Customized Workshops & Services for Libraries
Library Roving Service
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..40 – 60% of your Library patrons/customers will not approach the desk to ask for the help they need. Many, feeling underserved, will not return. These “hidden customers” will only be found and served by Pro-active, Roving* Library Staff.
Pro-active Service and Roving is a powerful, effective workshop and follow-up program which has been successfully implemented in Libraries in Canada, the U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand.Joan Giannone, President of Mentor Group Training Inc. has over 9 years of experience consulting with and training thousands of Library Staff and Managers at dozens of Library Systems internationally. Her experience has shown clearly that many Libraries are grappling with similar issues when attempting to broaden their service model to include roving. Using this insight, Joan created the dynamic and practical workshop, “Pro-active Service and Roving”, which has provided Roving success and service transformation at Libraries in Canada, The U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand.
Designed to:
Enable staff to confront an increasingly complex and changing information services marketplace, especially regarding customer expectations and choices
Heighten awareness around the impact of poor customer service interactions
Introduce a simple, powerful professional standard of skills and techniques to improve the consistency and quality of customer service, system wide.
An effective, customized 1 or 2-day workshop and planning session for all library staff
Analysis of information services trends and the competitive landscape
Featuring…
Effective, non-intrusive methods for approaching people while roving
Review of the importance of body language when roving – yours and theirs
Application of 6 Steps to Proactive Service
Staff feedback on potential barriers to proactive and/or roving customer service, and solutions to remove those barriers
Reinforced By…
A simple and comprehensive 4-week Email follow-up campaign
Mentor Group Training Inc. communication and mentoring services as needed
For more information, contact Joan Giannone at joan.giannone@rogers.com, or 905-425-0362
COMING IN MAY: Live Webinar: Best Approaches For Roving Success
Click here to download a Roving Webinar, Printable flyer
Responses to 8 Common Myths and Misconceptions about Roving
“Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.” -Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. 1898-1993, Pastor, Speaker and Author
In response to numerous requests, I am going to describe the 8 most common myths or misconceptions about Roving, and reveal some practical truths about them. I first identified and published answers for them about 6 years ago, and have found that these concerns are still troubling many Library Managers and Staff today (unless, of course, they have learned to dispel them by attending one of our “Pro-active Service and Roving workshops ). In the next 8 posts, I will share the best answers to these common issues, including the best ideas raised by over a thousand Library Managers and Staff in our workshops in Canada, The U.S., Australia and New Zealand.
A Few Caveats:
My first caveat about this “myth-busting” series is that with Roving …one size does not fit all, and therefore, it is possible that any one (or more) of the responses may not exactly fit your Library. The second caveat is to stop and think about these things from the perspective of your patrons / customers. The third caveat is a request for readers to not “extrem-ize” any of the responses or ideas. I know that’s not a word (!) – but I sometimes find that when people worry, they often imagine applying something new in extreme ways, until it is entirely unsuitable, and then dismiss any truth or wisdom from the idea completely. Roving is BOTH an “ART” and a “SCIENCE” and it is only by taking a “middle path”, using your best judgment, keeping an open mind, that the best approaches will be found. Final Caveat…I sometimes use the word “customers” instead of “patrons”. This is not a mistake…it is simply a better term to reflect the fact that Library patrons are truly now “customers”… in that they have far more choices than in the past as to where to “shop” for their information or entertainment (and that is a subject for a whole other discussion another day!). And although you might say – Hey – Library patrons don’t buy anything…because Library services are “free”…when you think carefully about it, they pay with their taxes, their fines, their time, their gas or transit fare to get there…so you might say they are “pre-paid customers”. (I think Joan Frye Williams first coined that phrase…)
So here they are, the “8 Common Myths / Misperceptions About Roving” as identified in our Library workshops over the past 7-8 years. I will “bust” each of them individually, over the next 8 posts.
- Myth: “Getting few complaints means our service is good.”
- Myth: “We’re already busy”
- Misconception: “We already care about customers, so we don’t need to do anything differently.”
- A) Myth: “Patron’s will hate it.” B) Associated Myth: “We can ‘do’ roving without any special training.” C) Associated myth: “Roving means we have to approach and talk to every patron, even disturbing those who are obviously happy.”
- Myth: “Roving can only be done when there are two or more people staffing the desk. You can’t leave the desk empty.”
- Misconception: “Roving really hampers our ability to get our work done.”
- Misconception: “When it is slow and yet we can’t go back to sit at the desk, then I feel that Roving aimlessly is a waste of my time.”
- Misconception: “If I rove and get a lot of “No’s” to my offers to assist, then my roving was a failure.”
I’ll deal with each of these 8 Myths/Misperceptions starting with #1 in the next post!
STAY TUNED!
Here’s something for those of you who are introducing Roving for the first time or perhaps want to refresh Roving with your staff, but haven’t been able to have one of our full workshops. I am pleased to provide this link for you to access a free web seminar about Roving which I presented through the auspices of the SirsiDynix Institute. In this 1 hour web seminar, entitled “Guide to Roving, an Essential Service for Library 2.0″, I shared some of the key tips and successful approaches I have found in my experiences with Library implementations of Roving over the past 5 years.
Follow this link:
http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com/seminar_page.php?sid=97
(or go to http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com and click on event archives)
The date of the webinar was Dec. 11th, 2007
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