Posts in topic: customer experience

Lessons on building community while building the new OCLC Community Center

Next blog banner for post on OCLC community center update. Six icons representing features of the community center are shown.

If you participate in the OCLC Community Center, you’ll know it’s recently had a major upgrade. We’re happy with the results and excited about the possibilities ahead. But getting to this point wasn’t easy. It’s been a long road. And like many large-scale tech projects, the takeaways go well beyond the new software.

Every twist and turn offered lessons about how to better create valuable content and meaningful connections with our users. The truth is, we learned a lot more than ever expected about building community. And we’re hoping our experience can provide insights that inspire and inform your work to connect and engage with the communities you serve.

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The new WorldCat.org expands the impact of libraries everywhere

Seven years ago, I was the director of e-commerce development for a global brand with more than $USD 2.5 billion in sales, 500 stores, and nearly 12,000 employees. Then I found WorldCat.org.

It was love at first search as I’ve always been a superfan of libraries. I saw the fundamentals of my chosen career—improving online services, intuitive interface design, and an exceptional user experience—put to use in the service of libraries. That moment moved me to join OCLC.

Today I can say, without hesitation, that our recently rolled-out work to reimagine, redesign, and rebuild WorldCat.org has been the highlight of my career.

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Always judge a book by its cover

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We asked students to identify the types of containers from which online information is taken. Information containers can be important, obviously, because they provide critical context when evaluating the quality of sources. One said:

“This one looks like a—wait, I can’t tell what that is, but it looks like a book.”

Wait. It… looks like a book? Let’s try again:

“Pretty sure it had an ISBN number. It’s an article. Oh, no, books usually have—well, you can download the entire book or download the chapter. So, I’m thinking it’s a book. And it doesn’t have the edition, but I kind of want to say it’s a book about this book.”

That’s closer, but we can do better.

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Meet your guide for an Amazon journey: a librarian

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This last July, Forbes published an essay that suggested Amazon stores could replace libraries. The piece was pulled down within a couple days, after nearly 8,000 comments on Twitter and a great many response pieces suggesting that this wasn’t even a bad argument, but “twaddle.” These responses emphasized the role that libraries play in providing services (beyond just books) to people who otherwise might not have access to them.

Some recent library user research we conducted in partnership with the Worthington Libraries in Ohio suggests that these criticisms of the Forbes piece don’t go far enough. Not only isn’t Amazon a replacement for libraries, but our statistical models indicate that library use supports commercial book sales as well as other social and retail activities.

In short: if you want to look for more customers for your online book business, look in libraries.

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Invite your community to shape smart spaces

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When 15 small and rural libraries joined the Small Libraries Create Smart Spaces project, they signed on for a journey toward transforming their physical spaces and library services. Their exploration was guided by principles of placemaking, design thinking, and active learning. Along the way, they connected with their communities in refreshing new ways that catalyzed relationships and opened up possibilities.

Transformation is a big, ambitious word, charged with expectation of profound change. It might seem like an oversized challenge for libraries that are defined by small: small town, small building, small budget. But these 15 intrepid libraries, serving populations of 560 to 16,000 people, discovered the key to unlocking true transformation: meaningful connection with the community.

Rather than a more familiar positioning of “the library as the heart of the community,” each sought to put their community at the heart of the library.

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Keep a “customer first” focus to meet the challenges of e-resource management

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If you’re like me, one of your biggest travel fears is not having something to read while on the road, in the sky, etc. The difference between my being irritable versus relaxed after a two-hour layover can come down to whether I have something good to read during the wait.

About five years ago, though, I noticed a change in my travel reading routine. I was browsing in an airport bookstore and found a fun novel that was, frankly, too thick to fit into my already overstuffed laptop case. So, I stepped out of the store, found it on Amazon on my smartphone, and bought the e-book. On the way home, however, I found a slim nonfiction title that I didn’t just want to read, but share with a colleague. So, I bought the hardcover (and wedged it in there somehow).

The advertising guru Roy H. Williams famously said, “The first step in exceeding your customer’s expectations is to know those expectations.” What my airport reading adventure points out is this: when it comes to print versus electronic resources, expectations have become pretty challenging.

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OCLC Wise: Designed around people, driven by data

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It’s difficult to define just one role that public libraries play in the US, as they are incredibly unique depending on the communities they serve. What is certain is that they are always key players in filling community needs, such as access to healthcare information or immigration services. Wonderful examples include programs like The American Place at Hartford Public Library in Connecticut, which helps immigrants not only prepare for citizenship but also adjust to life in the local community. Or the library nurse program at Pima County Public library in Arizona that brings basic healthcare checks to anyone who needs it.

It’s this diversity that makes public libraries special and demonstrates why the roles they play are so critical. So, while each library is unique, they share a common commitment—to put their community at the center of everything they do.

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Get closer to “customer first” in seven days

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Over the past year or so, I’ve started to see new ‘customer experience’ job titles (like Chief Customer Experience Officer and Deputy Director of Customer Experience) pop up in libraries that have been present in the consumer space for some time. Makes sense. Having someone focus on how people use your products and services across the entire range of your organization and throughout their life with you is such an important part of doing business today.

And while developing a truly user-centric strategy may sound like a big, strategic move, you can start to plan small changes that inspire broader transformation in just a week.

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Make the first move: three ways to initiate relationship-building conversations

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Over the past few years, I’ve seen discussions of customer service shift from measurements of individual interactions to programs that track and analyze all of a customer’s activities. That is, rather than focusing on what makes for a good sale or a good complaint follow-up, the trend is toward examining the entire “customer experience.” I’ve seen dozens of programs and hundreds of articles that aim to help us capture every tweet, post, like, click, thumbs-up, visit, and phone call in an attempt to “know the whole picture” for a customer.

That’s a good step forward. No one interaction happens in a vacuum. But I think it also misses the mark when it comes to library services. What we do is still incredibly hands-on and, for many library users, very personal and creates an experience that’s more than the sum of our analytics.

A recent conversation with Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library Chief Executive Officer Gina Millsap brought that message home to me. For her library, they’ve moved beyond customer service and customer experience into a relationship-focused strategy.

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Customer Service Week: three opportunities to build, maintain, or break trust

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Trust is emotional, and is built transactionally

Customer Service Week is being celebrated around the world this week, and the theme is “Building Trust.” And while trust is certainly an emotional concept, it isn’t completely immune to training, practice, review, and reward.

It's Customer Service Week: Are you building, maintaining, or breaking trust? Click To Tweet

How do you measure and improve in a nebulous area like trust? I’d like to go through three opportunities that are typical “trust points” for most service-oriented organizations. In each case, I’ll suggest how this moment can either build, maintain, or break down trust between you and the people you serve.

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