But the one thing that you did was to refer the people to the right source. That *is* the definition of good customer service. If you just told people "I don't deal with that, it itsn't my job," and didn't say "but here is who you should talk to," then your attorneys would have been angry at you.
By the way, I worked for a while as a telephone reference librarian at the New York Public Library. That is as close to customer service as a librarian can get. However, we knew that we needed to be courteous to our patrons. If we couldn't help then (like in Christine's case), we referred them to someone who could. Yes, some people are rude who call in. Sometimes it does make you want to bite their heads off. However, we managed to restrain ourselves.
If upset by a caller, we did take time away from the phones. Also, we were not on the phone all day long without a break. Usually we worked one hour on the phone and one hour off the phone. This worked a lot better. So I would suggest to companies that they rotate their employees. This is the best way to ensure future sales. After all, even monopolies can encounter pitfalls (look at Microsoft).
--Bryan M. Carson
Christine Stouffer wrote:
> I agree with you, Bob, except I have one success story to relate regarding the "it's not my job" thing.
>
> We recently were switched involuntarily from Premise to LawDesk for our Ohio Materials, CFR, and AHLA on CD-ROM. We experienced many problems (I even posted a few of my complaints to this list and received some very good suggestions). Some problems were product/publisher-related, but many just needed the combined attention of West Group's CD techs and our techs.
>
> Anyway, when the barrage of complaints from the attorneys started coming my way, I attempted to field them for the first week or so. Then I discovered something (or focused on a problem I was trying to ignore): IT has a much easier time blowing me off than blowing off the attorneys directly. So, I sent out emails to complaining attorneys, and then to the groups, that I had done all I could with these problems (they were mostly our tech problems anyway). I decided to sic all of these complaints where they rightly belonged .... on IT.
>
> Let me tell you the absolute wonderful service the library applications and all the attorneys have since been receiving since then!!!! Now, finally, IT sees how important electronic research is to the attorneys on a daily basis. It's not just me complaining ... it's 100 attys and 16 paralegals. Legal research has taken on some meaning and priority here! It's not just some wonky librarian worried about her resources anymore ... it's attorneys who can't write and file their briefs! This translates into reduced billables etc. All of the fancy document and accounting management systems in the world don't matter without the attorneys' work product. Granted, I'm a little biased, but it did make the point.
>
> We are sometimes so "service-oriented" that we try to solve every problem. I think we must learn to delegate just as everyone else on a senior administrative level does.
>
> So, while I do sympathize with you, and I also get annoyed when someone says it's not their job .... perhaps enough complaints to the right place might get the proper attention.
>
> Just my two cents,
>
> Christine
>
> P.S. I highly recommend the above strategy if you can do it at your firm!
>
> Christine M. Stouffer, Firm Librarian
> Ulmer & Berne LLP
> Cleveland, Ohio 44114
> email: cstouffer@ulmer.com
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