Assessing service quality: satisfying the expectations of library customers

Abstract

About turn. Our customers, not our peers or funders, should be the judges of our success or failure. And when you think about it, unless we can attract and retain customers – grow our business and expand the customer base – we might as well make a greater contribution elsewhere. Written by distinguished academics, this is the message conveyed in the third and substantially updated edition of a blueprint for uncovering and satisfying the expectations of academic and public library customers. In 13 chapters the authors set the scene, establish the case for new ways of evaluating library services, then describe customer-centric performance metrics including: determining organisational effectiveness; what to measure and why; being wary of input and output measures without evidence of impact; listening to customers and managing their feedback; conducting surveys and focus groups; measuring satisfaction and service quality, then applying the findings to improve customer service. The large-format, double-column text is well supported with 63 figures containing check-lists, discussion questions for staff and customers, surveys and process guides. There are summaries and up-to-date references at the end of each chapter, and a detailed index for the whole work. This is a very impressive, very useful publication. In a highly readable fashion it moves from where we are to what needs to be done, and then suggests how we might go about the task of creating the customer-centric library.