customer service

Turning Strangers into Friends

by David Lee King on September 13, 2011

The Thank You Economy

I just read The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk. Good read. Here’s an interesting thought I got out of it that relates to libraries.

On page 53, he writes about Nielson conducting a study on what drives consumer trust. 70% of people said they turn to family and friends for advice when making purchasing decisions.

Then Gary says this: “The ROI of your relationship with your mother is going to be much higher than that of the one you have with a good friend. Both, however, are more valuable than the one you have with an acquaintance, which trumps the relationship you have with a stranger. Without social media, you and your customer are relegated to strangers; with it, depending on your efforts, you can potentially upgrade your relationship to that of casual acquaintances, and even, in time, to friends. The power of that relationship can go so far as to convert a casual browser into a committed buyer, or a buyer into an advocate.” (pg 54-55).

This idea of turning strangers into friends works great in libraries, too. The goal is simply this – become casual acquaintances, or even friends, with our customers. We have done that for years in our buildings – I’d say that’s business as usual.

Online? We can do the same thing by using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook. Start friending people in your community. Your customers. That’s how you start turning strangers into friends … and into customers of your library.

Here’s what Gary did – he created Twitter alerts for wine words like Merlot. When someone had a question about that term, he answered it … and started growing a reputation about actually knowing something about wine.

We know stuff too – we are librarians, after all! Use a tool like Twitter. Do a zip code search for your local area or a town search … then add some words to that search, like book, reading, etc. Or business terms … or whatever the hot issues in your town happen to be.

Then start answering questions or making comments as they seem relevant. Point to your stuff, like the book that answers it, when it makes sense. Be helpful … like you already are in your building.

It’s a way to get out in the community without actually leaving the air conditioning!

Pic by Steven Rosenbaum

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Salespeople of the World – 5 Ways to Improve your Pitch

by David Lee King on September 7, 2011

sales repA sales rep visited our library earlier today (Recorded Books was showing off their fledgling Rdio for Libraries product). Cool product, though I’ll guess not many libraries will go for it – bad pricing model, and no way to brand it as coming from the library. Just my opinion of course – prove me wrong, please!

But that’s beside the point. The sales rep, of course, was fine – he presented the info we needed to assess the product. It was an interesting meeting on a new model for music in libraries. What’s not to love about that?

But on the other hand, he did a couple of things that I have seen A LOT of sales reps do over the years, and it reminded me of other things I’ve seen in other product demo meetings.

So – Sales People of the World. Here are 5 ways to improve your pitch:

  1. Know how to use your own technology. I’ve seen this more than once – a sales rep takes us through a Powerpoint presentation, but never actually uses … um … the presentation mode. Instead, they have scrolled through the individual slides with a mouse. Or they advanced one slide too many, then didn’t know how to go back to the previous slide. Or simply didn’t know how to plug their laptop up to an LCD projector. All that says is that you don’t know how to use technology … even thought you are trying to sell us a technology product. Not. Good.
  2. Know technology in general. Be familiar with general technology terms, especially when it relates to the product you’re trying to sell. For example, don’t ever confuse downloading and online streaming. Two very different things. If you confuse those pretty basic things … and you’re selling a technology-related product … why should I trust you with my organization’s money? Ever?
  3. Don’t be negative about your own product. I’ve seen this many times. Either the rep will say the pricing will turn off many libraries, or the product isn’t really ready yet. Really? Then why are you here, wasting my time?
  4. Know your product. This happened in today’s meeting. Part of the coolness of the product is that it connects to Facebook and Twitter. If that’s the case, then by golly gee whiz, you had better show us what it does by clicking the Facebook button and hooking it up through your Facebook account – instead of saying “I don’t have a Facebook account yet.” One more example: I remember … granted, a LONG time ago … seeing the first web-based GEAC interface (that’d be a library catalog system). It didn’t display call numbers.Really. The rep didn’t seem to notice this in his product, until I pointed it out to him. Then he proceeded to blame the “home office” for it. Not the best way to sell a product, I’m thinking… which leads me to #5:
  5. Don’t blame the home office. If you don’t know stuff, never say “they didn’t tell us that.” I could care less who told/didn’t tell you, and it makes it sound like the sales staff and the home office are somehow at odds with each other. Instead, just say “Great question! I don’t know, but I’ll find out. What’s your email address?”
So – what else? Any of you notice something that sales people do in product demos that really just drives you crazy? Name it … and then tell us what they can do to improve!
image by Celal Teber

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Three Questions every webpage should answer – conclusion

by David Lee King on August 29, 2011

Last week, I focused on three questions every webpage should answer. The questions were:

  1. What can I do here?
  2. What should I do next?
  3. Why should I care?
And now, I have a question for you. Are there other questions a website or an individual webpage should answer?
Said another way, what do your website visitors need to know … at a glance? And what’s the best way to provide this info?
Discuss in the comments please – thanks!

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Three Questions every webpage should answer, #3: Why should I care?

by David Lee King on August 26, 2011

Why Should I Care?

One more question every webpage should answer – #3: “Why should I care?”

This one comes from my library’s Executive Director, Gina Millsap. Another way to ask this question is “Why would I want to do that?” or “What’s in it for me?”

This is where your PR, marketing and promotion skills come into play. Why? Because you need to sell your content to your customers.

Selling? I hate selling – I’m a librarian, for peet’s sake!

Yep – I get that. But just putting information about something up on a website doesn’t mean people will attend that event, read that blog post, or check out that book. Sometimes we need to go a bit further, and work on convincing our customers to take those next actions I talked about in my last post.

The goal on a website is to move people from point A to point B – from reading a book review to actually checking out the book, for example. This isn’t selling as in “smarmy used-car salesman” selling … but it IS a form of selling, and a good organization learns to do this – on posters, in person, and even on our websites.

Answering “why” can be as simple as a brief explanation on why something is useful. For example – why should I apply for a library card? Because you get to read all your favorite books, and check out movies … for free! And you have already paid for it anyway (via taxes).

Look around your website, and see if you are answering the “why should I care” question. If not – rework your content so this question is answered up-front and often.

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Three Questions Every Webpage Should Answer, #2: What do I do Next?

by David Lee King on August 24, 2011

What do I do next?A couple days ago, we looked at the 1st question every webpage should answer: What can I do here? Today, let’s look at the 2nd question I think every webpage needs to answer: What do I do next?

This question is #2 for a reason. Question #1, What can I do here?, is pretty important – that’s the main focus of the page, after all. But once your webpage visitor has done that thing – read that article or filled in that form – they need to know what they can do next? Good webpages direct those next actions.

Here are some examples:

  • When you have finished reading this blog post, you’ll get a list of related blog posts at the end of the article. Those suggestions (created via a WordPress widget) are next actions.
  • In my library’s catalog (catalog.tscpl.org), if you do a search and don’t find anything, you get an Ask a Librarian chat button (assuming we’re open). “Need help? Click the Ask Us button to chat” is a next action.
  • Amazon is the King of Next Actions – each page is full of the “main event” – buying the book. But there are other, alternative next actions there, too – like adding more books to your order.
Take a look at your website, and see if individual pages answer the question “What do I do next?” If not, you are missing out on an easy way to point your customers to your great content, and to keep them on your site longer.

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Three Questions every webpage should answer, #1: What can I do here?

by David Lee King on August 22, 2011

Question #1Ever visited a webpage, then looked around, wondering “what can I do here?”

If you have … that web designer failed!

I think every webpage should answer the question “what can I do here?” either visually, or by spelling it out:

  • Visually: design in such a way that the stuff you can do on a page, like clicking a button, filling in a text box, or even just reading or watching content, is extremely noticeable. Amazon does this by using complimentary colors that “pop” out on the page. They often use blue as a header or sidebar color, but the buttons they really want you to see (ie, the “buy now” button) are orange – a complimentary color.
  • Spelling it out: Use words, colors, graphics, etc to “spell it out” for people – tell or show website visitors what to do on the page. For example, we try to do this at my library’s website. The main page directs people to “Get a Library Card,” “Donate Now,” “Find Stuff,” “Ask a Librarian,” or Subscribe to our blog posts. People know what to do on our site, because we direct them.

On your library’s website, do people know “What can I do here” when they visit the main page? How about the catalog page, the “you didn’t find anything” page, or on your blog? At the comment box? On your Facebook Page even?

Think about it … and make sure to answer the question “What can I do here?”

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Use the Front Door

by David Lee King on August 18, 2011

A front door in Delft

If your library’s like mine, you have staff-only ways to access library stuff … things like employee parking, a staff-only entrance, a back-end way to access the library catalog, etc. Whenever I put a book on hold, I get it delivered via inter-office mail.

I never have to use the library like a patron if I don’t want to!

My question – is this a good thing?

Try using your library like a patron. Is it easy or hard? Is there something that frustrates you about the whole process? It’s probably doing the same thing to your patrons.

Here’s a thought – maybe we should create a “Work Like a Patron” week, where we only use the library like our customers do – use your library’s wifi (bonus points for using a Public PC), search using the patron version of your catalog, maybe even sit at those lovely desks in the library. Or hang out in a cafe, accessing all work- and library-related stuff from outside of the building. Use the front door, and see the library through your patrons’ eyes.

This works for the IT department, too. Use library employee tools like … library employees, rather than like IT dudes and dudettes. Is it hard? If so … it’s probably hard for the rest of the library, too. Make it work for everyone!

If it works wonderfully, great! If not, maybe you have some things to improve.

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Summer Reading Stats … on our Public Desktops!

by David Lee King on June 16, 2011

Just a quick fun idea, from our Marketing department! They wanted a way to show our customers how many people had signed up for our summer reading programs. They also wanted to show weekly growth, and wanted a way to nudge people who were “on the fence” to sign up.

Here’s what we ended up doing – they created an image displaying our summer reading signup numbers. It also lists the Summerfest URL where people can go to sign up (and get more info – summerfest.tscpl.org).

My Digital Services department has turned that image into the public PC desktop background image on all our public PCs (about 187 of them). We’ll change the image out every week, to show growth. It’s a simple solution – no programming required – we just update the image file once a week, and it changes on all 187 PCs.

Will it help convince some of our computer-using customers to sign themselves or their kids up for Summer reading? Not sure. Is it a simple and fun solution that has Marketing and IT working together? Definitely!

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The Daily Grape and the Daily Book?

by David Lee King on June 7, 2011

Gary Vaynerchuk, who made videos about wine at Wine Library TV and now at the Daily Grape, has a really cool idea about how to add value to his wine videos, and to help his viewers keep track of (and buy) wine they’re interesting in trying.

Here’s what Gary wants to do (from episode #1 of the Daily Grape):

  • Create mobile app-based video (and have a web-based version too)
  • Make his videos shorter
  • Make the content entertaining and usable
  • Created a mobile app (Daily Grape in the iTunes app store) that goes along with the videos

Gary noticed that he mentions a lot of wine, and some of his viewers forget about the wine after they’re done watching the video. So why not make an app to solve that problem?

Here’s how Gary’s app works:

  • sign up for a free account through the Daily Grape app.
  • Then, watch one of Gary’s videos
  • If you like the sound of a wine Gary mentions, you can click through to the video details, and add the wine to your wish list.
  • Then you have a handy list when you’re at a restaurant or a wine store.
  • You can also comment on the wines found on the app.

Cool idea, huh? Believe it or not, I think this could work for libraries, too. More wine for everybody! No, just kidding.

We have books, don’t we? My library has a collection of almost 500,000 books/videos/etc. Do you think our patrons can remember all those titles?

Right – probably not. But that’s why some of the newer ILS’s include things like wish lists, tags, and comments. I’ve seen some library catalogs that let you take those wish lists and turn them into RSS feeds, which gives your patrons the ability to embed their lists wherever they want.

That’s cool. But what if library staff did the same thing? Why not keep a running list of staff picks that can be discovered in the catalog and on the website. And on the library’s blog sidebar (since it’s embeddable). And in Facebook (with a little coding added in).

In fact, my library is already providing some of that, in the form of blog posts with links to good books that happen to be in our collection.

So – just a slightly different, slightly more purposeful way to think about content created by library staff. Be a bit purposeful, like Gary Vaynerchuk – direct your customer to good content, help them check stuff out – and provide them with ways to remember the books they want to read.

Do you do that? If so – how do you do it?

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Marketing on Facebook

by David Lee King on May 19, 2011

I just finished reading Best Practice Guide: Marketing on Facebook. You might find it interesting, too – the guide has some great ideas for using Facebook as a marketing campaign tool. In fact, many of the suggestions would also work for other online social tools (think Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, etc).

Here’s what you’ll find in the guide:

  • For starters, they describe what they call The Facebook Ecosystem, which includes three parts: Build, Engage, and Amplify:
    • Build – duh. Building your presence in that tool. creating a Facebook Page. Creating a Twitter account. Etc. Gotta start here.
    • Engage – use touch points, like the Facebook like button to start connecting with your fans. Also use the status update box to directly connect through conversations
    • Amplify – on Facebook, you need to be in your fans news feed. You can use Facebook ads and sponsored stories to help you do that.

After that, the Guide discusses what they call Facebook by Objective -  basically seven ways to use Facebook for your business. Each objective includes some interesting ideas on how to connect to your customers and grow your organization. The Objectives include:

  • Foster product development and innovation
  • Generate awareness
  • Drive preference and differentiation
  • Increase traffic and sales
  • Build loyalty and deepen relationships
  • Amplify recommendation and word of mouth
  • Gain insights

And guess what? With just a bit of tweaking, each of these ideas can work for libraries! So go read it, download it, etc … and share any cool ideas or library campaigns you create!

The F image … found at the ReadWrite Web

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