Customer Service: More Than A Smile

The latest staff-training video from LVN continues a disturbing trend towards information-lite programming that is high on gloss and low on actual useable content. Opening with an Indiana Jones take-off, which is both very well done and pointless, Customer Service: More Than A Smile offers the Buddha-like dictum: "everyone is a customer." Essentially, patrons are "external customers" and staff co-workers are "internal customers." Personally, the notion of reducing one's fellow workers, not to mention the library's patrons, to the level of business transactions is depressing. The "meat" of the program, the "3 principles of good customer service" (listen and act, show positive behavior, and acknowledge good service), is strictly Dick and Jane level business education. In addition, the tape tells you to be "helpful," "considerate," and "attentive," all concepts which you should have learned by now (if not, a brief refresher browse through either the Boy Scout or Girl Scout handbook will bring you up to speed). The "training package" that accompanies the video contains additional goodies--the outlines and reproducible sheets for conducting a three-and-a-half hour workshop, replete with role-playing games and self-evaluation questionnaires. If this is your cup of tea, and if you're constantly on the lookout for new ways to terrorize your staff with bland staff education days, this will definitely fill the bill. Again, personally speaking, this is the kind of thing I miss the least about not working in a library anymore (and usually found ways to cut staff education days when I did work at the library). Purchase according to need. (Available from: LVN, c/o Baltimore County Public Library, 320 York Rd., Towson, MD 21204.)