Transcript Service Quality - Simmons College

Service Quality
The Ultimate Aim
Service Quality
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Definition
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Service quality encompasses the interactive
relationship between the library and the people
whom it is supposed to serve. A library that
adheres to all the professionally approved rules
and procedures for acquiring, organizing,
managing, and preserving material but has no
customers cannot claim quality because a major
element is missing- satisfying people’s needs,
requests, and desires for information.
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Hernon & Altman, Assessing Service Quality
Service Quality
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When library and customer measures
of quality are not congruent, the library
may be meeting its internal standards
of performance but may not be
performing well in the eyes of its
customers
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Francoise Herbert
Serving our…
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Patrons?
Users?
Clients?
Customers?
Unless customers and the collection come
together in a way both interesting and
meaningful to customers, the library is
nothing more than an expensive warehouse.
Customers
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The customer is not always right, but they do have
a right to express their opinions and to learn about
the library’s service parameters
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Most customers have expectations about service,
though they may not always be reasonable or
realistic.
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What is reasonable and realistic? What is core and
peripheral? We must decide.
Satisfaction vs. Service Quality
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Satisfaction: the emotional reaction to a
specific transaction or service encounter. A
state experienced inside the user’s head.
May or may not be directly related to
performance
Service Quality: a global judgment, or
attitude, relating to the superiority of a
service. Satisfaction levels from a number
of transactions fuse to form an impression of
service quality
Service Quality
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Multidimensional- content and context
Content: what prompted a visitparticular materials or information,
study space, etc.
Context: the experience itselfinteractions with staff, ease/ difficulty of
navigating a system, comfort of
physical environment
Service Quality
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Performance/ performanceexpectations gap
What is expected and what is actually
experienced.
LibQual
For Customers
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Perception is reality.
Addressing Service Quality
Mission: Accomplished?
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What is our mission?
Scrutinize plans and activities/ practices:
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Ideal- essential to accomplishment of a given
mission
Useful- supportive of mission accomplishment,
but not essential
Useless- irrelevant to mission accomplishment
Counterproductive- obstructs mission
accomplishment
Creating a Plan
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Customer Service Plans
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Commitment to high-quality programs and
operations
Openness to concept of change
Responsiveness to the needs and priorities of
customers
Commitment to providing equitable access
Willingness to work together as a team
Availability of training and professional
development of staff.
Hernon & Altman, Assessing Service Quality
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Extensive list of questions
Reprint Guidelines for Customer
Satisfaction Surveys
Provide sample data collection
instrument