Exit Stage Left

Chief Inspector here, reporting on the results of some investigation into an issue reported by a customer recently, and what we can do to avoid the same thing happening again.

This customer borrowed an item at the kiosk, and selected to receive an email receipt.

When she checked her email, Heavens to Murgatroyd there were 6 items on there that she hadn't ever borrowed! 

Turns out she had someone else's returned items listed on her receipt....
Hang on a minute, we don't email receipts for returned items do we?  No because the system needs to have a customer's details to send an email, which we don't ask for with returns.  The system counted the returns as part of her transaction because the previous user of the kiosk had returned their items and just walked away without pressing Exit - and when this lady did press Exit after issuing her item, they were all lumped on the same receipt as one transaction!

To be clear, the items were not issued to her at any time, but it's still mighty confusing and thus, not a great customer experience.

So please encourage all customers to Exit after they have finished returning their items, rather than just walking away. 

I know many people wish to save paper, and they still can, by waiting at the kiosk until it times out and the items disappear from the screen.  Once this happens, the transaction is effectively complete and those returns won't be listed anywhere unexpected.

Unfortunately at this time we cannot turn off the returns receipt function as the kiosks only have an on or off function for all receipts, and it is a consortium requirement that we provide a receipt when items are issued.  We are hoping this will be possible in a future release of FE software. 

A customer is a customer is a customer

Our customers contact us in a variety of ways, and we want to share our fantastic Library Land skills and knowledge with them regardless of what format they contact us in. Probably not sky writing or carrier pigeon (although...) but definitely the major candidates that we openly offer like face-to-face, phone, email and the web.

So keeping the customer experience focus it is essential that we respond to our customers in our same awesome, consistent and timely fashion regardless of what method they use. To this end is is crucial that we keep on top of our LIB ADMIN emails.

While yes, we should also be dealing with these on STAR shifts during the day when time permits, it is often crazy busy with face-to-face and phone customers so the opportunity doesn’t always arise – this is why it is an essential LIB ADMIN task that must be completed each day. We don’t want to leave our customers hanging!

There are always two LIB ADMINers rostered on, usually with one of them starting @ 9:00 AM, so there should always be time to complete this important task…and if there are reasons why this can’t be done or you just need some helpful advice, then call in support from your shelving buddies… and if this isn’t possible then do as indicated in the LIB ADMIN procedures and “If you are not able to complete all of these before the library opens, please let the first STAR staff know that it needs to be completed.”

And remember, if you need a refresher you can always find the LIB ADMIN procedures on the intranet under Library – Policies and Procedures. It has all the good details regarding what tasks are included and how it all works.

So go forth and respond to our customers as they contact us, maybe even if a carrier pigeon is involved :)