. While the organization's information services staff was willing to offer online searching, the interns, even when offered a password of their own, were reluctant to sign up to do their own searching and most searching was done by information services staff, an expensive and labor-intensive activity. In the focus group, it was revealed that the interns didn't mind searching, in fact enjoyed it with the CD-ROM products, but because they did not consider themselves skilled searchers, they were

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inhibited about spending too much money for online search costs. They preferred to search by engaging in a fairly relaxed electronic 'browsing' process, which usually yielded excellent results for their purposes, but they were not comfortable doing such 'browsing' online. They knew, though (and it came out in their focus group discussion) that once they had the CD-ROM versions of the same databases when they were available, they would be able to search as much as they liked, and as long as they liked. Pre-quantitative market research tool In a large manufacturing plant, the majority of the employees did not take advantage of information products and services that were available for their use through the corporate health services department. Before sending out a written questionnaire to all employees asking why they were not picking up the brochures available from the health office, the director of the department initiated several focus group discussions about the department's information efforts. The discussions revealed that the employees were not interested in picking up pamphlets, brochures and the like, but that they would be willing to borrow videos or attend awareness-raising sessions. The tone of the focus group discussions convinced management that the questionnaire, if it was to be useful, would be simple and written in a language that encouraged participation. It would include educational videos and group meetings as information options, and the employers would be encouraged to choose which products were of most interest to them. Gathering quick impressions Thanks to an unexpected gift from a benefactor, a research institute located near a university campus found itself with the opportunity to move its 35mm slide collection to a space off site. The move would involve some 45,000 slides relating to the institute's research, both past and present. A rent-free space had become available several miles away, and if the slide collection could be moved, more laboratory and office space would be available at the institute. The decision was required in just a few weeks time, so the director of the slide library called together a focus group to discuss the issue. A mail questionnaire to all staff would have been preferable, but there wasn't time for such a formal process, so the focus group seemed to be the way to go. As it turned out, the members of the group, while enthusiastically supporting the idea of the move so that everyone could have more space, found themselves, in their group discussions, thinking about the people who weren't there. They began to analyze how this person or that person would be affected by the proposed move, and the conclusion was a recommendation to keep the slide collection where it is. Long-term input Due to personnel changes in senior management and a number of unplanned emergencies, a membership organization of some 15,000 members found itself required to organize, plan and put into operation a totally new automation system. There were plenty of experts among the members of the organization who could have provided input about some of the specific services

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needed for the new system, but time constraints prevented sending out surveys or polling the membership about specific details. The new management knew in general terms what was required, so a focus group of experienced members was put together, called to the organization's headquarters for several days of intensive discussion, and invited to advise staff about the project. The group continued to meet as the design and installation programs were being implemented, and provided enough information for staff to feel confident about reflecting membership wishes in its programs. Using this kind of focus group, which Olson labels an 'expert panel,' the organization was able to acquire, install and implement a state-of-the-art system without committing the time, expense, and other resources necessary for polling the entire membership. There are three reasons, according to the AMA report, why focus groups are so useful in determining user needs, and in each of the examples given here, it can be seen that these characteristics of the focus groups explain why they worked so well in these situations: they are usually open-ended, participants can express their views freely, and, with the assistance of a skillful moderator, a wealth of information can be extracted during the interview (American Management Association, p. 21). In all of the examples above, the needs of the users of the respective information services units were given full consideration, and the conclusions were beneficial to all users affected. The user survey Generally designed to be distributed in hard copy or via electronic mail, the user survey is created to elicit comments about needs and expectations from users and potential users. A user survey is just what the name implies, a survey of users, and its purpose is to enable those responsible for the planning and delivery of information services and products to have quantifiable data about the services. Although designed for written responses, the questions developed for a user survey can, of course, be applied to the focus group interview, but in that situation, as can be inferred from the examples above, the discussion will generally veer off into a more in-depth conversation about one or another of the questions in the survey, and the remainder of the questions will be unfortunately lost or postponed for discussion later. There are a variety of ways to go about designing user surveys, but for library and information services organizations, standard procedures work best. Whether put together by a task force or initiated by information management staff, the first stage of the work is to agree on what the objectives of the survey are to be. Hutchison and Stolle, writing for the business community, proposed a sevenpoint objective which provided management with the answers to a group of specific questions. The following, adapted for the information services environment from the Hutchison and Stolle model, should be useful (Hutchison and Stolle, p. 103):

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1 What actual services are being provided by the information services unit and its competitors? After the survey, will senior management be able to determine whether it is more cost effective to offer information services on site, or obtain them from an external source? 2

How important are competitive differences to users of the information services? Do users care whether information services are available on site, or would they just as easily obtain the information elsewhere?

3

How do information services and users appraisals of those services vary with distance from the information services unit?

4

What elements other than information servicers affect the organization's successful achievement of its mission? What is the organizational relationship between the information services unit and other departments?

5 How does the information services unit compare with any competitors in respect to these other elements? In organizations supported by competitive information services units, what is the relationship between the information services unit and the organization? 6

Within the information services unit, how important is consistency of service relative to the service level itself? Does it matter to information services staff how well the services are provided?

7

What dollar value do users of the information services unit place on service time and other service elements? What is the return on investment for having the information services unit as part of the organization?

Designing the survey instrument itself is usually a fairly direct process. According to Olson Associates, both open-ended and close-ended questions will be asked (Olson Associates, 4 (2), pp. 1, 3-4). For ease in compiling the data, however, most questions will be close-ended but the format should never be chosen for this reason. Indeed, the information services unit might very well be seeking suggestions, for example, about what new services should be offered, and in such a case, only open-ended questions will yield information that can be useful. Olson Associates also recommend, for ease in tabulation, that close-ended questions be of only three types: those which ask for a single response from a list of possible responses, those that allow multiple responses, and those that rely on a rating scale. As marketing experts specializing in library and information services, Olson Associates devised guidelines which work well to ease the respondents through the questionnaire, and the guidelines are reprinted here with permission: 1. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). This blunt reminder tells it like it should be. Don't write complicated questions. Survey questions should be easy to understand. The instructions should also be easy to follow and they should tell people how to indicate their responses. 2 Keep and and or out of the questions.

If a question uses either of these two

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conjunctions, you won't be able to determine to which part of the question the person was responding. For instance, 'Do you use the library for reading and research?' Break such double questions into single questions so you'll be able to utilize the resulting data. 3. Always construct positive questions. Negatives are very difficult for people to decipher. Questions such as 'Do you never use the library for research?' will yield fewer accurate responses than will the question 'Do you use the library for research?' 4. Recognize potentially embarrassing questions and keep them out of the survey. Questions that solicit responses that are based on what is socially acceptable behavior than on the truth are not going to add anything to your survey results. For instance, asking if people use the card catalog to locate books will yield the socially acceptable answer of yes - because since kindergarten we've been taught to look up books through the card catalog. 5. Ask questions that yield information that can't be gotten somewhere else. If you want to know how many people finished high school, ask the personnel department. Use your survey to collect unique information that will contribute to research objectives. 6. Refrain from asking a question just because you are interested in what the response will be. If the question doesn't contribute to an objective, then drop it. When people can determine a survey's purpose, they are more apt to respond. Random questions diminish a survey's respectability, and the result can be a lower response rate. 7. Remove all library [or other information services] jargon from the survey questions. "While you may understand what 'reference service' is, many people do not. In fact, you may want to conduct preliminary research to learn the terminology being used by the targeted survey group. How does this group commonly refer to the information service? Do they recognize what an 'SDI service' is, or would a 'computerized tracking alert service' be a better description to use in your question? 8. If you must ask questions whose answers rely on memory, keep the timeframe to the recent past. Do you remember what you ate for dinner three weeks ago? Probably not. And so it follows that most people will not be able to recall the number of times they have used the library during the last six months. 9. Be aware that not all respondents may qualify to answer certain questions. Yet many people will try to answer questions even though they don't qualify. The solution is to create filter questions that separate respondents into groups; those who qualify to respond, and those who should be directed to skip ahead to the next applicable question. (Olson Associates, 4 (2), pp. 1, 3-4)

In her work with specialized libraries in high technology companies, Beth Duston, President of Information Strategists of Manchester, NH, has a standard list of questions she sends to users, non-users and potential users as she attempts to identify their information needs. The list, included here with permission, is a good example of the type of questionnaire respondents are comfortable with. Duston begins with two open-ended questions ('What is your title?' and 'What is the nature of your work?') and then proceeds to a mixture of open-ended and close-ended questions: When was the last time you needed some specific item of information to help solve a problem in your work for the company? today

The needs analysis, user survey and the information

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yesterday in the past week What was the information that you needed? Please be as complete as possible. Was the first source you consulted to find the information a book or other document? another person? have not attempted to find the information? Please identify, as completely as possible, the book or document that you first consulted. Where did you find this document? in your personal collection in a departmental or office collection in the company library in some other place - name: What did this source provide: a complete answer to your question a partial answer no answer If you checked a partial answer or no answer, did you seek the information from a second source? What services do you use in the library? Are you satisfied with the service that you receive? If not, where have you received better service? Is it easy to locate the items that you need? On the shelf In the catalog How often do you find the information that you are seeking? always usually sometimes never Is the collection complete enough for your needs? What else would you like to see in the library? Are your reference questions answered completely? accurately? Do you feel comfortable with the new technologies in the library? Are your documents retrieved in a timely manner? Do you require information services during hours when the library is closed? Is the location of the library convenient for you to use? Are there internal records that you would like to have easy access to? What are they? Can you anticipate any changes in your future information needs? (Duston)

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The information audit As mentioned earlier, the information audit is not the same as a needs analysis, although it is commonly accepted that elements of the one will be found in the other, and vice versa. Further complicating the picture is the use of the term to describe an information resources audit, which is a quite different thing. Feona Hamilton has written a fine essay which describes this latter process, to which the reader is referred for further information on how to perform an audit of information resources (Hamilton, pp. 75-96). In fact, however, the information audit as generally used in information services management today combines both an examination of services and an examination of resources. In the customer service context, the information audit has been defined as a systematic method of exploring and analyzing where a library's various publics are going strategically, and of determining the challenges and obstacles facing those publics' (LaRosa, p. 7). Another definition challenges library and information services professionals to use standard financial audit techniques in order to understand and improve the delivery of services to your customers'. The techniques recommended include 'process-flow analysis, verification of procedures, validation of specific reported transactions, identification of fail points, interviews with employees, interviews or surveys with customers, risk analysis, and identification and review of control mechanisms' (Congram and Hayes, p. 39). With the emphasis on 'various publics' and improved delivery, the obvious emphasis of both of these definitions is on the customer, a critical concept in the design of a customer service program within the information services environment. Elizabeth Orna makes the same point, only she is careful to ensure that information, as she defines it, includes all information affecting the organization. Her definition of information is worth noting, for she proposes that information is anything that people need to know and apply in their work, to achieve their, and the enterprise's, objectives' (Orna, p. 46). Orna's list of 'items' (as she calls them) that can be considered information' includes a wide-ranging catalog, but in fact in studying the list, one can conclude that the organizing, storing, and dissemination of these 'items' fits precisely into the definition of a more broadbased information service concept that is the very thesis of this book. Orna's list? The 'items' follow: customer records information from and about suppliers information about operating budgets financial results R&D results - from its [the enterprise's] own operations, and from outside competitor information . . . the information which the enterprise itself produces, for the world outside and for the internal audience of its own staff information from and about its 'constituency', its market, its 'target audience', or its clients

The needs analysis,

information information information information

about about about about

user survey and the information

audit

its parent enterprise . . . subject areas of importance to i t . . . the monitoring of its production processes the environment in which it operates . . . (Orna, p. 46)

What is happening, of course, is that the 'customers' for 'information services', just like the services themselves, are merging into a constituency that is much more comprehensive that was even imagined only a few decades ago. The customer' is not interested in interrupting his or her pursuit of information to determine which information services unit might have the information (or what format or category of information that information might exist in). The distinctions still exist, of course, and they've been neatly summarized in Hamilton's essay as she discussed information as a commodity and how, until recently, information was not in any sense a 'core commodity' in the organization. 'If the word "information" was used at all,' Hamilton writes, 'it was probably in conjunction with two others: information and technology (i.e. the computer center) or information and services (i.e. the library)' (Hamilton, p. 76). Such distinctions, it must be stated, are distinctions that are more and more only of importance to the information services providers. They do not have any interest for customers and, in fact, only seem to impede the information-gathering process for the customers. One-stop shopping' is every customer's goal, and when it can be provided, the information services agency providing the information is far and away the preferred agency of choice for future information pursuits by that customer. As a tool for establishing a framework for a customer service program within an information services unit, it is appropriate to consider Elizabeth Orna's definition of the information audit. She writes that within the enterprise which supports the information services unit, the information audit looks at: 1

The information it holds - the material on paper, or in machine readable form, or in the minds of its staff, that is capable of being turned into knowledge by people and applied in their work to meet the enterprise's objectives.

2

The resources it has for making the information accessible to those who need to turn it into knowledge; those resources may be in the form of equipment, accommodation, or people.

3

How it uses the information to further its purposes.

4

Who manages the information resources, and who processes information.

5

The technical means that are used to do things with information, and how the management of the technology is related to the management of the information resources.

6

What the combined resources of information and the means of managing it cost the enterprise; what their value is; and how cost and value compare. (Orna, p. 44)

Like Congram and Hayes, Orna further connects the information audit with the financial audit: 'it is a very acceptable metaphorical use of the original accounting concept of auditing: an authoritative examination of accounts with verifi-

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cation by reference to witnesses and documents - particularly since 'accounts' were originally oral, because the information audit depends greatly on face-toface discussion' (Orna, p. 44). Thus the first phase of an information audit will examine the information services unit within the organization or community it supports. Joan L. Axelroth, writing about library audits in law libraries, offers a broad range of categories for consideration; management responsibility, financial management, cost recovery, collection development, services, information technology, the physical facility and space management, and staffing are all listed as subjects which must be addressed in the audit (Axelroth, p. 31)· These categories break down into a variety of questions specific to the nature of the information services unit, and this list, as Axelroth suggests, can serve as a starting point for the audit, with adaptations as necessary: Who has oversight responsibility for the information services unit? Are the lines of authority and responsibility clear, or are individual decisions made without consultation? How is information communicated between the information services manager and organizational management? Are there periodic meetings? Is there a specific budget for the information services unit? How is it prepared? Are reports (monthly, etc.) generated? Are they reviewed? Does the expenditure report categorize activities appropriately? What percentage of the information service unit's costs (if any) are recovered? How? How are collection development and purchasing decisions made? Is there a written collection development policy? Is the collection evaluated on a periodic basis? What types of services are provided? Are all segments of the constituent user population served? Does the work meet accepted standards of wording, timeliness, etc., in comparison with other departments in the organization? How are information services promoted? Are technical services, contractual arrangements, service arrangements, etc. organized appropriately? Are circulation activities monitored? Are routing activities timely? What software and hardware is being used? Is it appropriate to the tasks? Are there deficiencies with the system? How much space do the information services departments consume and how much does it cost? Are there viable alternatives for reducing the amount of space used? What is the current number of staff working in information services? What is the ratio of staff to total organizational staff? To the total customer base? What are the skill levels of the staff? Are they capable of doing the work they are assigned to do? Is every employee's time fully utilized? What tasks are not being accomplished and why? Are there backlogs in some work? What is the organizational structure? Do all information services staff report to the same person? Is everyone performing at the appropriate level, given years of experience, training, and education? (Axelroth, p. 31)

The purpose of the information audit is to describe the current information situation as objectively as possible, for both senior management and the managers of the information services unit or units. The audit attempts to define, in connection with market segmentation activities which have gone before, mar-

The needs analysis, user survey and the information audit

kets for information, to describe the user base, to look at potential volume within established markets, and to identify, insofar as they can be identified, those segments of the market that are the most information intensive, that is, those groups or divisions that require a volume of information on a regular basis in order to accomplish their organizational mission. Finally, of course, the audit attempts to identify new or potential markets for the information services unit, those departments which are not now under their service umbrella, in order to extend to those groups and departments, if feasible, the opportunity to be part of the organizational information services infrastructure. Competition of course is part of the picture, for every manager of an information services unit must look at the overall organizational picture and identify those other sources, if they exist, for information that his or her unit is responsible for. If it is established that there is competition for the information provided by the library or information services unit, the next question must be related to the effectiveness of the information services unit itself. Does this competition limit its effectiveness? If so, how? An example might relate information within a particular specialization or research field that is not naturally connected to the work that other workers in the organization perform. It is not uncommon for a specialist in such a field, working within the organization, to have a dedicated line to a database in her own specialization, in order to allow online searching apart from that done through the usual organizational online searching programs. Certainly there is nothing wrong with such an arrangement, and it certainly is more productive for that particular specialist to have her own resources available at her own desk, but as part of the information audit, and for planning purposes for others within the organization who might be part of the same specialty, it is important that those who manage information services be aware of the special arrangement. Similarly, the information audit seeks to review the current information distribution system. Can it be improved? How? Or more important in the customer service context: does it need to be improved? Are there, for example, great masses of unsolicited journals, conference proceedings, reports and similar gray literature coming into the organization and if so, how are they treated? If in fact there are specialists on the research staff or in other departments in the organization, the materials can be routed to them for disposal (after a conversation, of course - there's nothing worse than finding you're suddenly on the receiving end for unsolicited materials that some other unit in the organization has been receiving!). Whether such materials should be retained for the research collections (which is highly unlikely) is a decision that can be relegated to the user community with much more efficiency than it can be handled within the information services unit. How customers come to know about information services is an important part of the information-delivery process, and the information audit also looks at promotional or marketing activity currently in place for the library or information services unit. A compilation of how many such efforts are being undertaken,

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how often, and how these efforts can be improved or different market segments targeted will produce useful information for the unit in the design and implementation of its programs. Of particular concern, of course, is once again the corporate culture of the organization. Does it permit the active marketing of information services within the organization, or is a proactive role on the part of information services staff an 'inappropriate' activity? In fact, as far as these questions are concerned, one goal of the information audit will be to ascertain how senior management views the library or information center. Such feedback will, of necessity, influence the unit's ability to engage in marketing activities altogether. Related to this question of corporate culture is how the library or information services facility is currently positioned within the organization. A goal of the information audit will be to determine if there is a need to reposition, and if so, how the library or information services unit can strengthen its position within the company. In a recent information audit at a news organization, it was determined that the organization's information center was, in fact, positioned incorrectly for the most advantageous delivery of information to its constituent customer base. While the users included not only the editors and reporters who used the facility as a 'news' library, other employees of the organization, including the administrative staff, the corporate finance staff, and the corporate archives made extensive use of the facility. As the unit had originally been created to service the news staff, and much of the original information provision had to do with the activities related to that work, other types of information requests were relegated to a sort of 'second-class' status, which seemed strikingly inappropriate for the executives in senior management positions. In a reorganization following an information audit, the staff of the information center was enlarged to accommodate both editorial and general organizational information needs, and the information center, now called the corporate information center, was moved on the organizational chart to the administrative side of the ledger. The 'news' library, as such, was eliminated, and all information services emanated from a central location, with a specially created 'hotline' staff organized to serve the editorial and writing staff when they were faced with news deadlines and other fast turnaround situations. Environmental factors which support or detract from the achievement of the library or information center's goals are a major part of the information audit, and in fact, an environmental scan will ideally have been conducted prior to the audit. (For further information about the environmental scan, see Newsome and Mclnerney, pp. 285ff., and Ferriero and Wilding, pp. 1-7). As part of this consideration, of course, the information services unit will want to look at its place in the information environment (both internal and external) and networking activities with other libraries and information services organizations will be studied to determine if they are as strong as they should be. The information audit process is a fairly straightforward activity, and each organization or community will devise its own methodology to incorporate those needs and interests that are most specific to it. For our purposes, in order

The needs analysis, user survey and the information

audit

to connect the information audit to a customer service plan for information services, elements of the process as put forward by LaRosa, Eddison and Duston are useful. The following steps will be taken: 1

Design an Audit Plan, to outline the audit's scope, purpose, timetable, resources and strategies to be employed.

2

Identify the potential markets, and determine how the user market is segmented: geographically; demographically; behaviorally or by discipline; by division or other organizational subunit.

3

Design the survey instrument.

4

Select contact persons for each market segment.

5

Request an interview. It is customary to send a memo first, and then call to make the appointment. When the auditor speaks to the contact person, a copy of the group's long-range plan, strategic plan or other planning document should be requested, so that all parties will be able to familiarize themselves with the issues that are critical to the group.

6

Conduct the interviews (some who perform information audits recommend at least an hour for each interview but this will, of course, depend on each organization).

7

Compile and analyze the results of the interviews.

Among the questions which might be included in an information audit, the following seem to be standard for most situations in which an approach to customer service for the information services unit is being considered: 1

What is your group's role within the organization?

2 What products or services does your group provide to other departments within the organization? What resources does it manage, and what reports does it produce? To whom are those reports distributed? 3 What are your group's strategic objectives and goals? What strategies have you designed to meet those goals? 4 What critical challenges or obstacles does your group face in reaching those goals or acting out the designated strategies? 5

In an ideal environment, what kinds of information would help your group overcome its challenges and/or barriers?

6

What other groups or market segments does your group work with? What kinds of information does it require from those areas? Is that information immediately useful or must it be processed along the way?

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Customer Service in the Information

Environment

7

How does the group measure its success or the effectiveness of its plans?

8

What kind of information is used regularly by the group? ('What do you reach for every day?')

9

How do you obtain this information now?

10

How often is this information needed?

11

How rapidly do you require the information after you first try to find it?

12

What kind of ideal information tool do you wish existed?

13

What would be your ideal inhouse database?

14

How often have you not even looked for information you need because you knew you wouldn't be able to find it?

Like all information-gathering vehicles, the information audit is only a tool and cannot, in and of itself, guarantee an improved or enhanced customer service program for a library or other information services organization. It can, however, provide data which can be applied to understanding who the information services customers are and, in the planning process, enable management to target those information products and services which will enhance the customer's interaction with the information services unit. The information audit can lead the way, and with it, information services managers and staff can view their work from the customer's point of view, which is, after all, just about the most valuable information they can have.

References Albrecht, Karl. At America's Service: How Your Company Can Join the Customer Service Revolution. New York: Warner, 1992. American Management Association. Close to the Customer: An American Management Association Research Report on Consumer Affairs. New York: American Management Association, 1987. Alexroth, Joan L. 'The Library Audit.' The Washington Lawyer. January/February, 1992. Christiansen, Elin B., King, David E. and Ahrensfeld, Janet L. Special Libraries: A Guide for Management. Washington, DC: Special Libraries Association, 1991. Congram, Carole, and Hayes, Sherman, 'Auditing the Customer Service Relationship and Encounter.' The Bottom Line 6 (1) Spring, 1992. Duston, Beth. Interview with the author, February 15, 1993.

The needs analysts,

user survey and the information

audit

Eddison, Elizabeth Boles. 'Information Audit II - Another Perspective.' Library Management Quarterly. 15 (1) Winter, 1992. Ferriero, David S. and Thomas L. Wilding. Scanning the Environment in Strategic Planning.' Masterminding Tomorrow's Information - Creative Strategies for the '90s: Professional Papers from the 82nd Annual Conference of the Special Libraries Association, San Antonio, TX, June 8-13, 1991. Washington, DC: Special Libraries Association, 1991Greenbaum, T. The Practical Handbook and Guide to Focus Group New York: D.C Heath, 1988.

Research.

Hamilton, Feona. 'The information audit.' Management Skills for the Information Manager, ed. Ann Lawes. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 1993. Hutchison, William M., Jr. and Stolle, John F. 'How to Manage Customer Service.' Harvard Business Review, November-December, 1968. LaRosa, Sharon M. 'The Corporate Information Audit.' Library Quarterly. 14 (2) Spring, 1991.

Management

Manning, Helen M. 'The Corporate Librarian: Great Return on Investment.' Information - A Strategy for Economic Growth: Papers Presented at the State-of-the-Art Institute, Washington, DC, November 6-8, 1989. Washington, DC: Special Libraries Association, 1990 [as discussed in 'Exploring the Economic of Information.' The One-Person Library: A Newsletter for Librarians and Management. 6 (8) December, 1989]. Newsome, James, and Mclnerney, Claire. 'Environmental Scanning and the Information Manager.' Special Libraries. 81 (4) Fall, 1990. Chris Olson & Associates. Marketing Treasures. 1 (6), July, 1988, 2 (1); September, 1988, 4 (2); November, 1990. Orna, Elizabeth. Practical Information Policies: How to Manage Flow in Organizations. Aldershot, Hants: Gower, 1990.

Information

Widdows, Richard, Hensler, Tia A. and Wuncott, Marlaya H. The Focus Group Interview: A Method for Assessing Users' Evaluation of Library Service.' College and Research Libraries. July, 1991.

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Chapter Nine

The marketing information system

Customer services, or customer care as it is described in the Commonwealth countries, is predicated on the authority of the customer in establishing which products or services will serve him best. The purveyor of the product or service likewise makes a commitment to accept the authority of the customer. Why, then, is it that in information services the wishes of the customer are so often left behind or ignored? According to some in information services management, it is the arrogance of the profession, the attitude of those who have the information and know how to get to it and who are not especially willing to give up the 'mystique' that goes with knowing something that no one else knows. Others assert that this rather lame state of affairs results from the close alignment of information services practitioners, particularly librarians, with the educational establishment,' that information services people are more interested in teaching users how to find information, rather than finding it for them. Still others are more blunt. This group seems to think that no one really cares' about information, since information, in its purest form, is nothing more than a commodity that has value only when it is needed, and thus only when it is needed are most people concerned with getting it. And by that time, they don't care how they get it, according to this school of thought, as long as they get it. In fact, none of these reasons adequately explains why the wishes of information consumers are not particularly sought after or, when discovered, not addressed in any productive way. The problem is not one of not listening to the customers. What has not been done, in information services management, is to listen to them in any organized, useful way. We simply don't know enough about our customers, what they need, what they would like to have from us, and what we can, reasonably, provide for them. The time has come to develop new strategies for servicing our users, and while much of what we need to do has been recognizably a part of the business community for many years, only now are information services professionals beginning to accept that some of these techniques can, in fact, be appropriated for the service community. As information services management approaches the twenty-first century, with all that that entails in terms of new technology, new attitudes about service, and an assertive, intellectually enfranchised constituent user base, the time is

The marketing

information

system

ripe for new approaches to customer care in the information services field. A glimpse at what is happening in business provides inspiration. In a world of mass manufacturing, the counterpart was mass marketing. In a world of flexible manufacturing, the counterpart is flexible marketing. The technology comes first, the ability to market follows. The technology embodies adaptability, programmability, and customizability; now comes marketing that delivers on those qualities. (McKenna, p. 28)

Can we not also, in information services management, look to the technology to deliver on the qualities we need for learning more about our customers and their needs? We have been remarkably successful in using technology in the organization of information, and we are justifiably proud of our long history in using information technology in creating information products and services for our customers. What we haven't done is to use the same technology for creating programs to help us learn more about our customers. We haven't taken the time, because we've been so busy developing the information products that we forgot who we were developing the products for. Management is changing, and with it information services management, regardless of the 'type' of information being managed. And a major component in this new management, particularly pertinent to information services management, is what is being called 'strategic opportunism,' defined as 'the ability to remain focused on long-term objectives while staying flexible enough to solve day-to-day problems and recognize new opportunities' (Isenberg, p. 92). For information services managers, strategic opportunism means that they will continue to focus on their long-term, strategic planning, but they will also recognize that the day-to-day workings of the information services organization captures (or could capture) a wealth of data which could be transformed into usable and valuable information about their users. They need this information if they are going to succeed in establishing a successful customer service program as part of their work, and since it is available, why not capture it and make use of it? Information services management has long been concerned about two characteristics of the information interaction: the transaction takes place only when there is a perceived need (on the part of the user) for the information, and that transaction, as a transaction between that client and the information services unit, is a unique transaction unrelated to any other transaction. Every customer who approaches, say, the reference librarian in a corporate research library is coming to that librarian with a unique problem to be solved, and the librarian, in the exercise of his or her professional judgement, will treat that request as a unique request. In fact, the concept of uniqueness' is so ingrained in traditional information activities that when there is an opportunity to provide similar responses to similar queries, much is made of that opportunity and special procedures are put in place. Such unique transactions are not, of course, so unusual in the business community, where there has long been a recognition that the individual customer's

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Environment

needs and perceptions are what influence him or her to come back again for the same products and services: Today's fast-paced economic and social changes have made marketing planning a mandatory process for company survival. As markets continue to splinter into different customer groups - each with its own set of desires and needs - companies will find it increasingly difficult to achieve real growth in profit and sales volume . . . The marketing planning process creates a marketing-oriented vs. a product-oriented philosophy throughout management ranks. This allows management to focus its efforts on the most important company objective - creating customers. ('Marketing Planning,' p. 62)

These 'individual' customers, sorted and codified so that their specific needs and perceptions can be reacted to, will be reached by the businesses attempting to reach them, and there is now the opportunity to do the same for information services. The concept of marketing planning can provide the framework, and it is the specific application of the Marketing Information System (MkIS) to information services that will enable information services management to provide what information services customers want and need. The Marketing Information System In customer service terms, the Marketing Information System can provide tangible benefits, among which are the ability to profile users, to forecast their needs, to track marketing efforts, to project demand for products and services, and to evaluate customer satisfaction. Each of these can have a dramatic effect on the development of products and services within the information services unit, and at the same time the staff of the unit will be able to determine from customers the value of the services they received. No longer will information services organizations be forced to develop products and services based on a 'hunch,' or a 'perceived' need, or the reaction to a vocal (but relatively minor, in numbers) group of the constituent customer base. With a Marketing Information System, information services staff can conceptualize, develop and initiate programs based on tangible, verifiable need. Similarly, upon implementation, new or reconstituted or reorganized programs can be tracked carefully, to determine their worthiness within the overall information services activity, and those programs which do not measure up, literally, can be dispensed with. The concept of the Marketing Information System is not a new one in the business community, but MkIS theory has not been addressed in any broadbased way in the services professions, nor have applications been widespread. There are probably many reasons why MkIS has not proliferated apart from those adopted for the business community, but certainly six key factors characteristic of the service professions were identified by Dennis R. McDermott: Certain elements, both external and internal to the service organization, make the marketing challenge of gaining a competitive advantage very significant, and in some ways, unique to the marketing of a product. Among the external factors are intangible benefits, diverse competition, and diverse customer segments . .. [and] among the elements that are internal to the organization, which can be just as sensitive to effective

The marketing

information

system

marketing as the external elements, are motivating employees, productivity, and organizational issues... (McDermott, p. 178-9, emphasis added)

Each of these elements must be thought about as information services managers, along with sepior management in the organization, seek to develop customer service programs that connect the organization's real desire for effective and efficient information delivery with the realities of the workplace. If not addressed, and counterbalanced, these distinctive attributes of the services profession can become constraints and barriers to the very service the organization is attempting to provide. The Marketing Information System concept has already been shaped through a variety of definitions, and most emphasize the results of the application. McDermott, for example, applies the MkIS to the organization's master plan' and for information services units, such a connection with the strategic plans of the organizations they support (and those of the information services units themselves) makes sense: Ά MkIS,' McDermott writes, provides a continuous master plan for generating information linking all relevant aspects of the external and internal environment with the executive decision-maker' (McDermott, p. 180). Other authorities, from the earliest days of studies in MkIS, also define the system in terms of its connectivity, and the linkage of external and internal data in order to provide information which can affect decision making becomes a key characteristic. For these management scholars, a MkIS is 'a structural interacting complex of persons, machines, and procedures designed to generate an orderly flow of pertinent information, collected from both intra- and extra-firm sources, for use as the basis for decision making in specified responsibility areas of marketing management' (Smith, Brien, and Stafford, p. 7). It is that 'pertinent information,' those data elements or data characteristics which most concern some who have designed and implemented the Marketing Information System. Mayros and Werner, in their definition, take the system down to those most basic units: Stated most simply, [the MkIS] is an organized set of data that is analyzed through reports or statistical routines (models). The data are transformed from raw numbers into information to help the marketing manager substantiate his general assumptions or to help him provide answers to questions that he may not be sure about. (Mayros and Werner, p. 11)

Applying MkIS to Information Services For too long, the marketing of information services was considered an inappropriate function. Libraries and other information services organizations were, as has been mentioned, thought of as 'inherently good,' and their purpose was to serve as a storage facility for all the knowledge that could be gathered up and kept in the warehouse. The information providers were not only concerned with delivering information products and services, when the need to know matched their standards of service, but they were the acquirers, organizers, and

95

Customer

Service

in the Information

Environment

storers of that information as well. Not too long ago, as accountability for efforts expended (and resources provided) became more accepted in the services arena, information services practitioners realized that they, too, would be required to justify their work, and the marketing of information services became more attractive. To be fair, there have always been information services professionals whose first concern was their users, but they were often inhibited in their attempts to be more 'proactive' (which became the marketing buzzword in information services) because the systems they supported were not conducive to such efforts. All that has changed now, and marketing has become an integral part of information services management, equally addressed along with personnel and financial management, organizational planning, control, performance evaluation and, of course, the organization of information, the fundamental underpinning of the entire profession. Marketing, for information services management, demands that four basic concerns be addressed. These were identified in another context, but they are equally critical as those who supervise libraries and other information services facilities (and their managers) attempt to come to terms with the requirements for marketing their services for the highest return on the investment that the organization or community is putting into the unit. These four critical concerns are: What What What What

is the current situation? do we want the future situation to be? constraints might inhibit us from reaching our goal? shall we do to achieve our goal? (King, p. 71)

Such questions are not answered easily or lightly, and the information services manager must evaluate not just the services his or her specific unit is providing, but how these services fit into the larger universe in which the organization functions. The environmental scan, described earlier, is an approach, and there are others, all leading to a strategic conceptualization that permits the information services unit to bring to its constituent customers the services they need and expect. Piercy suggests that this is only as it should be, as modern management practices not only permit nothing less, but in fact require that any action taken be taken with a larger view in mind: Marketing data are at the center of efficiency and effectiveness in marketing action, and modern theory takes a holistic view of marketing data, expressing this in terms of the Marketing Information System. (Piercy, p. 20)

In order to achieve these goals of efficiency and effectiveness in marketing action,' the Marketing Information System, in McDermott's approach, looks again at the external and internal information needs of the customers and attempts to relate how those needs can be best serviced via the specific information services unit. McDermott offers two 'profiles,' the first of which he calls the 'Demand/

The marketing

information

system

Industry Profile,' although for our purposes it could just as usefully be referred to as the Demand/Customer Profile,' as it takes us to those information customers who are coming to us for services. This profile, a first set of questions, assesses such basic market-related dimensions as (1) Who, identifying the customer groups representing the service organization's strengths (and conversely, its weaknesses among noncustomers); (2) Why, determining the customer motives or purchasing priorities; and (3) How, describing the buying decision process, including how awareness results, who makes the decision based on whose influence, how many competitors are evaluated, when the decision is made, and how vendor performance is evaluated after the sale. (McDermott, p. 181)

McDermott's Corporate Profile,' as he calls it, consists of data being continuously inputted from other corporate functions at the headquarters level as well as data from all levels of the service organization. (McDermott, p. 182)

The judicious juxtaposition of the two into one set of data which can be organized and manipulated to provide answers to basic questions about information delivery becomes the foundation for the Marketing Information System for the information services unit or organization. The benefits of MkIS in information management A wide variety of marketing options becomes available when a well-developed Marketing Information System is adopted. Depending on the set of goals established at the design stage of the program, the MkIS should be able to do the following: •

Provide senior organizational management (as well as management in the information services unit) with the ability to profile current users and potential customers through demographic, affiliation and demand segmentation.

•

Enable information services staff to forecast customers' requirements through market surveys, needs analysis, and similar customer report methods.

•

Track marketing efforts by comparing usage patterns with targeted marketing programs.

•

Project demand for information products and services by analyzing past and current usage patterns.

•

Evaluate customer satisfaction by providing a mechanism for seeking and tabulating customer input.

•

Send public relations/marketing information routinely to all appropriate market segments.

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Environment

•

Coordinate all internal promotional, informational and marketing efforts through a central record-keeping database designed for the purpose.

•

Contact influential senior management and other departmental personnel who make organizational decisions to inform them about information products and services available through the information services unit.

•

Link information products and services to users and nonusers as targeted market segments through the organizational mainframe computer. Nonusers will be identified and 'matched' with specific information products and services; similarly, inactive users will be identified so they can be targeted and become 'reactivated.'

•

Measure the effectiveness of the information service unit's marketing initiatives. Complaints data will be usable; likewise, data pertaining to satisfied clients will be captured and utilized for planning and developing new or enhanced information services.

•

Establish formal procedures for handling follow-ups on inquiries and products.

•

Generate specific mailing lists, coded to particular users, inquirers, departmental affiliations, subject interests, etc.

•

Organize and coordinate targeted market groups (subject, departmental, product, etc.) for conferences, meetings and/or special training.

•

Similarly, compile 'expert' lists of organizational users (scientists, researchers, management personnel, etc.) who currently use or might use information products and services and who, through this 'affiliation' with the information services unit, can be put in touch with one another.

•

Seek currently unexploited markets (off-site customers, regional offices, suppliers, etc.) for information products and services.

•

Compile lists of specific customers based on products or services used, types of enquiries, etc.

•

Develop survey instruments to track specific interests, departmental affiliations, types of equipment being used, etc. by information services customers and/or prospective users, in order to engage in alpha or beta testing for new products and/or services.

Organizing the Marketing Information System It is now well established that the success of an MkIS in any organization relies heavily on information technology. The very purpose of the effort is to collect as much data as possible about the customers and the products the information services unit offers. Unlike more informal marketing programs, the MkIS attempts to include any data that can affect in any way the delivery of information

The marketing information system

to the specifically defined constituent user base. This means that the great mass of data collected must be automated, in order to be manipulated for the results desired, since this amount of data could not be organized manually (at least in any usable fashion). The emphasis, then, must be on collecting more data, not less, and on keeping that data as up-to-date and current as possible, all of which will require management decisions about staffing, equipment and financial support for the operation. Keon suggests, quite seriously, an established policy of openness from the beginning. Except for proprietary information, which can be secured to prevent its unauthorized use, the success of the MkIS will depend greatly on the ability of many people to use it: To get maximum use of the database, make sure that it's accessible and usable to the people who need it. Typically, that involves communicating the database from the corporate mainframe to portable or micro-computers that are equipped with sales and marketing software . . . (Keon, p. 72)

In designing the database for the MkIS, a key concept will be the emphasis on the individual information interactions, the transactions that take place each time a user approaches a member of the staff of the information services unit (regardless of the format of the transaction) with a request for information. Such transaction-based research is, as might be expected, standard in many businesses, but the time and effort required for its successful adoption in services, particularly in the information services field, have limited its application. The concept is defined as: a research trend gaining in popularity in service businesses involved in transaction-based customer surveys. In this method, customers are surveyed immediately after a particular transaction about their satisfaction with the contact personnel with whom they interacted.. . . This type of research is simple, fresh, and provides management with current information about interactions with customers. Further, the research allows management to associate service-quality performance with individual contact personnel so that high performance can be rewarded and low performance corrected. It also serves as an incentive for employees to provide better service because they understand how and when they are being evaluated. (Zeithaml et al., p. 58)

Obviously, the transactional research approach will influence the design of the database for the MkIS, and the inclusion of transactional elements will be used to supplement, and even drive, the data elements having to do with products, services, and user characteristics. The functional requirements for an effective Marketing Information System are based on acquiring as much information as possible from prospective customers, in order to determine how the information services unit can meet their needs. As noted, this is a different approach than that used in many libraries and information services organizations, for most of these units now capture only information having to do with registered borrowers, and depending on the size of the organization and the amount of circulation, much of that information is

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Environment

frequently not automated. In designing a MkIS program, however, the desired approach must be proactive and inclusionary. The primary vehicle for the MkIS is a marketing database, designed to draw from the corporate mainframe, but which is, in fact, a separate marketing database. While each organi2ation will require different data elements, several more or less generic data elements can be considered. For an information services unit in a corporate environment, for example, the following would be useful: •

Record number This would be the primary key for the MkIS, and it would be a required field. It would be a unique number, not already assigned to another customer. If desired, the Record Number could be a coded MkIS identifier with a date and, perhaps, an origin code built in. For example, the last four characters might be used to record the date of the entry into the database, and the first three characters might be a code to designate how the name got to the database. The remaining characters would be used to assign a unique number to the individual.

•

Customer name The customer's name (and other identifying information, if required), pulled from the corporate mainframe.

•

Customer address Probably a departmental address, but this could be in whatever form would work best for the system being designed.

•

Telephone

The business telephone number for the customer.

•

Facsimile

The business facsimile number for the customer.

•

E-mail address customer.

•

Customer title The official title of the customer, for example: VP, Marketing, or Administrative Assistant, Finance, etc.

•

Verification code A code that confirms that the information being entered has/has not been verified.

•

Transaction request A code which identifies the 'information interaction' (e.g. reference query, document request, literature search, etc.).

•

Transaction date

•

Transaction result A code which identifies how the transaction was completed or which information product or service was used to fulfill the customer request (e.g. reference book, online search, CD-ROM search, provided photocopy, etc.).

•

Transaction timeframe

The

business

electronic

mail

number

for

the

Date of above.

A code which identifies the amount of time

The marketing

information

system

the information services staff member or members expended in fulfilling the customer request. •

Transaction follow-up A code which identifies the customer 's reaction to the information product or service provided.

•

Marketing activity A code which identifies marketing transactions for this customer (e.g. general information, training, departmental presentations, promotions of selected services (with each service coded separately), promotional material sent (with each type of material coded separately), etc.).

•

Notes A comments' field in which information services staff can record information not captured in any specific field, to be used for general oversight purposes. An automatic printed report might be generated according to a pre-established schedule for distribution to appropriate information services staff or other organizational staff or management.

•

Notes follow-up A code which determines whether or not the followup to the Comments transaction has taken place, with the date and the initials of the responsible staff member.

Verifying and updating data

The effectiveness of the MkIS database will, of course, require a commitment to current and verified data. This will not be a difficult task in most cases, as the basic customer data is already available in whatever central registry file is in use through the corporate mainframe. For other data, however, specifically data relating to the use of information products and services, standard efforts will be required to see that the data is refreshed in a timely manner, and that each day's transaction activity is entered. Although the alarm that Koen sounds seems drastic, it is, in fact, a basic consideration in the successful implementation of a MkIS in an information environment: 'Your marketing and sales database must grow and change,' Keon writes, 'or it will die. You've got to design a system to accommodate new information, updates, changes in customer files, and special information. . .' (Keon, p. 73). But when in place, and with a commitment to continuous updating, the data provided through a well-designed Marketing Information System can be effectively used to plan, evaluate and control information services.

References Buttery, E. Alan, and Buttery, Ewa M. Design of a Marketing Information System: Useful Paradigms.' European Journal of Marketing 25 (1). Goretsky, M. Edward. 'Frameworks of Strategic Marketing Information Needs.' Industrial Marketing Management 12 (7-11) 1983.

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Environment

Isenberg, Daniel J. "The Tactics of Strategic Opportunism.' Harvard Review. March/April, 1987.

Business

Keon, Edward F., Jr. 'Making MkIS Work for You.' Business Marketing. October, 1987. King, William R. Marketing Management Petrocelli/Charter, 1977.

Information

Systems. New York:

'Marketing Planning: A Mandatory Process for Company Survival.' Small Business Report. March, 1984. Mayros, Van, and Werner, D. Michael. Marketing Information Systems: Design and Applications for Marketers. Radnor, PA: Chilton Book Company, 1982. McDermott, Dennis R. Ά Service Organization's Marketing Information System.' Industrial Marketing Management 7 (1978). McKenna, Regis. Marketing is Everything.' Keeping Customers, ed., with an introduction by John J. Sviokla and Benson P. Shapiro. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School, 1991. Piercy, Nigel. 'Marketing Information Systems: Theory vs. Practice.' The Quarterly Review of Marketing. Autumn, 1980. Smith, Samuel U., Brien, Richard H. and Stafford, James E., eds. Readings in Marketing Information Systems. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1968. Zeithaml, Valarie Α., Parasuraman, Α., and Berry, Leonard L. Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations. New York: The Free Press (Macmillan, Inc.), 1990.

Chapter Ten

Designing and implementing the Customer Service Plan

If, as has been asserted, quality customer service is based on two requirements, a formal strategy for quality customer service and a commitment to hiring frontline people selected, trained and supported with customer-service goals in mind, those who are responsible for the management of information services can ensure the application of quality customer service principles with the creation, development and implementation of a Customer Service Plan. In fact, the initiation of this activity creates an appropriate mechanism for meeting the two requirements in one effort, and the salutary effect within the information services organization is evident in higher staff morale, improved service delivery, and enhanced organizational perception. The purpose of any plan is to provide direction, and the Customer Service Plan is no different. In the corporate environment, the creation of a business plan' is standard operating procedure, and 'project plans' are practically a way of life. In an association or institution, the 'planning document' is an accepted and time-honored activity, and certainly in the academic world, such planning reports' are routinely assigned and prepared. In the nonprofit or not-for-profit setting, such efforts might be addressed toward the creation of a 'management plan.' Regardless of what it is called, the creation of such a plan can be a particularly useful exercise, and when completed, the plan exists to serve as a roadmap or a blueprint, so to speak, to enable those responsible for the effective implementation of the operation to direct their efforts towards its success. Knowing where you're headed and how you plan to get there is essential to the day-in, day-out management of any successful enterprise, and addressing customer service in a library or information services agency is no exception. In its simplest form, an information services agency without a Customer Service Plan might be likened to a ship without a destination. The ship may very well be lucky and drift into a fine harbor, but more often it will find nothing but coastline, or worse, founder on some rocks. The Customer Service Plan for a library/information services organization charts the course, looks two or three years into the future and describes the steps the information services unit will follow to go from here to there.

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Defining the Customer Service Plan In libraries and information services organizations, the customers for the service, the users who come to the unit for their informational needs, must be accommodated. Their needs, expectations and perceptions are realized through the information interactions they have with staff of the information services unit. In order to address their informational needs in the most effective and efficient manner, senior management in the parent organization or community, the managers of the information services unit and staff must all agree to a policy of quality information services. The achievement of excellence in the delivery of information products and services requires a commitment by all parties to mutually agreed-upon standards of customer service, as well as an agreed-upon adherence to the implementation, both in 'spirit' and fact, to a basic plan of performance. With these considerations in mind, a plan can be defined: A Customer Service Plan is a statement of information services objectives for the organization or community which the information services unit supports. The Customer Service Plan recognizes that customer requirements define acceptable standards for the delivery of information, commits information services management and staff to the fullest exploitation of their professional and management skills in the organization and delivery of information, and acknowledges that establishing a superior level of customer service in information services is an ongoing, challenging undertaking.

Naturally, the acceptance of such a definition requires the personnel involved to adopt numerous attitudinal changes, which is of course the first step in the development of a Customer Service Plan. Whatever the structure of the information services unit or department, or their variety, within the parent organization, a commitment to following the guidelines developed through the implementation of such a plan will be new territory for most employees. Acceptance comes, however, with participation in the process. Glenn Tecker has suggested that in any planning activity, there is a body of accepted 'characteristics' which must apply before a plan can be successful (Tecker, p. 126). These can be appropriately applied to the development of a Customer Service Plan. The process of planning is as important as the products of planning While the object of the planning exercise is to create a product or document - a customer service statement,' in this case - the changes that take place in employee attitudes, the acknowledged commitment to a 'higher' level of service (even during the earliest stages of the process), and the effort to redirect control for the establishment of customer service standards from management to staff produce a departmental culture which can provide immediate, tangible benefits. Planning is highly participative As will be seen, the attitude of all staff, including senior management and the front-line people who interact daily with customers, is a critical ingredient in the process. Cynicism and negativism will

Designing and implementing the Customer Service Plan

be present, especially at the beginning of the process, but with the equal participation of all, these attitudes will change. All interested parties participate in planning as partners Similarly, despite the presence of people of differing backgrounds, education, responsibilities within the organization and organizational position, the common effort creates a bond which not only permits but requires equal participation. As the group works out its activities, concerns about rank and seniority become subsumed in the common goal. The products of planning (reports and documents) are clear, concise, and easy to read Perhaps because of the diversity of the participants, the Customer Service Plan as it evolves will finally be a statement that all parties to it management, staff, and customers - will be able to read, relate to, and accept without the need for interpretation or explanation. Strategic long-range planning is a continuous process linked to annual planning and evaluation Despite the fact that the process will result in a published or printed document or report, the Customer Service Plan will not be a static statement, any more than the organization's strategic plan is. The Customer Service Plan will be related directly to the strategic plan that drives the parent organization or community, as well as to the strategic plan for the information services unit itself, and review, measurement, flexibility, and redirection, when necessary, are built in.

Why create a plan? The motivation for the creation of a Customer Service Plan can come from a variety of sources. The most prevalent, of course, is a sudden and apparently unexplained increase in the number of complaints about the services the library or information services unit provides. It is not at all unusual for information staff to be dealing with ordinary complaints in a routine, ordinary (and satisfactory) manner, when someone in senior management will get a complaining letter, or a series of such letters, and information services management will be told to 'take care of it.' Departmental attitudes or 'culture' can bring about a need for a fresh look at customer service. To be frank about it, there are times when the employees of any department, whether it is a library or information services unit or any other department of an organization, can become too set in their ways, too uninterested in what they are doing. The staff has no enthusiasm (or is perceived by others in the organization as having none), there is no real drive to the department and a look at customer/staff attitudes is determined by someone at the senior management level to be a useful exercise. Other managerial pressures can contribute to a review of customer service

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practices in a library or information center. A financial review might determine that this is the year to look at information services'. Certainly one concern of management has to do with all departments in the organization and how they are adapting to a changing environment. Likewise, competitiveness is always an issue, and senior management has a right to be asking if information products and services can be delivered in a more cost effective manner. New products or services emanating from the parent organization might require new approaches to customer service, particularly if the library or information services unit is delivering information to a different market from its usual customer base. Likewise, any overall organizational total quality management process or departmental benchmarking exercise put in place will bring up questions about customer service. Information services, heretofore ignored in many organizations, often turn up as potential trouble spots' in many of these programs. Other environmental developments which can bring about a need for attention to customer service practices have to do with the direction the company, organization or community expects to be going in. A strategic planning effort might have identified information services as an organizational priority for the next five years; if this has happened, certainly management in the information services unit or units in the organization are going to take their work seriously and address customer service issues. Similarly, there may have been an impetus, external or internal, to improve growth or productivity within several of the units of the organization, and management in information services has committed to a program of action in that department; such a program will necessarily look at customer needs and how they are being met. Certainly the motivation and development of staff is always a concern, and customer service planning provides an opportunity not only to build the team in a department or unit, but results in improved and enhanced services for the organization as a whole. Finally, of course, the primary motivation for an enhanced customer services program grows from the information service unit's desire to please its customers. As has been pointed out, recognizing that customers are the sole judge of service quality is the key to improved customer services (Berry, et al., p. 29). When senior management in an organization, or information services management, has decided to attempt to match the service the customers receive (customer perceptions) with the service the customers desire (customer expectations), a new approach to customer service must be undertaken. Building a Customer Service Plan provides the opportunity for finding that new approach.

Goals for the plan The specific product of the program will be the creation of a structured customer service strategy, the Customer Service Plan. The plan, which will be ongoing, will enable the information services unit to organize and implement a customer service program that meets the needs of the information customers who use

Designing and implementing

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the unit's products and services. Staff will meet on a regular basis to discuss goals and standards, and progress will be reviewed on a regular basis. The goals of the Customer Service Plan will be to build understanding among all staff members and users about customer service standards. Information services management will undertake management training (either external or internal) for senior and junior information services staff, as well as administrative staff, in order to prepare them for management responsibility in relation to customer services. Information services management will enter into an agreement with senior management in the parent organization or community to develop the Customer Service Plan. The specific goals of the program can be predicted: 1

Professionalism and competence in dealing with all customers who use the library or information services facility.

2

Courtesy and friendliness from front-line staff.

3

A strong service orientation in managers and supervisors, in order to influence front-line staff.

4 A recognition from customers of the value of the library or information center: Having this facility on site saves my department 75 person hours of work each week. Without this department we would be forced to wait too long for information we need.' 5

A department whose services are easy to use, so that customers think of the library or information center as the first place they want to go when they have an information need.

The benefits of the program will be realized not only by customers, of course, but the morale and enthusiasm of information services employees, particularly front-line personnel, will be raised, resulting in a higher standard of productivity. The Customer Service Plan suggested here is a formalized program, and will consist of five components: 1

seminars and training;

2

team building;

3

follow-up and review;

4

incentives;

5

procedures.

The Customer Service Plan will be recognized as an investment in better service for the customers who use the information services unit, and throughout the organization, the commitment from all levels of management that the resources and time required for the effective implementation of the plan (perhaps as much as 10 percent of their time for some of the staff) are worth the effort will support the staff in their efforts. All information services staff, at one point or

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another, will be expected to participate in building the Customer Service Plan, with the heaviest responsibility falling on senior and junior supervisors for training and follow-up with the front-line staff.

Expected impacts of the Customer Services Plan It is important to recognize that the development and implementation of a Customer Service Plan will seriously affect the way work is done in the information services unit, but the results, the enhanced relations between the unit's customers and the staff, will be so beneficial to the organization that the effort will be worthwhile. Obviously any major enhancement program, such as the Customer Service Plan suggested here, will require a major commitment of time, perhaps as much, as previously mentioned, as ten percent from some staff members, and no less than five percent from all. Nevertheless, when viewed as an investment in the well being of the information services unit within the parent organization or community, to say nothing of improved relations between staff members and supervisory and managerial staff in information services, the Customer Service Plan is an important contribution to the work of the organization. Additionally, the commitment of time and resources to the effort requires an analysis of methods, procedures and products in the information services unit, a process which enables all staff to concentrate on areas of comparable strength and weakness and results in a reinvigorated positioning of the unit within the organization. From the human resources point of view, because some staff members in the information services unit will be at least skeptical and probably somewhat cynical or even hostile toward the effort, regular communication with all information staff about the Customer Service Plan is important, as is achieving early results. When there are improvements, they must be viewed positively. Successes should be broadcast throughout the information services unit and, when appropriate, to other departments in the parent organization as well. Unanticipated benefits will be greatly improved relations with other departments, senior management, etc., and the process improvement teams and flow charting exercises will mean more staff involvement and more of an atmosphere of the staff working as a team, both of which are positive gains for the information services unit. As the Customer Service Plan is implemented, the positive feedback from customers will be very good for staff morale, especially the front-line staff, and when users are surveyed and the results of these surveys are evaluated, the results can be used to justify support for needed changes in programs and procedures. Finally, however, from the point of view of everyone in the information services unit, as well as from other staff in the parent organization who observe the program, the continuous improvement in customer services is empowering and brings with it an implicit authorization to make changes,

Designing and implementing the Customer Service Plan

providing the information services unit with an exemplary opportunity to enhance its reputation, both within the parent organization and in its external dealings as well. The Partnership As discussed earlier (see Chapter 7), the strong endorsement of senior management is critical to the success of any undertaking as dramatic as the design, development and implementation of a Customer Service Plan. It is essential that the activity start at the top, with the chief executive or chief operating officer involved from the very beginning, hopefully having initiated the project. Once senior management has bought into the concept, it is time to turn to the partnership, the equal involvement of all interested parties. It has been said that a partner is a person associated with others in a joint venture (Tecker, p. 40). Certainly all the elements of that definition apply in the creation of a Customer Service Plan. Much of the success of the Customer Service Plan will rely on the groups that are put together, and it is in this realm that the activity touches most closely the work of quality management programs now being addressed in all professions. One of the characteristics of a successful quality management program, according to Michael Barrier, is 'new work relationship based on trust and teamwork' (Barrier, p. 23). Central to the process, Barrier asserts, is empowerment, in which management gives employees 'wide latitude' in doing their part to achieve organizational goals. The varying groups involved in the initiation, organization and development of the Customer Service Plan in the information environment are excellent examples of how these groups, through their empowerment, can change the focus of a department or unit. By having a diverse group of employees, including front-line staff, involved in drawing up the plan, the message from the customer will be drawn directly into the operation. Such roles for staff are not as extreme as they may seem and, in fact, experts in management are now encouraging organizations to embrace the team approach for its value beyond 'just getting the work done.' Herbert S. White, writing about teams in the library environment, alludes to the merits of selfdirected teams, which he defines as a 'voluntary and non-coerced association of individuals' who, through the formation of teams 'can more easily accomplish their own job assignments. This means either that teams will form and dissolve as appropriate (the historic role of task forces), or that the team members will at least be free to oust from their midst those who do not contribute as well as the other members think they should' (White, p. 47). Thus the team has worth, and can do the job. Yet it is more than a team, working on a project as involved and as delicate as a Customer Service Plan, and its added strength as a partnership lends it further credibility. Glenn Tecker has described six characteristics of an effective partnership, and in the work of the team, or teams, producing the Customer Service Plan, because it is a partnership, all interested members of the partnership participate on an even playing

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field, so to speak (Tecker, p. 41). All the members have common expectations, and this is surely the case with the team working on the Customer Service Plan. They have all committed themselves to designing and building the best Customer Service Plan they can come up with for their information services unit. They expect to plan cooperatively, to remove, inasmuch as they can, personal animosities, jealousies and the like, as these will only get in the way of the cooperative efforts they need establish in their work. The project will require good communications and information sharing processes, for it will be essential that all parties have the same types and amounts of information at the same time, so that the cooperative planning can take place. The group, or groups, as will be established in the Customer Service Plan, will share in a cooperative evaluation of progress, to determine that they are going in the direction they intend to be going in and that the results they are seeking are achievable. No person in the group behaves as superior or inferior, a point which is lost on no one, for the very fact that they are a partnership means that senior staff and front-line junior staff, administrative employees and professional employees, will be working together and respecting one another, not necessarily for their positions in the organization, but for their efforts in putting together the Customer Service Plan for the information services unit. Finally, the group is bound together by a common understanding of what they, as a group, are doing. They understand where they are going with the project, why the information services unit is doing the project, how they will achieve their mission, and, through effective measurement efforts which they will build into the process, how they will know when they have succeeded. From the manager's point of view, the team involved in creating the Customer Service Plan, and later the various other teams that will be involved, contribute to the organizational mission in a valuable way. These people, as team members and partners, break out of the 'single-employee' mode in a very distinctive way, and the work that they do brings much benefit to the organization. In discussing what she refers to as the 'postentrepreneurial corporation,' Rosabeth Moss Kanter notes that these organizations today are seeking problem-solving, initiative-taking employees who will go the unexpected extra mile for the customer,' which means that managers and leaders must find new and more effective incentives to encourage high performance and build commitment'. Kanter identifies several of these incentives, and thinking about how they can be used in the development of the Customer Service Plan is appropriate to our thinking here, for these are the very incentives that will engage the enthusiasm of the information staff and lead to excellence in the performance of their duties as part of the team. Among the new 'tools' identified by Kanter are: 1

Mission.

Helping p e o p l e believe in the i m p o r t a n c e of their work is essential.

2

Agenda control. As career paths lose their certainty and c o m p a n i e s futures g r o w less predictable, p e o p l e can at least b e in charge of their o w n professional lives . . . Leaders give their subordinates this opportunity w h e n they give them release time to work on pet projects, w h e n they e m p h a s i z e results instead of procedures, and

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when they delegate work and the decisions about how to do it. Choice of their next project is a potent reward for people who perform well. 3

Share of value creation. Entrepreneurial incentives that give teams a piece of the action are highly appropriate in collaborative companies.

4

Learning. The chance to learn new skills or apply them in new arenas is an important motivator in a turbulent environment because it's oriented toward securing the future. 'The learning organization' promises to become a 1990s business buzzword as companies seek to learn more systematically from their experience and to encourage continuous learning from their people.

5

Reputation. Reputation is a key resource in professional careers, and the chance to enhance it can be an outstanding motivator. The professional's reliance on reputation stands in marked contrast to the bureaucrat's anonymity. . . the accumulation of reputational 'capital' provides not only an immediate ego boost but the kind of publicity that can bring other rewards. . . . Managers can enhance reputation and improve motivation - by creating stars, by providing abundant public recognition and visible awards, by crediting the authors of innovation, by publicizing people outside their own departments, and by plugging people into organizational and professional networks. (Kanter, pp. 91-2)

Even within the information services field, these approaches to staff empowerment have been recognized: 'Increased responsibility and autonomy through allowing the worker a larger stake in decision-making lie at the heart of job enrichment' (Paris, p. 86). While the creation of the Customer Service Plan might not be seen, by either management or staff, as a relegation of decisionmaking duties to the staff, the activity does, of course, create an 'involvement' for the participating employees in the design and structure of a basic managerial procedure for the department. According to Paris, organizations benefit from group decision-making for four reasons: First, there is an expectation that groups make more accurate decisions than individuals do (two or more heads are better than one). Second, groups are thought to be more creative than individuals as a result of brainstorming. Third, if subordinates have participated in making a decision, they will be more favorably disposed to carrying it out. Fourth, there is evidence that group decisions show less bias and favoritism than decisions made by individuals. (Paris, p. 86)

It must be remembered, however, that all participants will not equally benefit from the relationship, nor will their productivity as part of the partnership necessarily match up to that of some of the other team members, a point which White recognized: 'The process of team responsibility and team empowerment (and without empowerment responsibility becomes gibberish) will appeal more to some individuals than to others. It should appeal most to those who make the biggest contributions, and, ultimately, they are the ones who matter most.' (White, p. 48) They, of course, are the people who will, through their contributions, enable the information services unit to come up with a Customer Service Plan that works and works well for their organization.

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A Recommended Structure for the Plan While there are a variety of models for planning groups to follow, for the Customer Service Plan in an information services environment, the following is recommended. First, to emphasize (and at the risk, perhaps, of overstating the case), there must be agreement that there is to be a formal strategy for customer service, and all staff, especially management, must buy into the concept. The project begins with a series of discussions, which management personnel in the information services unit will initiate, about customer service, about what some of the problems might be, how they are being identified, and what some of the 'ideal' customer service situations might be. The managers' role in this activity is to provide the leadership that convinces staff to participate. The role is tied to an understanding that the employees want their managers to be more demanding, to ask more of them, so that they can work at their full - or at least fuller - potential. Devising a Customer Service Plan provides such a milieu for staff, and managers will notice that employees will rise to the occasion, to the challenge of meeting tough performance and participation goals, if the employees themselves are challenged in exciting, creative ways. As the discussions continue, a natural 'team' approach will fall into place, and at this time the manager will want to determine if staff is interested enough to work with an organized 'team' or partnership.' Managers in the unit will then be required to learn to recognize when to 'manage' and when to 'participate,' to become skilled at 'managing,' stepping back when necessary, and as the discussions progress, to 'participate' only in an emergency, in order to permit the program to 'grow' from a more natural sort of base. Again, it will be necessary to remember that in these discussions, a friendly atmosphere is necessary, but that the staff needs management to take management roles, and for the activity to be truly a staff-driven activity, it will be necessary for the managers to distance themselves from the staff. By this stage in the process, discussions should have led to other discussions, without management present, and it might be time to call a meeting, to discuss the whole subject of customer service with staff. The discussion is, however, very carefully planned out, so that staff is not threatened, and as management and staff begin to discuss the possible methodologies for developing a Customer Service Plan, the point comes across to staff that management is not throwing more work at staff, but instead setting up procedures and processes to train staff to work better. 'Round One' The Customer Service Plan then proceeds in several specific stages, beginning with what might be called Round One. A first team is now formed, made up of the director or manager of the information services unit and the next management level within the unit, what is probably called something like 'senior supervisors.' This first team will meet, ideally for a one-day session or two half-day sessions, with a facilitator to learn about the role of management in customer service, and the value of management's role in establishing a quality customer service program. The team will discuss the concepts

Designing and implementing the Customer Service Plan

and benefits of a structured customer service program for the staff, and the structure of the program will include a preliminary questionnaire, conversation, instruction, case studies taken from actual situations, and planning for motivating and training junior supervisors, paraprofessionale and other employees in the information services unit. The group should discuss specific goals, the value of service, timelines, an incentives program, a complaints review program, etc. Subjects covered include the organizational history and mission, as well as that of the information services unit, customer service concepts in the specific type of organization the library or other information services unit is affiliated with, staff participation and motivation, the development of a customer service strategy, the organization and development of the Customer Service Plan, and methods for implementing the plan. At about the same time, as part of this same Round One, a second team will meet, this team including some front-line employees and their supervisors. This group, too, will be joined by a facilitator, probably for a half-day session, to help managers introduce concepts and to reinforce commitment to customer service. The inclusion of front-line staff invites teamwork and freer participation, and the theme of the meeting, to discuss customer service concepts for information services employees, concentrates on motivating staff to provide high-level service to users, particularly in training techniques for front-line staff. Activities could include such things as a preliminary questionnaire, some preparatory reading, exercises, possible role-playing, and an intensive discussion of customer services techniques in case studies chosen for their relevance to the junior supervisors' particular work and supervisory responsibility. A third meeting is held, this too with supervisors and other front-line employees, structured similarly but with individual refinements to accommodate the different participants. 'Round Two' Ten days or two weeks later (but not much later), the three teams will meet individually with the facilitator to discuss goals, conflicts, successes, problems with the process, etc. in order to determine how to deal with these subjects when they come up again. This follow-up program includes training for the supervisors in techniques in evaluating the progress and success of the training programs and the establishment of evaluation mechanisms for determining the success of the customer service program. Additionally, facilitators will work with information services managers to establish motivational programs, incentive programs, to design a formal complaints process, etc. for junior supervisors, paraprofessionale and other staff in the library or information services unit. 'Round Three' After another ten days or two weeks, each of the teams should meet again, but without the facilitator, as by this time a natural leadership structure will have fallen into place. At this point, the teams will not only discuss their successes to date, but each team will also select one member to work with one of the senior supervisors in devising the written Customer Service Plan.

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This group will also probably want to take upon itself the responsibility for devising how the plan will be updated on an ongoing basis. Round Four' The Customer Service Plan Team will now begin meeting as often as it can (but no less than once a week) to review progress, make plans, and offer guidance, when necessary, about specific customer service situations which have come up in the interim period since the team last met. Round Five' As the Customer Service Plan is formalized, the strategy team continues to work with other staff members to evaluate policy, identify 'good' customer service situations, strengthen areas of weakness, recognize customer service heroes' on the staff, and generally service as an ongoing oversight group in the area of customer service. As time passes, the composition of the Customer Service Plan Team (probably called something like the Customer Service Policy Group by now) will change, as members change jobs, move away, or just feel that they've reached a point where they have contributed as much as they can contribute effectively. Subjects for discussion Generally, as part of their deliberations, the various teams will give attention to the following subjects: Services Training Departmental task analysis Formulation of the Customer Service Plan Establishing strategy for implementing policy Implementing policy Continuous review Analyzing failures Documenting all improvements Updating the plan when necessary As part of their discussion, the teams will seek to determine if there are misconceptions about the library or information services unit and its services. If there are, they will work together to determine how these misconceptions - such things as customers' understanding about hours of service, costs, and similar factual matters - can be changed. The teams will also give attention to the development of a customer satisfaction survey, seeking to find answers to questions such as: What do you like about what we are doing? What do you dislike about what we are doing? How can we improve our service to you? Departmental task analysis want to look at tasks. The tuned in a number of quality information services context

At some point early in the process, the teams will departmental task analysis, developed and finecontrol programs in industry, was described in an by Corrine Campbell as a

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process that offers a disciplined approach to ensuring that an organization, in this case the library, understands and responds to internal and external customer requirements and expectations. The result of the process should be a customer-driven organization in which each staff member understands the organization's mission and objectives and how his or her responsibilities and work activities help meet customer requirements and achieve customer satisfaction. (Campbell, p. 2)

Although a departmental task analysis may already have been completed (in which case the information gathered will be made available to the team leaders), the information from this analysis will be useful to the teams in two ways. It serves to strengthen the approach to ensure that library/information services staff understands and responds to customer requirements and expectations, and it results in a customer-driven information services unit where each staff member understands the unit's mission and objectives and how his/her responsibilities and activities relate to satisfying customer requirements, achieving customer satisfaction, and meeting the information services unit's mission and objectives. In analyzing departmental tasks, the following concerns are addressed in a nine-step process: What are we doing? How are we doing it? What should we be doing? How should we be doing it? For the purposes of designing the Customer Service Plan, the nine steps of the departmental task analysis are: 1

determining the organization's mission and responsibilities;

2

identifying customers;

3

working with customers to determine their requirements;

4

analyzing work activities that satisfy those requirements;

5

identifying suppliers;

6

conveying requirements to suppliers;

7

analyzing issues and inhibitors;

8

developing feedback mechanisms;

9

monitoring results through a measurement system.

The purpose of the departmental task analysis, of course, is an assessment of the present situation, in order to identify those areas that need strengthening and to recognize the benefits accruing from systems, services and products that are already strong. The impacts of the exercises are significant, and Campbell has identified the following:

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1

The commitment of time (the only negative impact of the work) necessarily impacts upon other work in the information services unit.

2

The forced analysis of methods, processes and products in the information services unit results in a keener sense on the part of staff for which tasks can be re-worked and which can be removed as unnecessary steps in the process.

3

Customer feedback is good for staff morale.

4

Survey results support needed changes.

5

Survey results guide the direction of future developments.

Longer term impacts include the following: 1

Improved quality brings measurable results.

2

Empowerment, including the implicit authority to make changes, is achieved.

3

The information services unit experiences the classic paradigm shift, meaning that from here on out, all information services are viewed differently. (Campbell, p. 13)

The Plan as a Product After the Customer Service Plan initiative has been put in place, organizational decisions about the plan are required. At this point, it would be wise for management to authorize a task force to work together as a team to produce a document which could be distributed and referred to by all stakeholders in the organization's information services program. The make-up of the task force should be as broad as possible, including representatives from the information staff, of course, information management, senior management in the organization, information customers and users, administrative staff, suppliers, vendors or other external contractors, and any other pertinent individuals, such as other managers or executives in the organization, even people outside the unit, if appropriate. The point of the exercise is to take the work of the various groups within the information services unit and mold it into a workable statement of the organization's information services program. Of course the new plan will mesh with any customer service or quality management program already in place, and it will link directly with the organizational mission. The Customer Service Plan will exist to drive the library or information services activities for the organization, and as such, the teamwork involved in putting it together is a valuable component both in determining how information is viewed in the organization and in directing the ordered flow of information. The value of the team effort, and its relationship with management, is best described in a quotation from Herbert S. White: Perhaps the most important role of management will be in the creation of an environment

Designing and implementing the Customer Service Plan

in which teams can succeed. This means proper hiring, the provision of education and training on a never-ending basis, and the development of mechanisms for evaluation and reward that are easily understood and perceived as lair. . . . There is at least some hope that these changes will evolve in the American workplace as w e move toward the new millennium.... It depends in large part on the ability of these managers to get their own managers to understand . . . that acceptable and appropriate levels of service must be established, quantified, funded, and then measured and evaluated. . . . Without that crucial intermediate action from their own managers, even the best self-directed library work teams will not be able to s u c c e e d . . . . In the final analysis, once there is agreement on what needs to happen and that it can happen, the primary responsibility for the new cadre of managers becomes two-fold: provide the tools needed by the team and then get out of the way. (White, p. 48)

The results of the effort are dramatic. Throughout the organization, a changed attitude about the delivery of information falls into place, together with a renewed interest in information services from senior management, information services staff and, of course, from the customers themselves. All who need information stand to benefit, and the role of the library or information services unit, as a viable department of the organization supporting the organizational mission, is enhanced through better understanding and better communication about the information process.

References Barrier, Michael. 'Small Firms Put Quality First.' Nation's Business. 80 (5) May, 1992. Berry, Leonard, L., Zeithaml, Valarie A. and Parasuraman, A. 'Five Imperatives for Improving Service Quality.' Sloan Management Review. Summer, 1990. Campbell, Corrine. Continuous Quality Improvement. 1993.

Unpublished paper,

Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. "The New Management Work.' Harvard Business Review. November-December, 1989. Paris, Marion. 'Toward More Effective Group Decision-Making.' Southeastern Librarian. Fall, 1991. Tecker, Glenn H. Symposium for Chief Elected Officers and Chief Staff Executives. Washington, DC: American Society of Association Executives, 1991. White, Herbert S. 'The Library Implications of Individual and Team Empowerment.' Library Journal. June 15, 1993.

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Chapter Eleven

Quality assurance, standards and quality services

Quality assurance', 'quality management', and 'quality improvement' are terms which have been used, usually interchangeably, for several decades to describe the management philosophy which postulates that quality 'is fundamental to achieving organizational productivity and survival' (Younger, p. 2). Other terms, such as quality control' and Total Quality Management' or TQM', are also used, and while they define approximately the same approach to management, there are subtle differences, as can be seen in the standard British Standards Institution definitions: Quality control: The operational techniques and activities that are used to fulfil requirements for quality. Quality control. . . aims both at monitoring a process and at eliminating causes of unsatisfactory performance at relevant stages of the quality loop in order to result in economic effectiveness. Quality assurance: All those planned and systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that a product or service will satisfy given requirements for quality. Total quality management (TQM): A management philosophy embracing all activities through which the needs of the customer and the community, and the objectives of the organization are satisfied in the most efficient and cost effective way by maximizing the potential of all employees in a continuing drive for improvement. (BSI, p. 283)

In library and information services management, continuing uncertain economic patterns and new emphasis on accountability have brought about a recent upsurge of interest in applying quality management to those organizations (see Mackey, St Clair, and others). 'Addressing the needs of the customer and the community' has become the focus of library and information services, and putting into place even the basic elements of the concept has been demonstrated to bring about dramatic improvements in information delivery. As for those 'basic elements', perhaps the best list comes not from information services but from the business community, in which there is wide agreement that the 'essential ingredients' of TQM are: An intense focus on customer satisfaction Accurate measurement Continuous improvement of products and services

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services

New work relationships based on trust and teamwork. (Barrier, p. 23)

To these a fifth essential' ingredient should be added: total management commitment. No program in quality services can succeed without the total support of the decision-makers in the organization, and all of Barrier's 'essential ingredients', including accurate measurement, flow from the efforts and the enthusiasm of senior management to provide products and services - whatever they are - which are the best products and services the organization can provide. In fact, there are many situations where these techniques have been attempted, only to meet with abject failure because management was not involved or, if involved, did not convey to staff the true meaning of the process and was thus unable to enlist staff support. Ostensibly, one of the major goals of quality management is empowerment, and indeed, empowerment is a vitalizing force in our organizations. Without management backing, alas, the term becomes nothing more than an empty word, and no one knows that better - or reads the situation more clearly - than the very people whom management is attempting (perhaps with the best will in the world) to 'empower.' As Barrier states, it all has to do with trust and teamwork, but the trust must go - and must be perceived by staff to go - both ways. Nevertheless, there are opportunities for the managers of library and information services units. The concept of quality management can be utilized to strengthen and enhance the role of the units in the organizations and communities where they are located. In the process, information managers themselves embark on better management practices, and, at the same time, put themselves in leadership positions within their parent organizations. No senior management officer - regardless of his/her lack of enthusiasm for these practices can resist the allure of improved products and services, and if a manager in a library or other information services unit has become skilled at measuring services in terms of what senior management wants measured, the way is open for improved participation not only at the immediate level affecting the information services unit itself, but throughout the organization as a whole. At this point, however, the requirement is for an enthusiasm and a commitment on the part of the manager of the library or information services unit, a requirement which, in light of the extra work and extra time involved, is often questioned. Nevertheless, the payoff is worth the investment, for in terms of the role of the library or information services unit within the organization, improved services and enhanced recognition make it all worthwhile. So a first step should be the resolution, the determination, on the part of the manager of the library or information services unit, to bring quality management, as a management technique, into the unit itself. If the discussion or presentation has been carefully structured, senior management should not only endorse the program but will, if appropriate groundwork has been laid, embrace the program as a 'pilot' program for the entire organization. Alternatively, senior management may very well put a restraint on the library's quality program in order to develop a program for the entire organization, an operation in which the library or

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information services manager usually finds himself/herself playing an important role, if not as a member of the team itself, then certainly as the resource person for the team. The establishment of quality assurance or quality management programs for libraries and information services organizations has been described in a variety of papers and studies, and although Anne M. Fredenburg in her paper makes it clear that there is no one 'generic formula' fitting all information services situations, there is a blueprint which can provide some guidance for each library or information services manager as he or she considers quality management for his or her specific unit. In her work on quality assurance, Fredenburg identified five 'threads' that run through any quality assurance program: 1

Planning - careful planning is essential to keep the program realistic and practical;

2

Proactive - an attitude which implies addressing situations before they become problems and heading off problems before they become serious; this is the opposite of reactive, which is allied with crisis intervention, such as efforts to eliminate the library;

3

Improvement - of a service, a resource, or of general management efficiency;

4

Problem-solving - which incorporates planning and improvement in a systematic method;

5

Evaluation - producing factual data to establish success, failure, or the worth of any process. (Fredenburg, p. 27)

Quality management and quality service are, of course, based on standards which are carefully worked out between management and the information services staff, based on a clear understanding of the needs of the defined user groups. The setting of standards is basic, for before information products and services (to say nothing of the management of the information services unit itseli) can become 'quality', each person must know what is expected of him or her. Drucker has stated that standards are so basic that no employee can take responsibility for his or her own contribution and for being understood' until specific, concrete standards of service and performance are in place, an admonition which applies to an information delivery organization as well as any other enterprise (Drucker, p. 117). An example might be found in reference work in an academic library, in which standards of service have not been established, with regard to the amount of attention the reference librarians are permitted to give to the students w h o are at the reference desk with their queries. Lacking standards, some librarians will take their 'educational' role very seriously and, with each student, patiently and carefully walk the person through an exposition of the various reference materials, in all their various formats, in order to provide the student with all that he or she needs to find the specific information being looked for. The approach goes even further, so that as the student finishes the search, the librarian is there to ask if anything more is needed, if the information found was exactly what was needed for the query, and so forth. On the other hand, lacking

Quality assurance,

standards

and quality

services

service standards, another reference librarian, with no ill will, simply waves the enquiring student in the direction of some of the periodical indexes and that is the end of the information transaction. The lack of standards in this situation (which is merely hypothetical, incidentally, since appropriate standards of reference service are established at both the graduate training level and in the workplace) affects not only the delivery of information but effectively prevents a large percentage of the student body, those who come to the second reference librarian, from receiving the service to which they are entitled. From the customer service point of view, the lack of performance standards in this situation is a disaster for the customer and for the library. Professional standards in the delivery of information services and products is a question which continues to plague many in the field. Are there, in fact, standards which can be described as 'professional? One description notes that 'professionals are very good at their w o r k . . . [they have] a sense of vocation, enthusiasm and the special inspiration which is generated from within' (Royal Bank, p. 2). In library and information services, of course, the basic qualification for professionalism is supposedly a graduate degree in library and information services, but since the practice of library and information management is not connected to any licensing or other legally enforceable restriction, the graduate 'requirement' is not necessarily adhered to by those who are not part of the profession, especially unfortunately decision-makers who pass judgement on staffing and financial support for libraries and other information services organizations. So for most information services practitioners, professional standards comes down to understanding what is needed by the customer and using one's best expertise in providing him or her with it. What managers must do is insist upon those standards, however defined, in order to ensure that the service is as good as it can be. In the successful customer service relationship, of course, standards are not only 'professional' or 'organizational.' In any line of work, but especially in the delivery of information services and products, personal standards of excellence must be brought into the transaction. Stephen E. Arnold, speaking to a gathering of information professionals in 1988, urged them to bring to the delivery of information the same high standards that they adhere to in everything else they do. Pride in one's work, coupled with standards of excellence in the products and services being delivered, 'energize organizations to make excellence a routine part' of what they do (Arnold, p. 3)Information services staff, providing an essential service in those organizations and communities, are seeking exactly that excellence and that pride in their work. Speaking about the information professional in the so-called 'Information Age', Tom Russell pulled together concepts about quality and personal fulfillment in information services: It all boils down to quality. . . that level of work resulting from an amalgam of skill and relevance and stamina and cerebral agility, a dynamic combination when motivated and energized and set in a network supported by smart technology. The successful information professional will be one who has internalized the fact that the library is but

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one source of information. . . . [T]he successful information professional will be one seeking personal fulfillment and the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to self and to others. (Russell, pp. 8-9)

In connecting 'personal fulfillment', 'meaningful contribution', and excellence of service in information delivery, it might b e helpful to look at one of the fundamental rules of good salesmanship, often referred to in the literature, which requires that employees must sincerely listen to their customers (Cook, p. 39). Surely in information services work good listening is a basic component of the reference interview, and while good listening skills can be taught, they are most often (by the time one is employed in a customer contact position in a library or other information services unit) part of the employee's natural character. During an information interaction, when a user is attempting to explain to a searcher what he or she is really seeking to find, the searcher's own high communication standards, including a willingness to listen and to listen carefully (no matter how many other distractions are tempting the employee away), will result in a better understanding of what the user is enquiring about and ultimately, of course, will save time and energy all around, since the query won't have to be repeated or refined before the requested information is provided. Attention to service and performance standards is becoming increasingly a subject of importance to managers in all types of work, and information services managers can learn from the experiences of others in this area. A recent survey of American, European, UK and Japanese companies concluded that service, in all its many aspects, is now recognized as the 'competitive edge' for success and described how companies around the world are organizing themselves to get service to the customer correctly and maintaining it'. Two findings of the study are particularly germane to an understanding of the value of customer service in the information services environment. In one, participants were asked if, when bureaucracy gets in the way of good customer service, is it eliminated? In the USA, 43 percent of the respondents replied that it wasn't eliminated, but should be. In Europe, the figure was 46 percent, in Japan 40 percent, and in the UK 54 percent. A second question asked if respondents personally had the authority to use their own judgement to satisfy the customer, and of these, 84 percent of the US participants answered that they did have such authority. In Europe the figure was 68 percent, in Japan 34 percent, and in the UK 79 percent. The findings demonstrated, according to the report, that 'there needs to b e much more organization in companies . . . to get the service ethic properly installed and operational' (Humble, n.p.). These figures tell us that, in much of the business world, service is an issue which must be confronted. For information services management, standards of service must be as high as, if not higher than, those of the business community, and staff must be trained and authorized to deal directly with customers and their needs. The 'rule-book mentality', so often cited as a barrier to quality customer service in the information field, must b e replaced with a compelling

Quality assurance, standards and quality services

interest, on the part of each information services manager and staff member, in the customer's needs and the most effective and efficient procedures and policies for meeting those needs. For example, one of the major problem areas in any service operation is dealing with telephone queries, yet most information services managers do not concern themselves with the rudiments of telephone procedures in their organizations. This group of questions, put to every information services staff manager who is involved in telephone contact with users, might be useful in analyzing how the customers are being treated, and how that treatment might affect their perceptions of the service the information services unit is offering. Under the general heading of How Easy Are You To Do Business With,' information services managers might ask the following: 1

Do you have direct-dial telephone and facsimile for customer contact? What about e Mail?

2

Can users get through to you (no busy signal) at least 95 percent of the time?

3

Do fewer than 20 percent of calls get placed on 'Hold'?

4

When incoming calls are placed on 'Hold', are 90 percent of the 'Hold' calls for less than one minute and 98 percent for less than two minutes?

5 Do fewer than 10 percent of incoming calls have to be re-directed (transferred to another number)? 6 Are your front-line people trained in customer relations and telephone skills? 7

If orders or requests for information products or services can be placed by telephone, do you call the customer back to acknowledge that the order has been received?

8

Do you call the customer back to report on the status of the order?

9

Do you have specific standards for callbacks on enquiries, complaints and other matters?

10 Do you monitor telephone contacts regularly to ensure that front-line staff are performing up to standard? 11 Do you survey users regularly to determine how well you're meeting their needs? In the information services environment, the organization and delivery of quality services requires attention to three concepts. First, there must be an acceptable and agreed-upon definition of quality service for the library or information service unit. Ron Zemke, advocating what he calls 'distinctive service', offers a workable definition for information providers:

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Quality control of a service entails watching a process unfold and evaluating it against the consumer's judgement. . . . The only completely valid standard of comparison is the customer's level of satisfaction.... To create a distinctive level of customer service, management must understand - and even on occasion shape - the customer's prepurchase expectations, influence the customer's evaluation of postpurchase quality, and ensure that the process of being served is not only painless and easy but, when possible, enjoyable. (Zemke, pp. 14-15, emphasis added)

If in fact management and staff have agreed that the definition of quality service is based on customer satisfaction, is it not incumbent on them to design the service to reflect user requirements? Here again Zemke offers a plan. Creating distinctive service, he suggests, requires five 'operating principles' for success, each of which can be appropriately applied in the library or information service environment: 1

Listen, understand and respond to the customers.

2

Define superior service and establish a service strategy.

3

Set standards and measure performance.

4

Select, train and empower employees to work for the customer.

5

Recognize and reward accomplishment. (Zemke, p. 28)

For Zemke's techniques to work in information services, however, managers must make a conscious effort to change some of their methods. Most library managers, for example, don't necessarily have control over how well staff listens to, understands or responds to a user, but what management can do is hire the kinds of people who do listen, and invest in training to ensure that all staff, especially front-line staff, have the opportunity to become adept at listening and understanding their users. Similarly, management must lead the way, as described earlier, in defining quality service, establishing service strategy and establishing standards for the performance of duties and responsibilities within the information services unit. Management must work with staff in developing guidelines for performance, to ensure that all staff can consistently accomplish their tasks quickly and with a high level of excellence. What it all means, of course, is that management, by setting the 'tone' in the information services unit and guiding the progress of the staff as criteria are established, puts in place a distinctive' scheme which, in effect, provides the incentive for the 'distinctive' service which the unit provides. A second consideration in establishing quality service is that the levels of service being offered by the unit must be defined. For most library and information services organizations, identifying information deliverables for customers requires looking concurrently at four categories (although, to be fair, different types of information units will view these categories differently): •

kinds of information: factual, qualitative, synthesized, 'how-to', other;

•

frequency of use: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly;

Quality assurance, standards and quality

services

•

speed of delivery: immediately, today, tomorrow, this week, other;

•

information use: planning, operating, reporting, corresponding, other.

It is also necessary to determine which levels of library services will be provided, that is, to come up with some answers to the question, 'What is meant by "stateof-the-art"?' Accepted guidelines today usually categorize the collections which support information delivery as representative, research and comprehensive level collections: •

Representative collection: materials adequate for acquiring a current basic knowledge of a subject.

•

Research collection: materials adequate for the needs of graduate practitioners of the subject. Such collections usually include a sufficient number of materials to support research, development or administrative programs in the subject area.

•

Comprehensive collection, materials as found in a research collection, plus information published worldwide to support long-term research and development interest.

In addition to looking at the level of materials provided through a library and information services unit, it is also helpful to analyze the individual information needs of the customers. Most information needs can be categorized according to the people who are going to be using the information. For some library or information services organizations, the following (or some variation) might be used to describe the users: 1

information repackagers, for whom information must be totally accurate and who need further information to verify leads they've obtained elsewhere, to check facts, and to determine the value of the information they have chosen (or been asked) to repackage;

2

problem-solvers, for whom information is expected to be precise and quantitative;

3

decision-makers, who need information which must be synthesized;

4

those who help others, who generally come to the libraries for directory-type information, using such materials as standards, guidelines, dictionaries, atlases, rules, government regulations, etc.;

5

creative types, who need more expansive information products, including (but not limited to) audio, visual, interactive video, tactile media, etc. (Palmer and Varnet, p. 6 - 7 )

Reviewing the information unit's products and services, programs, and collections, and matching that data to the information compiled from the unit's user studies, needs analysis and information audit enables staff and management to coordinate services with the defined needs of the customers, the basic goal of

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quality service. There is now an opportunity for evaluation, and management can determine what services are - or are not - appropriate for the unit to be offering. In the customer service context, the information unit thus puts itself in a position for becoming the information provider of choice for the defined user group, and can move forward with the planning, development and implementation of specific services for the users. A third requirement in establishing quality service is that all stakeholders in the delivery of information, including senior management, information services management, staff and customers, must agree to a commitment for matching the services to the needs of the users. Described earlier (Chapter 6), this commitment by both senior management and the management team in the library or other information services unit to support the development of a customer-based 'culture' is a primary condition for success in achieving success in establishing strong relations with customers. Nothing will happen if management does not directly encourage and endorse an attitude of service built around customer service. In very real terms, the organization of specific programs and activities to this end, advocated by both senior management and management in the library or other information services unit, is the impetus that drives the effort and leads to success in customer service planning.

References Arnold, Stephen E. Standards of Information Marketing: Theory and Tactics for Information Professionals. Presentation at the Special Libraries Association Conference, Denver, CO, June 14, 1988 (unpublished). Barrier, Michael. 'Small Firms Put Quality First.' Nation's Business. 80 (5) May, 1992. British Standards Institution. Quality vocabulary: Part 2: concepts and related definitions. (BS 4778: Part 2: 1991.) Quoted in Just Another Management Fad? The Implications of TQM for Library and Information Services,' by John R. Brockman. Aslib Proceedings 44 (7/8) July/August, 1992. Cook, Wirt M. 'Growing a Business: Strategies for Business Expansion.' Entrepreneur 19 (5) May, 1991. Drucker, Peter F. Managing the Nonprofit Organization: Principles and Practices. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Fredenburg, Anne M. 'Quality Assurance: Establishing a Program for Special Libraries.' Special Libraries 79 (4) Fall, 1988. Humble, John. Service: The New Competitive Edge. A Survey of Executive Opinion in the UK. Reading, England: Digital Equipment Company, in association with Management Centre Europe.

Quality assurance, standards and quality services

Mackey, Terry, and Mackey, Kitty. 'Think Quality! The Deming Approach Does Work in Libraries.' Library Journal. May 15, 1992. Palmer, Richard Phillips and Varnet, Harvey. How to Manage Information: A Systems Approach. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx, 1990. Russell, Tom. 'The Information Age: What is it?' The Military Librarian. October, 1990. 'The Soul of Professionalism.' The Royal Bank [of Canada] Letter. 71 (6) November/December, 1990. St. Clair, Guy, ed. 'Total Quality Management, Benchmarking, and The Learning Organization: New Management Paradigms for the Information Environment.' Special Libraries. 84 (3) Summer, 1993. Younger, Jennifer. 'Total Quality Management: Can We Move Beyond the Jargon?' Special Libraries Association Central Ohio Chapter Bulletin. 27 (2) February, 1992. Zemke, Ron, with Dick Schaaf. The Service Edge: 101 Companies that Profit from Customer Care. New York: Penguin Books, 1989.

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Chapter Twelve

Follow-up and analysis, evaluation, and measurement

Much of our responsibility, as library and information services professionals, is to initiate, plan, and deliver information products and services which satisfy user needs. The responsibility doesn't end there, however, and for the process to be successful, senior management in every organization and community which offers information services, and the managers of the libraries and information services units themselves, must engage in an organized program of follow-up and analysis, evaluation and the measurement of information services.

Follow-up and analysis The simplicity involved in follow-up and analysis make it the easy part, and perhaps because it is easier, it is essentially neglected in most information interactions. Librarians and other information services practitioners are frequently so inundated with requests for information, and then must exert so much energy in the delivery of that information, that there simply isn't a place in the process for follow-up and analysis. The suggestion here is to change that process. For information services to be as good as they can be (and the subject here is, as it has been throughout this book, excellence of service), follow-up and analysis must be built into the process and recognized as an essential step in the delivery of quality service. The simplest follow-up and analysis takes place at the transaction. The records management employee who takes a telephone request from another department in the organization, calls up the requested material from the automated records and then delivers the information via the organization's internal e-mail system or networked information system, will then call or attach a line asking if this information is what the user needs. The analysis usually occurs very informally, when the information turns out not to have been what was needed and the employee, in consultation with a supervisor, determines a different search strategy or procedure. Similarly, in a reference library, the librarian asks, at the time of the transaction, if the information being delivered is what the user wants. Having determined in the reference interview the extent of the search and the level of the resources being searched, most reference librarians will know, by

Follow-up and analysis, evaluation,

and

measurement

the time the information is delivered, whether it is, in fact, what the user needs. In this situation, the analysis occurs when the various members of the reference department recognize certain directions or trends in the questions and in the information products and services being delivered, and staff discussions center on how to improve or enhance those products and services. The situation is more complicated in industry, law, medicine, and certain scientific and/or humanities research, as users come to information services staff to locate specific documents, reports, files, published or unpublished conference proceedings (as well as books and journal articles) which are necessary for the work they are doing. A forestry products company, for example, might have a large staff of information specialists to support research not only in the manufacture and sale of current products but in the development of new products as well. Scientists in the research and development departments of the company will rely on the information staff to locate a wide range of information products for them, and with each request, the information staff member must not only determine the uses for which the requested information is needed, he or she must be prepared to guide the user in the development of additional ideas about information products which might prove equally beneficial. When the products are delivered, the follow-up process begins, which might be a series of brief questions, written or oral, at the time of delivery, or the task might be as formalized as the setting of an appointment to interview the customer and determine how useful the material is or is not, and how the search can be continued, if further material is required. As would be expected, analyzing such information interactions requires considerable planning and organization, and this is exactly the type of activity that will be identified in the departmental task activity (see Chapter 10), particularly as it relates to the delivery of specific products and services or the organization of new and/or enhanced information product initiatives. In any case, however, such staff analysis of delivery processes, and the effectiveness of the materials and services being delivered, is necessary for evaluating the information services program.

Evaluation of services How does the information services staff find out from customers whether they're doing a good job or not? The evaluation of service quality is based on a desire to provide a 'picture' or 'snapshot', so to speak, of the services in terms which are easily understood by all stakeholders in the process. These people must have this picture in order, as they approach the decision-making activities which affect information services, to be qualified to make the decisions they need to make. There is an accepted group of concepts associated with the evaluation of information services, and these have been identified and published: 1

Evaluation must have a purpose; it must not be an end in itself.

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2

Without the potential for some action, there is no need to evaluate.

3

Evaluation must be more than merely descriptive.

4

Evaluation should be a communication tool where feedback to and from staff and users is unimpeded.

5

Evaluation should not be sporadic in nature, but rather should be considered as an ongoing management tool supported by an ongoing system of measures or management information system.

6

Ongoing evaluation should provide a means for continual monitoring, diagnosis and change.

7

Ongoing evaluation should be dynamic in nature, in that evaluation measures, models and methods must reflect new knowledge and changes in the operational, user and organizational environment. (Griffiths and King, p. 3)

There are a variety of approaches for evaluating service quality, and many of them have been accepted practice in information services for some time. The purpose of the work is to ask questions, and certainly two such questions, identified in a presentation on service quality, sum up the situation nicely. When information services professionals want to evaluate how their services are valued, they must ask: 'What aspects of our performance are most important to you, and how should we measure that performance?' and 'What changes in our services or how we provide our services would be most beneficial to you?' (Kopher, p. 24). Some techniques used for asking these questions (or others which, in their interpretation, provide the same information for evaluating the information services) are: •

The survey questionnaire Similar to the survey instrument which might be developed for a user survey (as discussed earlier), an evaluation questionnaire is shorter, more directed to specific products and services, and designed to elucidate the effectiveness of information products and services used by the customer and whether, in fact, additional products and services pertaining to the user's work are required. Such short questionnaires can be designed as point-of-transaction surveys or, since many users may not wish to take the time to answer questions as the information product is being delivered, as surveys to be responded to later. The problem with after-transaction surveys, of course, is the loss of spontaneity in the response, which has some value for the information services unit which provided the product. Information, as a commodity which has value only when it is needed, may not be as important to the customer once the information product has been delivered and applied to whatever requirement motivated the search in the first place. Another consideration, whether the survey is to be a point-of-transaction survey or offered later, is that the user, more than likely, will answer the questions in terms of the specific transaction. Thus the design of the survey must be carefully constructed to seek broader and less specific information, concentrating on the user's general area of specialty

Follow-up and analysis, evaluation, and measurement

and interest and moving the responses away from the specific transaction at which the survey was offered. Telephone surveys Certainly one of the easiest (but alas timeconsuming) evaluation methods is for information services staff, on a regular basis, to telephone customers and request a few minutes to discuss information delivery. If the telephone questionnaire has been developed carefully, is brief and designed to elicit specific information about information services being delivered to the particular user, a cooperative and useful conversation can take place. Focus groups Like the focus groups used in needs analysis and the more broad-based user survey (described in Chapter 8), focus groups for measuring the quality of information services can be useful. The same basic rules apply, and the interpretation of data requires a considerable amount of organization and refinement on the part of management in the information services unit, but the net value of the effort can be valuable in determining how well the services offered by the information unit meet the needs of the group. Customer user groups Similarly, many information services organizations find it useful to organize a 'users council' or other customer group to advise management about information products and services offered by the unit. In many organizations, a 'library advisory committee' exists to provide outside opinion about library programs, sometimes to the extent of advising about direct purchases, acquisitions, and the like. Other enterprises with information services units supporting organizational missions put together information 'task forces' (usually temporary, and created to look at specific issues) or 'teams' (more permanent, and structured to offer advice on an ongoing basis) to ensure that organizational interests are incorporated into the management of information services. As with most structured groups, the input provided can be valuable and eventually so useful to information services management that the 'committee' and its efforts become permanent. Care must be taken, however, to ensure that such groups are - and remain - advisory, and that their activities are limited to offering opinion and recommendations. Policy issues are not the purview of such groups (unless specifically constituted as such), and certainly management issues must be removed from all deliberations, particularly in those groups in which well-meaning but often unqualified members want to 'play at' information management. Personal visits by library and information services personnel One of the most effective methods for the evaluation of quality services is to send information staff regularly to departmental or divisional functions, to meet with users in determining their needs and, at the same time, to

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elicit their opinions about the value of the services they are receiving from the information unit. Certainly such meetings are useful, even if they are restricted to meetings with individuals in the various departments, but in many organizations, the information staff member becomes involved in departmental project teams as well, becoming the information resource person for the team. Such cross-disciplinary staff interactions result in very positive benefits for the user group, as needs which have been identified earlier are refined and additional enhancements are added and, of course, the evaluation of service quality proceeds as specific user requirements are considered and, when appropriate, met. •

Personal visits by management Related to cross-disciplinary staff activities, of course, is the work that information services management does with other managers. Every meeting between departmental managers in the organization should be seen as an opportunity to find out from other managers how their staff's work is improved or enhanced through the use of information services. At the same time, the manager of the information unit, like his/her staff members, can continue to reinforce that the information services unit is a resource for such management activities and can serve as the information resource person for the group.

•

Feedback from former users The Marketing Information System (see Chapter 9) can establish, on a regular basis, those members of the constituent user group who are not taking advantage of the information service unit. An established program of calls, letters, e-mail messages or other non-confrontational efforts can be directed to these people, in order to establish not only why they are not currently using information services (and their reasons may be very sensible as they, for example, simply don't need information products or services at this point in time), but how the services they used in the past were of value to them in their work.

•

Observation and analysis by independent professionals It is standard practice in many library and information services organizations to bring in outside consultants to evaluate services and offer recommendations for improved or enhanced services. The obvious advantage of such studies is that the consultant, without immediate involvement as a staff member in the organization, can offer objective opinion about information services and, at the same time, through his or her experiences in the wider information arena, bring bench-marking expertise to the process of seeking best practices for the information services unit. The disadvantage of using an independent professional for evaluating service quality is that the consultant is, indeed, an outsider and very well may not be able to grasp the operational nuances which drive the organiz-

Follow-up and analysis,

evaluation,

and

measurement

ation and/or the role of the information services unit within the organization. Needless to say, the value of these various processes is determined solely by how the information is used, so it becomes just as important for information services managers to do their own 'follow-up', to put information about service quality to work in the delivery of information products and services and, at the same time, to keep asking and improving the data-gathering process. Evaluating quality services is an on-going activity and a basic component of the information service process which, when neglected, can only lead to a routine information delivery and a certain stagnation that demeans the information services unit altogether.

Dealing with complaints No one likes complaints, and in fact in most information services units, dealing with the complaining user is usually relegated to the bottom of the manager's list of priorities, but complaints can be a valuable source of information about how well a unit is performing and where there are trouble spots that need to be addressed. Complaints management in any organization requires a specific set of procedures, and in the information services environment, the following should be considered: 1

Are there written guidelines for dealing with complaints? All organizations that offer services are going to have complaints. Human nature being what it is, and, especially with regard to libraries and information services, perceptions and expectations varying as they do, there will be people who will not be satisfied with the information products and services they receive. Information services management must create a policy for dealing with complaints, and staff guidelines should be written and freely distributed to all staff with some frequency. Complaints guidelines should be easily accessible in all customer contact areas of the information services unit, and staff should be encouraged to refer to the guidelines frequently, in order to be familiar with their contents when complaint situations arise.

2

Is staff trained in dealing with the complaining user? External and internal facilitators should be engaged on a regular basis to work with front-line employees (and supervisors as well, although on a less frequent basis) to train them in appropriate behavior for complaints resolution. Various techniques will be employed, including role playing, so that staff will be able to understand the user's problems from the user's point of view.

3

Are complaints responded to, with the response circulated among the

Customer Service in the Information

Environment

staff of the information services unit? A basic policy requires that all complaints, verbal and written, are answered in writing (when the complaining customer will permit his/her name and address to be taken), and all staff, but particularly front-line employees, are offered the opportunity to see the response and even, if appropriate, to participate in organizing the response. Anonymous complaints, while not exactly ignored, are given low priority unless objective management and staff reaction determines that there is some basis for action. In this case, the anonymous complaints are discussed with staff and, when appropriate, corrective action taken. 4

Are complaints logged in as they are received, in order to serve as an early warning? Are they then filed for future reference? Certain trends and patterns may very well emerge as complaints come into the library or other information services unit, but in order for the department to be able to recognize these patterns and implement any appropriate action, the complaints themselves must be organized and filed. As noted, even anonymous complaints should be logged in, as they might contribute to a more useful analysis of some of the activities which are the basis for complaints in which the complainers are identified.

5

Does the manager of the information services unit see periodic reports of complaints? Even if the manager is not directly involved in complaint mediation, the organization and filing of complaints received should include a report mechanism which enables him/her to track any trends or specific developments which should be addressed. Of course, the manager should make clear to staff that any specific major problems should be described to him/her, at least, so that awkward surprises don't come up later.

6

When is third-party dispute settlement necessary? One of management's responsibilities is to negotiate and settle complaint disputes when necessary, and staff must be aware that there is management support. Likewise, if the customer's complaint cannot be resolved through the manager of the information services unit, a policy should be in place for directing the mediation to another level or unit of the organization or community.

There are, of course, a multitude of handbooks and guides for handling the complaining customer, and as an information services unit begins the development of a complaints policy and a set of guidelines for staff, these can be consulted. In most cases, however, the following, adapted for information services from the business community, might be useful: First Step. Let your user blow off steam - while you show that you're listening. It is important to maintain eye contact. If you look away, your user is likely to get even hotter under the collar.

Follow-up and analysts, evaluation,

and

measurement

Second. No matter how unreasonable the complaint seems, the user has a right to express it. Don't find fault with the person and never use 'you-should-have' language with a user. Third. See the complaint for what it is. Don't exaggerate it, but don't minimize it either. By helping your user define the dimension of the problem, you are rendering a service that will bring him/her back again. Fourth. Don't analyze or label his/her emotions. Try to define the problem. Fifth. Rephrase the complaint to the user. Show that you understand what the problem is and explain what steps you will take to alleviate the solution. Sixth. Thank your customers for informing you of the situation and their feelings. Let them know that you appreciate the opportunity to be of extra service. The point here is: Try to win friends, not arguments. (Gschwandtner, p. 49)

In the final analysis, complaints are not something to be ignored, and complaints can provide a great deal of useful information as far as the general management of information services is concerned. But complaints must not drive the unit, or the establishment of service standards. Users' comments and concerns are important, and their input provides valuable information which is critical in the planning of information services, but the information must be based on reasonable and general expectations, which benefit the entire body of users. Complaints, unfortunately, compel information services managers to focus on the individual expectations of the individual customer, and while they are useful for what they are, complaints and the complaining customers must be kept in some perspective.

Measurement The measurement of information services, especially in terms of information effectiveness, is now being identified as a subject of major importance in the information services management. Whether measurement efforts are activated by the organization as a whole, or through the efforts of the manager responsible for the library or information services unit, success is not achieved until the effectiveness of information services can be determined. Increasingly, specific measures of success must be provided to senior managements, and as these measurements are being required of all other units within the organizations and communities which provide information services, management in those organizations has a right (and has come to exercise that right) to expect specific measures of success from libraries and information services as well. The fact that library and information services managers have not in the past been held accountable for the services they provide, because of some mystique about the 'higher good' of libraries and information, does not apply today. Libraries and information units, like all services, must now prove their worth, and it is this drastic change in thinking about library services that causes much consternation and concern with many traditionally educated librarians. No less

Customer Service in the Information Environment

an authority than W David Penniman, President of the Council on Library Resources, has challenged library and information services managers to 'change the way we measure success... to choose a new philosophy of information service leadership'; he suggests a value approach, recognizing that every information service or product has a measurable value'. Penniman's approach positions the library or other information services agency as 'a delivery mechanism rather than a warehouse, with an emphasis on output, not assets'. At the same time, however, Penniman is not advocating the wholesale destruction of the systems in place. As delivery systems, he writes, libraries still have many facets: that of warehouse, gateway, intermediary, a channel in the scholarly communication process, and a preserver of "what we know" ' (Penniman, p. 44). The focus, though, must be on measurement, and quantitative analysis and the application of quality management techniques must be used, wherever possible, in measuring library and information services. Similarly, W. Patrick Leonard, an academic administrator, calls for what he terms 'new measures of effectiveness', seeking from library and information services professionals who report to him information that can be used in outcome assessment: I am going to ask you f o r . .. data that will more directly gauge the library's influence upon its various clients. Although the usual figures on collection size, circulation, and reference will continue to be of interest, they will no longer be sufficient. This information doesn't go far enough in an age concerned with the conflicting issues of quality and cost containment. . . . I am looking for demonstrated relationships between library costs and benefits more closely related to the institution's teaching mission. . . . Let me suggest some possible avenues to explore. Is there a relationship between the nature of students' library use and their academic performance?... If w e can isolate linkages between, for example, regular use of reference services and classroom performance or student retention then the library should be more competitive in the budget arena. If not, w e may have to rethink the library's mission within the institution. (Leonard,

pp. 228-9) So one point of view in the library and information services connects measurement with effectiveness, determining that the services provided relate to the success of the users as they utilize and implement the information they obtain from the library. At the other extreme, measurement has to do with more quantitative and more tangible processes. This can be the 'warehouse' notion so talked about in the profession today, or it can be more process oriented, as in those companies and organizations wherein units of the workflow are measured and assessed and where operational performance and cost and benefits analysis are implemented. Most organizations will, of course, require a combination of quantitative and qualitative measurement. Such measurement is attempted, and frequently successfully, in organizations which not only provide those services usually referred to as 'traditional library services', but also deliver internal and external information as a matter of course. How the effectiveness of these services is measured was recently noted by Arthur Elias, writing about the future of infor-

FoUow-up and analysis, evaluation, and

measurement

mation services. Elias referred to a point made in the journal Information Retrieval and Library Automation which is pertinent in the discussion of effectiveness measurement: 'Libraries will gain merit as a result of their connectivity rather than by their holdings' (Elias, p. 4). This statement, of major significance in its very accuracy, provides new directions, and with it new opportunities, for measuring success in library and information services units. In the measuring, most results are of course directed to senior management within the organization or community, but those who are responsible for library and information services also look to their users, as has been described throughout this chapter. The customers are the key to whether library and information staff are doing what they are supposed to be doing, or not. Andrew Berner, writing about the smallest information services unit, has concluded that quality in library and information services management is determined by the users themselves, and that those library managers who recognize this fact are indeed the library managers who succeed: 'Those who achieve excellence in their libraries generally have a high level of awareness regarding their users, their users' needs, and their own role in helping their users meet those needs' (Berner, pp. 6-7). Success, then, is related to the success of those information services in the eyes of the users. In the final analysis, the library or information services unit can only be regarded as successful if its users are getting what they need from the unit. In fact, measurement does not have to be an either/or situation, quantitative or qualitative, and it was Ann Lawes who so succinctly put the issue in proper perspective for library and information services managers.* This is a troublesome issue, the measuring of information services, and many library managers continue to adhere to the belief that the provision of information is a transcendental activity, of necessity subjective and thus immeasurable. For other library and information services professionals, since their managements are not so much interested in statistics or workflow as in effectiveness, new methods and new procedures, such as those Penniman and Leonard refer to, are required. Lawes, however, makes a very clear case that the measurement of information services is not such a daunting challenge, if senior management and the management staff of the information services unit will agree on what they want measured at the earliest possible stage. 'The establishment of agreed standards of performance,' Lawes says, 'is basic to the success of the entire information operation.' She points out that if standards are drawn up at the beginning of the process, that is, standards of service drawn up between customers, senior management, and the managers of the specialized library or information services, performance indicators can then be determined as part of the same process. With the establishment of specific standards, the determination of the type of measurement, whether quantitative, qualitative, or some variation of each, fol*I am grateful to Ann Lawes for sharing these thoughts with me during a conversation in London in April, 1993.

137

Customer Service in the Information Environment

lows logically. At that stage, of course, the organization is in fact assessing what it perceives as valuable and important within the context of its total operation. Finally, though, in grappling with the complicated issue of measurement in library and information services management, it is important to remember that sometimes statistics, input/output results, cost/benefit analysis, and the like are not nearly as powerful as a concept. If the staff in a corporate library can say with a certain amount of professional pride, "The corporate library enables our company to compete as a global enterprise,' or if the records management staff in a technical research institute can say, 'Our scientists continue to get these grants because we keep a complete set of all the technical reports they need,' the staff is already on its way to providing the level of quality service the unit's information customers need. Being proud of what you do, and being committed to doing it well, are powerful motivators, and the information services manager who can instill this thinking in staff is well on the way to achieving information success.

References Berner, Andrew. 'Thinking About... Quality.' The One-Person Library: A Newsletter for Librarians and Management, 6 (8) December, 1989Elias, Arthur W. The NFAIS (National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services) Yearbook of the Information Industry - 1992. Medford, NJ: Learned Information, Inc., 1992. Gschwandtner, Gerhard. How to Handle A Complaining Customer.' Personal Selling Power. 11 (2) March, 1991. Griffiths, Jose-Marie, and King, Donald W. A Manual on the Evaluation of Information Centers and Services. New York: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1991. Kopher, Susan C. 'What's Your Quality Dilemma?' Special Libraries Association Business and Finance Division Bulletin. (87) Spring, 1991. Leonard, W. Patrick. 'On My Mind: This Year is Different: Facing Outcome Assessment.' Journal of Academic Librarianship. September, 1992. Penniman, W. David. 'Shaping the Future: The Council on Library Resources Helps to Fund Change.' Library Journal. October 15, 1992. St Clair, Guy, ed. Total Quality Management, Benchmarking, and The Learning Organization: New Management Paradigms for the Information Environment.' Special Libraries. 84 (3) Summer, 1993.

Selected bibliography

Albrecht, Karl. At America's Service: How Corporations Can Revolutionize The Way They Treat Their Customers. Homewood, 111.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1988. Albrecht, Karl, and Bradford, Lawrence J. The Service Advantage: How to Identify and Fulfill Customer Needs. Homewood, 111.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1990. Albrecht, Karl, and Zemke, Ron. Service America: Doing Business in the New Economy. Homewood, 111.: Business One - Irwin, 1985. American Management Association. Close to the Customer: An American Management. Association Research Report on Consumer Affairs. New York: American Management Association, 1987. Atkinson, Philip E. Creating Culture Change: The Key to Successful Total Quality Management. Bedford, UK: IFS Ltd., 1990. Bardwick, Judith. The Plateauing Trap. New York: Amacom, 1986. Bennis, Warren, and Nanus, Burt. Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Berry, Leonard L., Bennett, David R. and Brown, Carter W Service Quality: A Profit Strategy for Financial Institutions. Homewood, 111.: Dow Jones-Irwin, 1989. Bradford, David, and Cohen, Allan. Managing for Excellence. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1984. Buzzell, Robert D., and Gale, Bradley T. The PIMS Principles: Linking Strategy to Performance. New York: The Free Press, 1987. Camp, Robert C. Benchmarking: The Search for Industry Best Practices That Lead to Superior Performance. Milwaukee, Wis.: ASQC Press, 1989. Carr, Clay. Front-line Customer Service: Fifteen Keys to Customer Satisfaction. New York: John Wiley, 1990. Christianson, Elin B., King, David E. and Ahrensfeld, Janet L. Special Libraries: A Guide for Management. Washington, DC: Special Libraries Association, 1991. Davidow, William H., and Uttal, Bro. Total Customer Service: The Ultimate Weapon. New York: HarperCollins, 1989. Deal, Terrence, and Kennedy, Allan. Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1982. Deming, W Edwards. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, ΜΑ: ΜΓΓ Center for Advanced Engineering Study, 1986. Denton, D. Keith. Quality Service. Houston, TX: Gulf Publishing, 1989.

140

Customer Service in the Information

Environment

Desatnick, Robert L. Managing to Keep the Customer: How to Achieve and Sustain Superior Customer Service throughout the Organization. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987. Drucker, Peter F. The Effective Executive. New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Drucker, Peter F. Managing the Nonprofit Organization: Principles and Practices. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Drucker, Peter F. The New Realities. New York: HarperCollins, 1989. Drucker, Peter F. Post-Capitalist Society. New York: Harper Business, 1993. Dunckel, Jacqueline, and Taylor, Brian. Keeping Customers Happy: Strategies for Success. Bellingham, WA: International Self-Counsel Press Ltd., 1990. Garfield, John. Peak Performers: The New Heroes of American Business. New York: Morrow, 1986. Garvin, David A. Management Quality: The Strategic and Competitive Edge. New York: Macmillan, 1988. Goldzimer, Linda Silverman. 'I'm First:' Your Customer's Message to You. New York: Berkley Books, 1989. Griffiths, José-Marie, and King, Donald W. A Manual on the Evaluation of Information and Services. New York: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1991.

Centers

Guaspari, John. The Customer Connection: Quality for the Rest of Us. New York: American Management Association, 1988. Hamilton, Feona. "The Information Audit,' in Management Skills for the Information edited by Ann Lawes. London: Ashgate, 1993. Harrington, H. James. The Improvement Process: How Leading American Quality. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.

Companies

Manager; Improve

The Human Side of Quality: People, Pride, Performance. Milwaukee, Wis: American Society for Quality Control, 1990. Ishikawa, Kaoru. What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985. Juran, Joseph M. Juran on Leadership for Quality: An Executive Handbook. New York: Macmillan, 1989. Karatsu, Hajime. TQC Wisdom of Japan: Managing for Total Quality Control. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988. Kotter, John. Power and Influence: Beyond Formal Authority. New York: The Free Press, 1985. LeBoeuf, Michael, GMP: The Greatest Management Principle in the World. New York: Berkley Books, 1985. LeBoeuf, Michael. How To Win Customers and Keep Them for Life. New York. Berkley Books, 1988. Lele, Milind M., with Jogdush N. Sheth. The Customer is Key: Gaining an Unbeatable Advantage through Customer Satisfaction. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1987. Levitt, Theodore. Thinking about Management. New York: Free Press, 1991. The Manager's Handbook [Arthur Young, UK], New York: Crown Books, 1986. Odiorne, George. How Managers Make Things Happen. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982.

Selected bibliography Mount, Ellis. Special Libraries and Information Association, 1991.

Centers. Washington, DC: Special Libraries

On a Silver Platter. Milwaukee, Wis: American Society for Quality Control, 1986. Pascarella, Perry. The New Achievers. New York: The Free Press, 1984. Pathways: New Thoughts on the Road to Quality Improvements. Society for Quality Control, 1989.

Milwaukee, Wis: American

Peters, Tom. Liberation Management: Necessary Disorganization for the Nanosecond (see p. 19). New York: Knopf, 1992.

Nineties

Peters, Tom. Thriving on Chaos. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. Peters, Tom, and Waterman, Robert. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Companies. New York: Harper & Row, 1982.

Best-Run

Reck, Ross R. Turn Your Customers into Your Sales Force: The Art of Winning Repeat and Referral Customers. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1991. Reshaping the Enterprise for the 1990s: Issues, Initiatives, Risks. Cambridge, MA: Strategic Planning Institute, 1990. Riggs, Donald E. and Sabine, Gordon A. Libraries in the '90s: What the Leaders Expect. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1988. Schönberger, Richard J. Building a Chain of Customers: Linking Business Functions to Create the World Class Company. New York: Macmillan, 1990. The Service Edge. Minneapolis, MN: Lakewood, 1991. Service Quality: Assessing the Economic Impact. Cambridge, MA: Strategic Planning Institute, 1991. Spechler, Jay W. When America Does it Right: Case Studies in Service Quality. Norcross, GA: Industrial Engineering and Management Press, 1988. Sviokla, John J. and Shapiro, Benson P., eds. Keeping Customers: A Harvard Business Book. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 1993.

Review

Total Quality. Minneapolis, MN: Lakewood, 1990. von Oech, Roger. A Kick in the Seat of the Pants. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Walton, Mary. Deming Management

at Work. New York: Putnam, 1990.

White, Herbert S. Managing the Special Library. White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1984. Zeithaml, Valarie Α., Parasuraman, A. and Berry, Leonard L. Delivering Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations. New York: Macmillan, 1990. Zemke, Ron, and Schaaf, Dick. The Service Edge. New York: Penguin Books USA, 1989.

Index

Accountability of information services 16, 17 Albrecht, K.L. on intelligence gathering 30, 36 on service management 2-3 Analysis of customer needs 128-129 see also Needs analysis Anthony, L.J. on information function 28 management 27 Audit see Information audit Berner, A. on measuring service 137 Berry, J.N. on user segmentation 50 Budd, R. on modernizing the information service 42 Business practices 14 Campbell, C. on departmental task analysis 114-115 Carr, C. on customer satisfaction 72-73 Commitment by management and staff 55, 56, 138 to the mission 23 Communication skills 27 Competition 14, 46 relevance to information audit 87 Complaints data, using 98 dealing with 133-135 Consultants 132 Cost of information services 10 Courtesy 70-71 Customer demand, projecting 97 expectations 11-12, 15-16, 30-43, 47, 69 feedback 132 informing 40 needs 11-12, 76, 128-129 see also Needs analysis perception of service 36-37 changing 37-42 learning from workplace 33 planning 45

profile 38, 97 record numbers for 100 satisfaction 63-64, 72-73 evaluating 97 service definitions 2-6 importance of 8-18 institute 3 measurement of 13-14 motivating factors 4 perceptions of 9-15, 30 quality see Quality users' needs see Customer needs visibility 17 what it is not 4 see also User groups Customer Service Plan 104-117 defining 104 departmental task analysis 114-116 first stage 112-113 fourth and fifth stages 114 goals 106-108 impacts 108-109 importance of planning 104-105 partnership 109-111 second stage 113 structure 112-116 subjects for discussion 114 third stage 113-114 why create it? 105-106 Customers establishing relationship with 39-40 involving 65-73 losing 8-9 and the mission statement 22, 25 see also Customer; User Database see MkIS Davidow, W on management roles 54 Davis, V on integration of roles 27 Defining the market 44-52 Departmental task analysis 114-116 nine steps 115 purpose 115-116

Index Distribution of information 31-33 improvements 87 Drucker, Ρ on mission statements 22-23 on Special Libraries 1-2 Dunckel, J. & Taylor, B. on customer service 2, 15

Intelligence gathering 30-43

Echelman, S. on responsibilities of information manager 31 Ellis, R. on library service 5 Empathy 71 End-user searching 66-67 Enquiries, following up 98 Environment factors 86 Expert networks 67-68

Labovitz, J. on management of information 47 Lawes, A. on measuring services 137 LeBoeuf, M. on customers' perceptions 30 on information services 6 Leonard, W.P. on measuring services 136 Librarians see Special librarians Library service changes in 12 definition 5 location within organization 25 perceptions of 9-15, 12-14

Feedback from customers 132 Focus groups 78-80, 131 Fredenburg, A.M. on quality management 120 Function of information services 2 Goals see Customer Service Plan Gorman, M. on the value of IT 5 Harps, L. on customer service 3 Improving information services 73 Information audit 75-76, 84-90 content 86, 89-90 for extending market 87 procedure 89 purpose 86-87 relevance of competition 87 centers, purpose 26 distribution 31-33, 87 management, tasks 27 needs of an organization 24-25 services accountability 16, 17 business practices in 14 cost 10 definitions 1-3 differentiation in 48-50 evaluation of 129-133 function 2 keeping up-to-date 42 improving 73 involvement with customers 32 level provided 125 location 25 markets for see Market measurement of 13-14, 135-138 perceptions of by users 9-15, 12-14, 30-43 publicizing 40-41, 97-98 recommendation 17-18 role definition 20-29, 49 see also Customer service; Library service Inquiries see Enquiries 'Inside-out' service 10

Kanter, R.M. on incentives 110-111 Kiss (Keep It Simple, Stupid) 81 Knowledge workers 1 Kopher, S. on customer service 6

Mailing lists using MkIS 98 Management attitudes to information service 88 to staff 57-60 commitment 119 of information: MkIS 97-98 personal visits by 132 of quality service 61-62 responsibilities 60-64 roles 55-64 shift in thinking 57 Market defining 44-52 extending using information audit 87 research example 79 segmentation 45-48 targeting through MkIS 98 Marketing 97 Information System see MkIS McDermott, D.R. on corporate profile 97 Measuring customer service 13-14 information services 135-138 MIS see MkIS Mission agreeing the statement 24-26 commitment to 23 concept 21-24 importance of 20-21 relevance to customers 22, 25 MkIS 94-101 benefits 97-98 feedback 132 mailing lists 98 as a marketing database 100 organizing 98-101 Moment of truth: customer perceptions 36-37 Monty, Y on specific markets 44 Mount, E. on the mission statement 25

143

144

Index Needs analysis 75-80 focus group 78 who does it, and how? 77-78 Networks 67-68 Objectives see Customer Service Plan Olsen Associates, user surveys 81 Orna, E. on information audits 84, 85 Paster, A. & Osif, B. on customer expectations today 43 Paul, M. on quality in information services 5 Penniman, WD. on measuring service 136 Perceptions by new employees 131 users' see Customer perception of service Peters, T. on differentiation 48, 52 on 'inside-out' service 10 Planning see Customer planning; Customer Service Plan Politeness see Courtesy Profile, customers 38, 97 Publicizing the information service 40-41 using MkIS 97-98 Quality 16-17, 118-126 evaluating 129-133 definitions 118 management of 61-62 Questionnaire 130 by telephone 131 Recommendation 17-18 Record numbers for customers 100 Reliability 69-70 Researchers, targeting 49 Responsiveness 70 Rosenthal, J.A. on future information needs 27-28 Rules -ν- customer satisfaction 63-64 Russell, T. on quality 121-122 Searching, see End-user searching Service management, definition 2 Sources, using other 39

Special librarians, changing roles 26-27 Special Libraries Association 1 Staff commitment 55, 56, 138 front-line 58, 61 hiring of 58-61 involvement in Customer Service Plan 107-108 motivation 61-62 participation 57, 63 qualities 60-61 as salespeople 60 training 3-4, 57 Standards 121 see also Quality Stereotypes, information services 13 Strategic opportunism 93 Surveys see Questionnaire; User survey TARP 6 Task analysis see Departmental task analysis Taylor, B. see Dunckel, J. Teamwork 109-110, 112 Technical Assistance Research Programs Institute see TARP Telecommuting 68 Telephone skills, quality of 123 surveys 131 Total Quality Management see TQM TQM, definition 118 Training 3-4, 57, 62 User groups 131 selecting 44-52 survey 80-83 see also Customers) White, H.S. on determining information needs 24-25 on team effort and management 116-117 Word of mouth see Recommendation Zeithaml, VA. on customer research 99 Zemke, R. on customer service 124