How's your customer service?

I once went to a public library circulation/reference desk and asked if the library director was there. The woman behind the test told me "no" and then returned to her previous conversation. She didn't ask if she could help me (or even why I wanted tyo see the library director), but thankfully someone else behind the desk did.

How's your customer service? Do people come on-site to work with your materials (the originals or digital surrogate)? How are they treated? If they call your facility, are they treated properly over the phone?

We always hope that cultural heritage institutions treat people better than some retail outlets. Perhaps, though, we should be consumers occasionally of our products and services in order to see how our staff treat our users.

Could it be this bad? We called a pizzeria Friday evening to order a pizza. The pizzeria is part of a famous national chain. First of all, the gentleman on the phone didn't know the price of the pizzas or other basic information. When I went in to pick up our order, the staff was hard at work, but was also ignoring customers that were standing in the store waiting to be served. When the delivery guy came back in to pick up more deliveries, he rushed through the store and bumped into a stack of five pizza boxes that someone was picking up. Two orders or bread sticks were dumped on the floor and one of the pizzas was ruined. I always was horrified, but the staff wasn't. Yes, they were going to replace the ruined items, but where was the huge apology? Great tasting pizza, but do I really want to order from them again?

Oh....of course, your staff isn't like that. Your staff is always professional and always puts the customer first. Always.

Maybe you better check.

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