{"id":668,"date":"2016-07-19T14:54:37","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T14:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.oclc.org\/next\/?p=668"},"modified":"2019-06-26T16:01:55","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T16:01:55","slug":"the-needs-of-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.oclc.org\/next\/the-needs-of-one\/","title":{"rendered":"The needs of one"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2016-07-05<\/a>At ALA in Orlando, we heard a great talk from Amy Rossi from the Disney Institute about Disney\u2019s approach to customer service. I\u2019m glad we\u2019ve had a chance to share some notes from her presentation<\/a>\u00a0and some thoughts from a few of the librarians<\/a> who attended. I\u2019d like, though, to take one final look at some of the insights she shared, this time from the point of view of customer service here at OCLC. As head of our customer operations team, it\u2019s not just a subject that I find fascinating, it\u2019s also my passion and my responsibility.<\/p>\n

Star Trek\u2019s Mr. Spock famously tells us that, \u201cthe needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,\u201d or, as interjected by Captain Kirk, \u201cthe one.\u201d That may hold true philosophically, but not when it comes to customer service. While new products or features may be developed to meet the needs of the many, service questions and concerns are almost always about the needs of \u201cthe one.\u201d And that\u2019s where we get into the SPOC Paradox.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Live long and foster (relationships)<\/h2>\n

SPOC, in this case, stands for \u201cSingle Point of Contact.\u201d When we ask our members how they want to do business, especially in terms of service issues, almost everyone says that they want to go to one place for answers. The paradox, though, is that \u201cone place\u201d is different for every customer.<\/p>\n

For members who have decades of experience with OCLC, that \u201cone place\u201d is often the OCLC staff person they know best. And that\u2019s great from a \u201cpeople\u201d perspective. But Amy shared with us that exceptional customer service requires a carefully curated intersection of people, place and process.<\/p>\n

Full dark, no stars*<\/h2>\n

The \u201cpeople\u201d part of the service equation rarely gives us trouble. As a business-to-business organization, our customers are librarians\u2014intelligent, service-focused and incredibly pleasant. Likewise, our support groups are staffed with product and industry experts, who genuinely like solving problems. We\u2019re also pretty good at \u201cplace.\u201d We support our members wherever it\u2019s best for them: consulting at their institutions, participating in user-group meetings and forums, or answering questions online, by email, phone, through our community center and social media.<\/p>\n

However, what I\u2019ve been concentrating on since I got to OCLC a couple years ago is the third leg of that tripod: process. When a member library interacts with us at any one of the above \u201ctouchpoints,\u201d to use Disney\u2019s term, they \u201cspoke to OCLC\u201d. Now libraries understand customer service as well as anyone, and understand that speaking to one person in a large organization does not mean the information immediately flows to the \u201cright\u201d person at that organization. That\u2019s where process comes in.<\/p>\nSolve the problem, and do it quickly. It\u2019s as simple as that. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

Make the complex appear simple<\/h2>\n

No large organization can force customer interactions to always get to the right place the first time. What you can do is be aware of what obvious and less obvious touchpoints exist, and put a process in place to make sure every one of them leads to an exceptional customer experience. At OCLC, customer satisfaction is about solving problems, and doing it quickly for our members. It\u2019s really as simple as that. Here are some examples we\u2019re stressing with our teams right now:<\/p>\n