Customer Service Innovations Using Springshare
San José Public Library, Calif.
Innovation Synopsis
In response to library closure, the web team, reference and access units worked to develop innovations that better serve our customers. Ongoing staff training protocols were developed. Pickup chat to provide a texting option for Express Pickup and bilingual widgets to support chat in Vietnamese, Mandarin and Spanish were implemented.
Challenge/Opportunity
After our abrupt shelter-in-place order on March 16, 2020 , our customers’ only way to reach us was through LibChat in Springshare via our sjpl.org website. Chat traffic on the site between March 17 through August 17 increased by 698% over the same time period from last year. Staff dedicated over 4,550 hours responding to customers via chat. The need to provide up-to-date information in multiple languages in a constantly shifting environment was more important than ever.
Key Elements of Innovation
Key partners: Unit Managers and Springshare
Activities: Ongoing training and communication methods; Creation of bilingual chat widget to accommodate Vietnamese, Spanish and Mandarin speaking customers; Augmentation of LibAnswers platform to support customer via email in the above languages; Development of pickup chat, enabling a texting option in four languages for customers, including those with hearing loss.
Unique qualities: Support of our three major language communities in non-verbal platforms.
Achieved Outcomes
Tools used to measure success: Customer surveys at the end of each LibChat interaction and pickup chat (SMS) interaction; customer comments in these surveys as well as those left on our social media postings; Libchat staff survey; chat traffic data.
New partnerships: Deeper working relationship with all staff across the system.
Feedback: Customer feedback overwhelmingly positive in response to LibChat and pickup chat; staff survey feedback also very positive; dramatic increase in customers served in chat.