Customers Satisfaction in Academic Libraries - Coursework Example

?Business Management: Service Operations and Excellence Service Quality and s Satisfaction in Academic Libraries: The record of human experience and the intellectual and physical access to that recorded and collected in Libraries. In the academic libraries, the scholarly communications are preserved with great responsibility along with the primary resources which are usually based and dependant on scholarships. However, the library makers determine how to develop and evolve the expectations that are needed for the library services and materials. Even though the practices of a library are changing they are still based on a commitment to service. If the collection of the books and other resources of information are kept without applying the proper access tools, the instructions or other library services in one way or the other, it is merely a warehouse, not a library. The librarians are a lot more concerned about providing high quality service to maintain the goal of the parent institution of the library. The service issues that need to be improved in libraries include: Employees who instill confidence in users The employees of the library should make sure that the readers have the confidence in them and the material they are reading. They should create awareness amongst the readers about the books that are available and that they should be confident when they are in the library when picking up any book to read. Giving users individual attention Users of the library should be given individual attention in order to provide customer satisfaction. The readers should not wait for a chance to be given in order to make any query or even feel ignored in the library. Equal attention should be given to all the users of the library along with individual counseling whenever needed. This makes the customer feel more comfortable when he is in the library. This also ensures within the minds of the users that they are being valued. Employees who are consistently courteous The employees of the library should be extremely courteous to the users. They should be good mannered and very polite when they are in conversation with the users of the library. This encourages a two-way communication process between the employee of the library and the user himself and whatever they speak can be understood by both of them. The counseling can be done effectively this way. Readiness to respond to user’s questions The employees should be well trained so that they are always able to answer the user’s question at any point of them. The users should be made feel comfortable when asking any question and the employee should always be expecting and be ready to answer those questions in the best possible way. Employees who have the knowledge to answer user questions The knowledge of the employees working in the library should be very good and the employees should be well educated to make sure that they have a sound command of everything that happens in the library. This will enable them to answer all the questions of the user effectively and make sure that the users feel free to ask any question and expect answers that should well satisfy their queries. Employees who deal with customers in a caring fashion The customers should feel that they are cared for when in library. This makes them more comfortable when they are in the library. The employees should be extremely careful when counseling with the customers. Their body language and their way of speaking should be extremely caring. This makes the counseling more effective and will result in customer satisfaction to a greater extent. The customers on the other hand will find it easy and more comfortable to share their problem or their queries with the employees of the library and encourage the two way communication process between the customers and the employees of the library. Employees who understand the needs of their users The employees should be trained enough in a way that they understand the needs of the users of the library. When a regular customer comes to a library, the employees should be able to recognize the customer and know what kind of books or researches in is usually interested in. Then they should guide the customer according to his needs. When a new customer visits a library, the employees should make sure that they understand the customer in order to provide him with the best service they can. They should ask the customer books of what information they would prefer to read and then guide them to the shelves that may contain the books they need. They should also provide proper counseling to the customers of what more books they can find in the library. Willingness to help others The employees of the library should be willing to help the customers each time they visit the library. There should be no conflict among the employees of who would serve the customer or there should be no employees to refrain from providing service or support to any customer regardless of the nature of that particular customer. Also, if a customer is up for any query from any particular employee, that employee should be able to help the customer and provide the necessary guidance and not direct the customer to another employee saying that the other employee knows what the customer is asking. All employees should be willing to serve the customers in the best possible manner and stand up to the task so that the customers feel satisfied with the service of the library. Dependability in handling users’ service problems The employees of the library should take up the responsibility and be dependant with the task of handling the service problems of the users. The customers should find them capable enough to be depended upon for all the problems they might face when in library should find the employees to be worthy of trust. This is very important in order to provide the customer with satisfaction when he visits the library. Library space that inspires study and learning The library should be designed in such a way that the users of the library can take inspiration from it in order to improve their learning. If the library is not designed in such a way, users may not find it comfortable enough to look at it as a learning place. There should be enough space for users to do their work individually in a more comfortable manner and in their desired privacy for more convenience. The books should be arranged in the proper shelves so that users have no problem to find a book of their interest. The more the convenience is provided, the more the customer will return satisfied from the library and will be encouraged to visit the library more often. Quiet space for individual activities The employees of the library should make sure that silence is maintained in the library and it does not turn out to be a gossip place. If there is noise in the library, the users who are interested to do their work get disturbed due to others. Employees should make sure that they deal every individual in a caring way but on the other hand they should also make sure that silence is maintained in the library. Community space for group learning and group study The employees of the library should also make sure that they provide enough space for the customers who tend to work in groups for a particular project or a group assignment. With this, they should keep in mind that this group study does not turn out to be a source of distraction for other users in the library who are working individually and will not welcome any source of disturbance to their work. Why is it needed to improve service quality? Due to the alternative channels of information delivery that the library customers face, some of them being more convenient and can be competed with the cost more easily, the employees of the library should need to reconsider the range of service and its quality that they are able to provide. The employees should develop systems for the cooperation and the consultation with the users of the library for the much needed customer satisfaction. The employees need to make sure that the services they provide are able to meet the customer needs and also the customer’s expectations in the best possible way. Figure 1.1 shows the result of a survey which proves how important it is to maintain effective face-to-face communication to satisfy the customer. It gives the customers a sense of value from the employees. There should also be an information desk in the library where the customers can easily contact for information about any book they are looking for in the library. It can also solve queries of the customers if there are any and remove the factor of alienation from minds of the customers when they are in the library. Also, the library should be considered to be a quiet place to learn and to do work effectively. The results show how much inclined the customers are to this factor. This makes their work easy and the services of a library are termed as to be providing necessary precautions to the customers in the long term. This also keeps hold of the customers and makes them consider library as an effective place of learning and a place where they can enhance their knowledge. The Expectancy Theory with regard to Services of a Library To look at the services provided by the library from the marketing point of view is very important. Librarians, however, have been considered to have failed in recognizing the true meaning of marketing which is to understand the customer and the behavior of the customer. This is important to achieve the objectives of the organization through satisfying the consumer’s needs in an efficient manner. The employees of the library are usually not trained to understand the needs of the library customers and understand their behavior thoroughly. According to them, marketing of a library is synonymous with that of other organizations that encourage publicity and advertisement of the organization. To provide customers with satisfaction, a library should understand their customers and also their behavior. Even though there are many internal and external factors that drive the service provided by the library, the library should focus on the motivational factors that can influence the customer behavior and turn out to be in favor of the library to retain its customers for the long term and encourage efforts in order to provide them with the necessary satisfaction. Providing Quality Service Academic libraries can also reside in the environment that is competitive. If these libraries are not successful in motivation the customers to use their provided services, there is a danger of them losing out to the other sources of information providers. Therefore, the academic libraries should be able to satisfy and motive the customers for the survival of the library. Therefore it is essential for the library to work on customer satisfaction by providing quality service to the customers. There should be man-to-man counseling and all the customers should be given individual attention regardless of the number of customers at one time. Even if there are more customers, the library should be able to deal with the issue keeping in mind all the possible alternatives. The service should be of quality so that the customers can feel more comfortable in the library rather than feeling like a stranger. The decorum of the library should be maintained so that all individuals can work without being disturbed as this is also considered to be part of the service provided by the library. As far as group work is concerned, there should be separate places for them and it should be made sure that customers sitting in group are not a source of distraction for the customers sitting as an individual. Therefore, it is very important for the employees of the library to provide quality service in order to retain its customers and make them consider the library as an effective place of learning and a place where they can help themselves increase their knowledge. References Service Quality in Academic Libraries: An Analysis of LibQUAL Scores and Institutional Characteristics, Kathleen F. Miller, 2008, viewed 16 April, 2011. (http://old.libqual.org/documents/admin/Miller1.pdf) Perspectives on User Satisfaction Surveys – Academic Libraries, Rowena Cullen, 2001, viewed 16 April, 2011. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1387/is_4_49/ai_77811350/) Accessing Customer Satisfaction at the NIST Research Library: Essential Tool for Future Planning, Rosa Liu & Nancy Allmang, 2008, viewed 16 April, 2011. (http://www.library.ucsb.edu/istl/08-summer/article3.html) Academic Library Service Consumer (User) Motivations Study Based on Expectancy Theory, Seongsin Lee, 2007, viewed 16 April, 2011. 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