Marketing as a Team Sport

In late June and early July five WASH staff members attended an Infopeople four week, on- line course on marketing called "Marketing as a Team Sport". While the title concerned marketing much of the focus was on customer service. It was recommended to compare Starbucks customer service philosophy to our library's customer service principals and policies. Starbucks has a written philosophy and a "green apron book" carried by all staff that has standards for customer service. These standards include; surprise and delight, embrace resistance, everything matters and make it your own (which includes coffee lore and wisdom and customer care). These empower employees to provide customers "an uplifting experience that enriches peoples' daily lives." I think we do this in our libraries but it is not always made so clear. We were encouraged to write a customer service philosophy and have customer service principals as well as policies and procedures to ensure that all staff knew the customer service expectations of our library. Also included were modules on turning customers into champions (this emphasized the power of word of mouth marketing: womm), mobilizing your team and the importance of branding). Gave our staff a lot of food for thought and a way to proceed in our customer service training. Libraries to look at include West Palm Beach Florida, Queens Public and the Edmonton Public Library in Canada.