How to measure the impact of your enquiry service: tips and techniques

By Penny Bailey BA, Dip Lib, MCLIP, MIoD, FRSA

Managing Director of Bailey Solutions Ltd

Content

• Why measure the impact of your enquiry service?• Part 1:the problems• Part 2: tips and techniques• Part 3: the results

The background

• What do you do all day?• Staffing levels are under scrutiny• Management are talking about outsourcing / using

volunteers• How do you prove you need your team members?• Who uses your services?• Would it matter if library users went elsewhere?

Resources budget cut

• How much are they used?• Who uses them?• How do you know which resources to cancel and

which to keep?• What types of enquiries are you doing and what

resources do you need?

Part 1: the problems

Gate tallies are not qualitative

Problems collecting statistics

Hodgepodge management of enquiry service as enquiries come in via:•Emails•Web forms•Chat services•Phone calls•Walk-ups

Using your inbox to manage enquiries

• Enquiries go direct to staff• Enquiries and responses in email inboxes• What happens when staff go off sick?• Shared inbox – who’s doing which one?• How do you prioritise?

Problems with the inbox cont.

• Keeping email threads together• Making sure question is completed on time• Response is highly individualistic• Emails are not data

Has anyone done this before?

• Sure I did something similar to this 6 months ago, but can’t find it now!

• Maybe my colleagues have done something similar?• We’ve been asked this same question 20 times this

week already!

Recording enquiries is tedious

• I use email to process the enquiry – why do I have to re-key the enquiry into a database?

• How do I know how much time I spent?• I also have to fill in this spreadsheet with costs for our

accounts department

Team leaders: how do I manage the team?

• How can I monitor the team to improve service levels?• How do I measure individual or team performance?• How do I get staff to improve their productivity?

Problems getting statistics

• Tracking enquiries involves keying in data from different sources

• Spreadsheet is vulnerable to staff error• Time consuming• Can only track users for consultations and don’t

have info for 17,000 walk-ups

Problems measuring the service

• Can’t rate the customer experience• Can’t measure impact on student success• No explicit performance targets

• Would like to make improvements to service levels but not sure where time is wasted

Part 2: Tips and techniques

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure”

Make it easy to ask

Keep all lines of communication open

• Web forms• Email• Chat• Phone• Face to face• Social media

Central store of updated user data

One unique identifier =

name, email, mobile phone number,gender, age, ethnicity, department,location, courses, address, year,leaving date and photo

User data is already collected before enquiry processingOnly one unique piece of information required

Walk- ups Email or student ID

Phone calls Email or student ID

Web forms Email or student ID

SMS Mobile phone number

Chat Email or student ID

Email Email

Integration is key

A centralised enquiry tracking system integrated with communication tools and the central user registry is essential!

Record every enquiry at the point of processing

• Every enquiry no matter how short• Not afterwards• Everything• Automate as much as possible

Make it easy to process & record enquiries

• Automate • Use defaults

Record time spent

Timer that can be • started• paused• restarted• stopped• assigned

Save enquiry handler’s time by recording costs

• Aggregated data transfer to finance department is accurate and time saving

Publish FAQs

•Users can help themselves and staff can concentrate on in-depth, difficult or one-off questions

Searchable knowledge base

Part 3: The results

Who’s using your service? Who’s not?

Informs your marketing strategy

When do they use the service?

Informs opening hours and staff availability

How do they use the service?

• Email• Phone• SMS• In person• Chat• Web formsInforms how the service should be offered

Customer satisfaction reports

• Statistics on the number of enquiries completed by the deadline

• How do they rate your service?• How do they perceive your response times?• How do they rate resources?

Evidence to improve team performance• Time spent by each member of staff• Average time taken to answer

Review customer satisfaction record of each staff member

Aggregated costs

• Aggregated data transfer to finance department is accurate and time saving

Evidence based management of resources

• Reports on ratings of resources

Evidence based management of resources

• Reports on resource usage used to justify continued subscription or cancellation

Justify service levels

• That whilst the number of enquiries has gone down, self service using knowledge base has increased

• The amount of time spent on enquiries to justify a need to increase / retain staff

Prove value of staff

• The average time spent on enquiries has decreased – staff are working more efficiently

• Customer satisfaction records have improved or remained at high levels

Types of enquiries

Reports on the types of enquiries the service handles to inform

• Training gaps• Need for subject specialists• Resources requirements

Prove value of service to users

• Impact analysis by correlating use of the library and library services with achievements

Find out more about KnowAll Enquire: enquiry tracking software from Bailey Solutions

penny@baileysolutions.co.ukTel: 01273 773788www.knowallenquire.com