NSLS Blogs

 Home » Blogs » Annotations

Annotations

March 15, 2006

Turning No into Yes

On page 48 of the November 2005 issue of American Libraries an article appears that is titled “Generating Goodwill: Turning No into Yes (There is more to service with a smile than meets the eye.) It discusses how a Librarian in a public library branch in Maryland has created something called a “no log” that has had a profound effect on customer service.

Basically, the staff records every time they have to say no to a patron or co-worker. Then they review the situation and try to figure out if there is someway they could say yes. The author cites several specific examples but, I am sure you can think of some of the times you have said no. Do you say no because it is truly beyond your capabilities to do the service or is it just more convenient not to?

One of the examples the author mentions is the case of the library’s public photocopier being out of service and a frantic gentleman with just one thing to copy being turned away instead of the librarian using the staff copier to make his copy for him. What other small acts of kindness do we fail to perform because it isn’t convenient or it isn’t specifically covered in our policies or guidelines? These little acts are what makes the difference between good service and exceptional service.

What kind of service do you want to provide your library users?

posted by Anna at 10:29 am |

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website