Managing Your Library for Great Customer Service with Jefferey Russell

Jefferey Russell, Co-Director of Russell Consulting Inc, in Madison, WI, gave a great presentation about customer service. He discussed the traditional tips: hire the right people, train them continuously, communicate your vision, lead by example.

He also talked about the typical management pyramid where employees are at the bottom (the largest group), supervisors and managers are in the middle layers, and directors are at the top. Employees serve supervisors and managers, and they serve the directors. This organizational structure does two things wrong: it doesn't include the users we serve and it's in the wrong direction. Customer centered libraries have an inverted pyramid structure where patrons are the largest group and they are at the top. Directors are at the bottom. They guide the managers who assist the supervisors who support the employees who serve the customers. (I believe Jeff gave credit to the Carlson Management Group for this model but I couldn't locate any images online so if you have any please let me know and I'll add them to this post).

Another excellent point Mr. Russell made was that supervisors can't manage their employee's behavior but they can set expectations for behavior. So I took this to mean that when libraries are implementing competencies for staff or are expecting them to change the status quo to meet users' needs, the way to approach this is by setting realistic expectations coupled with lots of communication, training and strong leadership.