Wednesday, December 08, 2004

People like people who are responsive

Mark Zweig of ZweigWhite has written an article on being "hyper-responsive" to user requests. He believes that responding to a user in a few hours or within 24 hours is not enough; rather he believes that responding in 10 minutes is much better for the user and the organization. He notes that there are tools that will help people to be this responsive, but that we don't use them.

How responsive is your digital library or digitization project to user requests? How quickly can a person get a response? Historically, we have said that we would respond within 24 hours, but many people are working under deadlines (even students who are doing research), so is that really being responsive to someone's needs? Can we build a support network that will provide hyper-responsiveness to people -- no matter what time zone they live in -- when they use our online collections? If we are not hyper-responsive, will people see the collection as not being useful?

Obviously an idea worth discussing.

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