May 2006

 

Spring has sprung and LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers are multiplying like rabbits.

LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service™ News welcomes County of Brant, Town of Caledon, Indianapolis-Marion County, Oshawa, Rancho Cucamonga, Township of Uxbridge, Vaughan and Whitby public libraries as the newest LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers.

The OLA and Counting Opinions would also like to thank all the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers for their continued support and their ongoing use of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service.

In this issue:

• More Subscribers, more feedback… the OLA is conducting a follow-on LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Peer Review to determine how well LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service continues to provide library managers with ongoing actionable data and insights to assist in prioritizing and improving their library's quality of service.
• With good information, actions result… LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service was recently presented at the OLA Super Conference and PLA Conference with Subscribers offering accounts of their own practical experience and outcomes using LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service.
• Size doesn't matter, LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service goes mini… Counting Opinions is developing the first of many LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Mini-Surveys. The first will focus on Summer Reading Programs.
• Help! Support is at your fingertips… New video clips and summary of reports table gives LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers quick reference support, while an email or phone call offers one-on-one, quick-turn-around support.
• Big response, huge response… you have LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service and you are listening to your customers, now you need an appropriate marketing plan to keep getting the most out of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service.

Please read on to find out more.

I hope you will find this issue of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service™ News both interesting and informative. If you have any suggestions for future issues, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you for your readership.

Ian Reid
Category Manager, LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service™
Ontario Library Association

Helping Management to Make a Difference

In the first quarter of this year, Counting Opinions presented at the OLA Super Conference in Toronto and at the Public Library Association Conference in Boston. Both sessions were well attended and generated a lot of interest in the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service service. The session topics focused primarily on the outcomes of measuring and managing PL Customer Satisfaction including, findings from LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service aggregate data, and current Subscribers sharing their own experiences and answering questions. The delegates in attendance were very interested in the results and were keen to see more outcomes.

Geoff Nie from the Ajax Public Library (APL) told the audiences in Toronto and Boston how he used the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service data, in combination with other data sources, to secure an annual 30 percent increase in the APL collection budget for the next five years. This translates into $100,000 per year – $500,000 in total. Not bad! Not bad at all!

At the OLA session, Sharon Bentley from the King Township Public Library discussed how they chose LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service because it offered an affordable means to collect data for their community needs assessment. As well, the data could be provided in convenient, LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service generated graphic and text formats to their consulting firm for analysis and final reporting. This resulted in a cost-effective, simplified process for both the library and the consulting firm. Sharon also commented on the value, being a smaller library system, of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service's power and affordability. Interesting!

Stacey Hunt from Brampton Library recounted for the PLA audience how they have used LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service data to confirm the need for expanded facilities to meet the needs off of their growing population. LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service data directly contributed additional supporting information for the opening of two interim Library facilities and the approval to build two new permanent library locations over the next 3-7 years – a multi-million dollar investment in new library facilities. In the meantime, LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service continues to capture, measure, and report on customer satisfaction across their system, including the two interim library locations. Great stuff!

If you are interested in discussing these outcomes further, the representative from each library has indicated that they are more than willing to do so. Please contact Ian Reid (see Your Link Source, below) for the appropriate contact information for the individual(s) you wish to speak to.

If you are also interested in viewing the power point presentation made by Counting Opinions at the OLA Super Conference and the PLA Conference, please follow the links provided here below.

OLA Super Conference: Session 312 – “MANAGING PUBLIC LIBRARY CUSTOMER SATISFACTION - A NEW SOLUTION” – Managing PL Customer Satisfaction

PLA Conference: Boston Public Library Reception – “Revving Up Operational Excellence and Advocacy Efforts” – Revving Up Operational Excellence and Advocacy Efforts

Marketing and Getting to Know Your Customers

LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service, unlike the traditional survey approaches that you have used in the past, is a continuous, ongoing survey. This means that you have the ability to collect customer satisfaction data from your customers everyday, every month, throughout the year. This also means you are constantly listening to your customers and you are not limiting yourself to a specific time period to capture your customers' valuable opinions.

As you know, your customer base changes and fluctuates throughout the year. They utilize different services at varying frequencies throughout the year; their motivations for using the Library may vary; they may be an avid user; or they may be an extremely occasional user of your services. The point is, getting to know and listen to your customers is critically important for understanding your customers' needs and subsequently, ensuring that they continue to be customers.

From the moment the links to LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Customer Satisfaction survey(s) are put up on a subscribing Library's web site, that Library system is ready to start collecting customer satisfaction data. In fact, with little or no effort, responses to the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service survey(s) start coming in by simply placing a prominent link to the survey(s) on the library's home page. All of the current Subscribers so far have made this observation - library customers are more than willing to share their opinions regarding the services their library provides...with very little persuasion.

Getting customer responses through the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service survey(s) is obviously critical to deriving benefits from a LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service subscription. Consequently, it is important to promote and to encourage participation. All of the current LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers agree with this need. While response rates are strong at the outset, maintaining a satisfactory response rate means that the library customer has to be engaged from time to time. Ultimately the reward is a growing Customer Satisfaction Database and as the database grows so do the opportunities to make key observations and to determine the most appropriate action.

Don't forget that LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service will also help to focus your marketing approaches. For example, LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service can help you to determine whether or not a particular demographic has been effectively represented in your results. LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service can also help to determine trends during specific periods of time and within a demographic subset, giving knowledge about when and who is using the libraries services. Given this information, you may choose to create a campaign that compliments your general marketing initiatives to target a certain group or type of user you have identified and perhaps during specific periods of time. You may also get your staff involved in driving customers to the in-house terminals that link to the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service survey, by providing customers with the survey URL, or by handing the customer the print-based version of the survey.

Mini Surveys – Summer Reading Program

In the last issue of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service™ News, the article in Exploring LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service highlighted the concept of Mini-Surveys that will soon be made availalbe to all LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers. Mini-Surveys provide LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers with the opportunity to target specific areas of Library activity and gain customer insight and information on these services. Also, these Mini-Surveys give libraries an exciting way to promote the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Customer Satisfaction Survey(s) by targeting specific user groups to complete a Mini-Survey and then, offering the opportunity to complete one of the more general LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Customer Satisfaction Surveys.

The first of many Mini-Surveys is currently in development. Based on subscriber input, Counting Opinions is now developing a Summer Reading Program (SRP) Mini-Survey. The SRP Mini-Survey will help LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers simplify their SRP data collection, processing and reporting. A variety of reports will assist Libraries in assessing their results and submission to funding partners (where appropriate.)

Peer Review – A Follow-on Report in Progress

Since the OLA conducted the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Reference Site Peer Review with the Ajax, Barrie, Brampton and Thunder Bay Public Libraries a year ago, the number of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers has more than doubled. The OLA is now working on a follow-on LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Peer Review with the original four reference sites mentioned above and including the Kingston-Frontenac, King Township, Oshawa, Markham, Municipal District #23 (Alberta) and Windsor Public Libraries.

The purpose of the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Peer Review is to help assess how LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service is performing both as a product and a service. It provides the OLA and Counting Opinions insight into how LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service is used, how it can it be improved, what challenges exist at public libraries and how these challenges are overcome, what tangible results can be attributed to the use of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service, and any best practices.

The LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Peer Review is a valuable source of information. You can learn from the experience of existing LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers. It provides insight into best practices, outcomes and practical uses of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service. It enables potential Subscribers to assess the use, application and benefits of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service and how the results contribute to continuous customer satisfaction and operational improvements.

Once "approved" by all LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers, the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Peer Review will be made public on the OLAStore/LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service website and highlights will be shared in the next issue of LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service™ News.

If you would like to be informed when the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Peer Review is complete and the final report is available, please contact Ian Reid at ireid@countingopinions.com.

Support at Your Fingertips

LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service is a feature rich service that offers its Subscribers the tools to generate standard summary, customizable and benchmarking reports from the data collected through the LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service regular and in-depth surveys.

For the most part, LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers spend most of their time reviewing the standard summary reports that can be generated by LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service. These summary reports highlight, in real-time, the results from the surveys and present text and graphic formats to reveal patters and trends in the data. From here your analysis of the data may have raised one or more questions in your mind. This is where the customizable and benchmarking reports become very useful.

LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service Subscribers often say how easy it is to use and setup the reporting tools included with LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service. However, sometimes a quick refresher is needed. Counting Opinions has recently added a series of short on-line videos that help explain how, when and why you might use various reporting features. These video clips explain the appropriate use of the custom reports and how to effectively setup your own reports through a given example.

LibSatLibrary Customer Satisfaction Management Service now also provides a Report Summary Table that lists the types of available reports, including all customization and filtering features. To view the Report Summary Table, click on "Report Summary Table" above.

Don't forget, should you need quick turn around support, feedback, instruction, information or advice, simply refer to the contact information provided in Your Link Source below. We can also provide remote web-based demonstrations for your convenience.