Foiling
Phone Frustration
Have you ever phoned your health insurance provider to check on a claim? Plan
on at least an hour on the telephone! Chances are, if you're like me, you just know
that if you hang up, you would have been the "next" person to be taken care
of...so we wait...and wonder...why it is that when we pay SO much for services, why it
takes so long to help us? Chances are, when
you call many companies that you may work with, you will be transferred, put on hold,
given another number to call back on, shuttled off to voice mail space, or were told that
"so-and-so" would call you back.
We all know the frustration...but to turn the pages now...do
we do this to our library callers? To ensure that this does not happen in your
library, take the advice of Vytra Healthcare, a 210,000 member HMO, headquartered in New
York. Their CEO came up with a plan to resolve their customer's phone frustration...Resolve
every customer inquiry with one telephone call.
Not very long ago, fewer than 40% of Vytra's members were
able to obtain answers to their questions with one phone call. Now, more than 70%
need to make only one call, and a whopping 85% of those calls are answered within 30
seconds!! How do they do this? They have developed customer service teams,
with each team handling different customer groups. All team members are trained to
handle any issue that may arise. Then specialized teams have been developed to
handle certain highly asked questions, such as billing adjustments, claims processing,
benefits information, and the like.
This one-call-does-it-all is a big hit with Vytra's members
and their customer satisfaction surveys definitely show it...and it helps in their numbers
for member retention as well.
How can we transfer this concept into library-land? Do
a simple call analysis of your library for one week...or even one day...log the types of
calls, when those calls come in, how long it took to answer the questions, did the
customer have to be transferred, and evaluate how many rings of the phone it takes to
answer each incoming call. Maybe do a customer satisfaction survey (a quick and easy
one) to evaluate how your customers are routinely handled when they call in to the
library. You may find that your customers are extremely satisfied with call
response...and maybe not.
Next, get your team together at a staff meeting and discuss
the "one-call-does-it-all" concept. Set standards for incoming telephone
calls (no more than 3 rings), review transferring calls so that customers don't get lost
in your telephone system, and develop "teams" to handle customer calls at
certain times of each day when there is a particularly high call volume. It will
take some time to set up, but the rewards in light of customer satisfaction can be
extremely high.
We all have become slaves to "voice mail"...its
convenience cannot be matched...it's certainly better than playing telephone tag with
someone. But many of our library customers are elderly and are not used to voice
mail...they want to talk to a "real" person. Many young children who call
in to the library are not familiar with voice mail and don't know what to do...we need to
have a system in place to accommodate the needs of ALL of our customers.
Evaluate your library call management...do a customer
satisfaction survey...you may be delighted to hear how GREAT your staff is in handling
these routine calls...but it ALWAYS pays to ask!!! Your customers will appreciate
your concern. If you do change your incoming call handling process, make sure you
let your patrons know that you are responding to their needs...and then as NIKE says..."Just
Do It!"
"In every instance, we found that the best-run
companies stay as close to their customers as humanly possible."
Thomas J. Peters, American business writer
"The only pretty store is one full of
people."
William Dillard, founder and chairman, Dillard's Department stores
Hmmm... good advice!
Items submitted by:
Lori Putt - Email
NOLA Regional Library System
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