Verifying Customer Information for Better Customer Satisfaction

Have you ever had a customer who came in through one library only for you to find out after you've sent some resources that they are really from another library? Or that their question wasn't what you thought?

One way to avoid this is to Verify Customer Information!

Why Verify?
How else will you know if you and your customer are on the same page? They don't know what information you have / understand- nor do you know what they're thinking unless you ask!

It's important to verify the customer's question and information to make sure you're giving them the best answers / resources available to them. A customer may come into the service from Baltimore County asking about "diving lessons." You can save yourself (and them) a lot of time if you verify what they need right off the bat. If you do, you may find out they need information on dRiving lessons- and they're from Baltimore City!

What kind of stuff should I verify?
You should be clarifying / verifying anything you think would be important in getting your customer the best help.

You should always make sure you understand the question (or what they need, which may be different than the question*) and in what form they're looking for answers in (books, websites, etc).

You may also want to verify the customer's home library, email address, how fast they need this information- anything that you think would help you get a complete picture what and how the customer needs.

When should I verify?
Definitely IN chat while you've got the customer's attention. :-)

You should verify information as it becomes important- You may verify the question right off the bat so you can start thinking about where to go for the answer / resources. Then you might want to verify what format the customer is looking for the answer in- and then their local library so you know what resources they may have access to that could help answer their question.

If you need to send a customer's question to follow-up mode, you definitely need to verify an email address- but it also helps to verify what their library system is (if you haven't already)- "I have your email address as librarycustomer@email.com and it looks like your local library system is the Baltimore City system, is that correct?" That way, not only will we be able to get back to the person- but we'll already know if we need to route it to a different library than the system says.

How do I verify?
You can verify the question by doing a "reference interview." I like to think of it more as "question clarification" to get it out of interrogation mode and more into the conversation realm.

You can ask questions like:
"It looks like you're looking for information on diving lessions- is that suba diving?"
"You need information on driving lessons, is that correct?"
"What aspect of driving lessons do you need information on?"

If you need to verify the customer's local resources you can ask things like:
"I see that you're from Baltimore County, is that correct?"
"It looks like you came in through Baltimore County, is that your local library?"

Regardless of what you ask- remember that you're verifying this information for the purpose of being able to get the customer the best help you can. Make it conversational- don't interrogate the customer or they may get turned off or defensive as to why you're asking a lot of questions. If they do ask why you're asking so many questions- tell them! You just want to make sure you've got your information straight so you can help them!

Take the time to verify information- and save yourself time in the long run (and increase customer satisfaction!)

As always- if anyone has any questions or suggestions in successful clarification- please don't hesitate to let me know / share.

Happy chatting!! :-)