uos internet librarian 2012

ADVENTURES IN CONVERSATIONNurturing Customer Relationships and

Caputuring Impact through Service Culture Change

INTERNET LIBRARIAN INTERNATIONAL 2012Kay Grieves & Michelle Halpin

“have you noticed they’re doing so many more imaginative things now...”

Student comment December 2011

University Library Services Sunderland: ContextAt the time of our Quality Model Campaign 2011-2012 all promotions were delivered across three campus libraries at The University of Sunderland. As the University has many off-campus students worldwide our campaign was mirrored online.

Leadership of our campaign• University Library Services Quality and Marketing Team consists of Kay Grieves (Quality

and Marketing Manager) and Michelle Halpin (Quality and Marketing Co-ordinator) • Our Adventures in Conversation Campaign and all campaign design work was

producedspecificallybythisQualityandMarketingTeam.• Our 7 Step Marketing Toolkit was created by Kay Grieves • Our Quality Model initiative is led by Kay Grieves and the Quality Model Steering Group

comprising of members of the Senior Management Team (Elizabeth Astan, Julie Archer and Jan Doshon)

This document supports our conference paper “Adventures in Conversation: Nurturing customer relationships and capturing impact through service culture change’. It showcases our recent strategic marketing activities mainly focussing on our Quality Promise Campaign 2011-2012.

We hope that you find it interesting and please contact us if we can help in any way.

FORWARD

Kay GrievesQuality and Marketing

Manager

Michelle HalpinQuality and Marketing

Co-ordinator

Adventures in Conversation

CONTENTS

1. Our Strategic Context 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Our Library Quality Model, outcome not output 1.3 Asignificantculturalshift 1.4 Thequalitymodelguidingprinciples 1.5 Qualitymodelservicedevelopmentandstaffempowerment 1.6 Developingabenefit-basedrelationshipwithourcustomers 1.7 Adventuresinconversations:embracingsocial-mediafor communicationandfeedback 1.8 Nurturingadvocacytocascadeimpactandbenefit evidence 1.9 Stafffskills 1.10Culturalchange

2. Our Quality Promise Campaign 2.1 Sharingwithourcustomers 2.2 Our Quality Promises 2.3 Theconcept 2.4 ‘Spinning plates’, encouraging team engagement 2.5 Themedmonthlycampaign

3. Quality Promise Brand Character 3.1 Concept 3.2 Character 3.3 Thequalitycoloureddot 3.4 Versatilityofbrand 3.5 Suiteofpublicitymaterials 3.6 Expanding online presence and branding

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BrandConcept:Promisesbrandedindividuallyandtogether BrandConcept:GeneralService-wideguidesdepictinghowalll service-strands/qualitypromisescometogethertomakeour holisticoffer Brand Concept: Library promotional items Brand Concept: Online presence branding (1) Brand Concept: Online presence branding (2)

4. Quality Promise Campaign Themes CampaignTheme1:CustomerCareandCustomerSupport CampaignTheme2:ResourcesandInforamtionSkills CampaignTheme3:LearningSpaces CampaignTheme4:FeedbackandCommunication CampaignTheme5:Equity CampaignTheme6:KnowingOurCustomers

5. Wider Impacts, Figures and Further Adventures 5.2 CulturalImpactfromastaffperspective 5.3 ProfessionalImpact 5.4 FurtherAdventuresInConversation 5.5 Conclusion SupplementaryInformation Talkingtous

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1OUR STRATEGICCONTEXT

OUR STRATEGIC CONTEXT

1.1Introduction Our 2011-12 Quality Model Promise Campaign was a significant milestone in a process of service-culture change, which has been underway at University Library Services Sunderland for the past 4 years. This cultural change has been complex and far-reaching and to appreciate our Quality Promise Campaign it would be helpful to briefly explore our cultural context in 2008 when the process began.

The landscape of the University made a significant shift in 2008 – characterised by the publication of a new Academic Strategy ‘Enhancing the Student Experience’ which for the first time placed the emphasis on the overall experience of the student. This coincided with and informed a new strategic direction for University Library Services.

In 2008 University Library Services were hoping to develop:

• A Values-based staff culture. One of ownership, shared responsibility, teamwork, innovation and leadership rather than hierarchy.

• A shift in focus, asserting the customer at the very heart of all that we do rather than our procedures, services or systems themselves.

• The foundations of a flexible, proactive service, one able to quickly reshape and reform to meet changing customer expectation.

• A culture where outcome, impact and benefit on the customer experience were our priorities rather than outputs and quantitative measures of success.

• The potential of social media to engage with customers in a more meaningful way.

Our Quality Model Campaign is the public manifestation of over four years of service change, staff development, skill attainment, enthusiasm and innovation.

1.2 Our Library Quality Model, outcome not outputIn 2008 we began the exciting process of creating a new performance model for University Library Services.

Our Service had a well-defined and embedded customer service ethos which was a valuable platform to build upon. We had a well-established performance reporting structure, however, having served us usefully for many years we felt it was no longer helping to inform our new strategic direction.

We needed to establish a new model which

Moved away from:• Staff functions and operations

being at the centre of all.

• The assumption that success could be measured by how well staff

performed internal operations, procedures and regulations within defined service standards.

• The dominance of quantitative measures and ‘output’.

• On-going data collection for ‘collecting’s sake’ and unnecessary reporting.

• A concentration how much, how often or how quickly we performed key functions.

• The culture that ‘so long as a pre-defined’ procedure was followed within defined service standards, we were doing well and if we did not do well it was our procedures and operations that must change.

• The ‘fear’ of openness and honesty.

And towards:• A culture where the customer was

at the very heart of all.

• Performance was measured on the customers’ perception of success


whatever that may be.

• The quality of the customers’ experience was paramount rather than how much, how often or how quickly we delivered our services.

• Our measures of success became ‘Outcome’, ‘impact’ and the ‘difference we make’ to the customer.

• A model where impact measures and data were collected when needed and to fulfil a pre-defined purpose.

• A service that was open and honest and not afraid to engage in real dialogue with our customers or to articulate the true benefits our service could bring and the impact

it could have.

• A service that is informed, developed and shaped by true interaction with our customers.

1.3 A Significant Cultural ShiftTo be meaningful this new model relied upon a significant cultural shift:

We needed our staff to:• Shift their perception of success

and good performance from a predominantly internally defined model to one where the customers perception of quality was key.

• Develop ownership of and responsibility for the services they delivered. Recognising that their personal excellence and commitment to quality were the key to the overarching quality of the service as a whole.

• Take ownership of their own development, to share and support each other rather than waiting to be ‘trained’.

• Be led by a genuine enthusiasm to enhance the experience of our customers rather than a ‘blind’ adherence to procedures and regulations.

• Realise that the power to make a difference and to develop their own

service lay within themselves.

The new performance model we formed was our Library Quality Model and was launched to staff in May 2008

1.4The quality model guiding principlesThe starting point was to encourage all staff to understand what Quality meant in terms of our services. We began by identifying - amid the myriad of services, systems and procedures - our core ‘reasons for being’. There could be no doubt that this was our ‘customer.’

...OUR STRATEGIC CONTEXT

Communication: You will always have the information you need to ensure that you are aware of service developments that may affect you.Customer Care: Every time you talk to us you will meet approachable, knowledgeable, caring staff whose key motivation is to help you and ensure you get the most out of library services.Customer Support: We will give you help and support to enable you to use library resources to best effect.

Equity: No matter where you are, when or how you reach us, we will strive to deliver an equivalent library service.Feedback: We will always consider your comments and suggestions and respond to you. We will take action and develop services where appropriate.Knowing our customers: We will always treat you as an individual and where possible will deliver support and services to meet your specific needs.

Library Spaces: Library spaces and virtual learning environments that are responsive to your learning needs.ResourcesYou will have access to appropriate resources when you need them.Skills for LearningYou will have the opportunity to develop information literacy skills that will help you to use library services to your best advantage, support your academic progress and your future development.

Our 9 Quality Model Guiding Principles


...OUR STRATEGIC CONTEXTThe next question was what in the simplest terms did we exist to provide to our customers with?

We identified 9 core service strands – our reasons for being. These were worked into 9 Quality Model Guiding

Principles. These principles would signpost our service’s journey towards Quality. See Quality Model briefing paper attached to this entry.

1.5 Quality model service development and staff empowermentBetween 2008 and the current day each and every member of library staff has been involved in Quality Model

working parties. Cross-team library staff made recommendations to bring each of these Quality Principles to reality – with the customers’ needs rather than the services’ needs foremost in their minds.Our groups also considered how we were to begin to capture the difference our commitment to each of our Quality Principles could bring to our customers.

Our Quality Model Groups gave ownership and responsibility back to our staff and enabled us to put Leadership Development into practice, with Librarians leading each Quality Team. They were conscientiously facilitated and sharing took place by regular meetings, events, reporting and publications.

Many significant service developments have come about as a result and most significantly our staff were energized, involved and on-board.

1.6 Developing a benefit-based relationship with our customers

If we were to ensure our services made a difference to our customers, we needed to know what difference they were looking for and we needed a way to make that difference meaningful to them. We needed to do this by developing a relationship with them. But how?We found the key to this in strategic marketing techniques. It became apparent that we had three main challenges before us:1. We needed to change our

perception of our customers as one amporphus group with the same needs, into one of multiple customer audiences with specific needs.

2. We needed to stop trying to sell

the features of our services and what they did and sell the benefits of them; how they would meet our customer audiences’ needs.

3. We needed to enable customers to be able to articulate these benefits and become advocates for our service.

Finding that the majority of library related marketing texts concentrated on promotion rather than strategic planning and business texts were too commercially driven for our needs, we developed our own: ‘How do you like your eggs in the morning? A Seven Step Strategic Marketing Toolkit.’ See 7 Step Strategic Marketing Toolkit attachment.

Seven Step Strategic Marketing Toolkit

STEP 1STEP 2

STEP 3STEP 4

STEP 5STEP 6

STEP 7

Agree our strategic directionIdentify our service offers and undertake SWOT and PEST analysis

Identify and segment our customersMatch our services to our customer segments

Transform our service offers into benefitsForm benefit-centred messages

Plan our campaigns

12

34

56

7


...THE STRATEGIC CONTEXTOur Toolkit soon became a central strategic marketing tool at Sunderland. It has also been very enthusiasically greeted by libraries throughout the UK and has now been shared with staff from over 90 library services nation wide. It has been successfully used for many purposes from planning new service launches to preparing for the Customer Service Excellence Award. See CILIP Update article and UCR Conference 2012 Presentation attached to this entry.“It lived up to all (and more) of my expectations … it was one of the best I have been too.’ Delegate ARLIS Conference Goldsmiths, London 2012

In terms of our Quality Model initiative our Toolkit has been fundamental at all stages. Initially in helping our staff to understand who their key customer audiences are (eg. Subject audiences/situational audiences such as overseas learners / front-line customers) and in developing ‘bespoke’ packages of services for them. Later, during our subsequent Quality Model Campaign, it helped us to articulate in an engaging

way for these customers, the benefits these services bring through planned conversations with them.

The absolute key however was that it helped us to begin to perceive our range of services in terms of the benefit they bring to our customers, the difference they make and the impact they have rather than for their features or characteristics alone.

1.7 Adventures in Conversation: embracing social-media for communication and feedback Having employed our Marketing Toolkit to help staff identify who their own customer audiences are (ie. Subject audiences, Situational Audiences such as Off-campus Learners or Partner College Audiences) and begun thinking about what they wanted to say (ie. benefit based messages regarding our services and targeted to customer needs) we were led to the question of

how to convey these messages most effectively.What became apparent was that we needed to engender and nurture conversations with those customers. These needed to be real conversations. Not just telling, not just a blanket, central message to all and not even just a dialogue between us and one customer (ie through email) but a real conversation which was two way, tailored to the interests and preferences of the customer, that encouraged open, honest dialogue and most of all that was shared by all customers, inviting all to feel part of our services.What also became apparent was that since the beginning of our Quality journey, social-media had taken on seismic changes and it could hold the key to the conversations we wanted to develop.

1.8 Nurturing advocacy to cascade impact and benefit evidence

Our conversations needed to not only talk to people about our services but to become our mechanisms for:

• Capturing valuable feedback and impact evidence.

• Sharing our responses and evidence of our impact, not just with the individual making the comment but with our wider customer audience.

• Helping customers to realise that by conversing with us we could develop our services to better meet their needs.

• Enabling our customers to share the impact and benefit of our services with each other, hence developing them as powerful peer-to-peer advocates for our service.

• Preparing our customers to articulate the difference we make through advocacy with all of our stakeholders eg. in University surveys, to academic staff etc.

To boldly convey our conviction and commitment to a culture of openness and transparency had valuable side-effects. Difficult for some staff to accept but a clear commitment to openness


...OUR STRATEGIC CONTEXThas been one of the most powerful outcomes of our campaign, in helping to develop our customer relationships.

1.9 Staff SkillsWhilst our lack of social media skills and experience were initially problematic this lack of expertise also provided potential.

Sunderland has a devolved web policy with the library being solely responsible for our web design and content. Uniquely for many library services our online presence is designed, managed and maintained almost entirely by

library staff. Most of us are self-taught and develop our colleagues through sharing, Communities of Practice and peer-to-peer support.

Whilst our lack of social media skills and experience were initially problematic this lack of expertise also provided potential. How better to achieve our goal of ownership, responsibility and contribution than through harnessing the freedom provided by social media technologies?Throughout the past 5 years we have achieved much:

• The formation of a lively and committed Web Editorial Team

who provide leadership of online presence and web technologies

• Development through an annual web week / workshops /drop-ins

• Sharing – peer to peer support• Imagination and innovation

And now we have achieved:• ULS web pages designed and

managed entirely by ULS staff• Subject blogs/Netvibes• Facebook/Twitter presence• Online videos/tutorials/webinars• Library Apps

1.10 Cultural changeThis enhanced way of working and cultural change all provided solid foundations on which to build our 2011-2012 Quality Promise Campaign.


2OUR QUALITY PROMISE CAMPAIGN

2.1 Sharing with our customersAnd so in the summer of 2011 the time felt right for all of these drivers to converge. After three years of internal Quality Model development we were ready to share our commitment to our Quality Promises with our customers. We wanted to:• Effectively share our promise of

service quality with our customers.• Contextualise our commitment

to quality with relevant examples tailored for our customers.

• Begin to experiment with our social media skills to engender customer.

conversations .• Begin to gather evidence of the

impact or difference we make.Whilst we had delivered successful one-off campaigns in the past, this was to be our first year-long, service-wide campaign involving all staff and all aspects of our library service.

2.2 Our Quality PromisesThe Quality Principles which now defined our internal service were presented as Quality Promises for an external audience.These Promises would form the focus for us to exemplify and contextualize our services to our customers. The

framework around which our Quality Campaign would sit.

2.3 The conceptOur campaign concept centered around a plan which would:• Share our Quality Promises.• Exemplify and contextualise our

promises with examples that would be engaging and relevant to each of our customer audiences.

• Experiment with capturing impact and benefit.

• Encourage conversation and sharing through our use of social media.

2.4 ‘Spinning plates’, encouraging team engagementA key element of cultural change was to help staff realise that they had responsibility for their own customer audiences, with whom theycould nurture conversations around service quality. We achieved this through a variety of approaches:

• Delivering the marketing toolkit to all staff who ‘managed’ an audience.

• Delivering ‘conversational workshops’ to encourage staff to plan conversations and map them

OUR QUALITY PROMISE CAMPAIGN

SEPTEMBER Customer Care & Customer Support

OCTOBER & NOVEMBER Resources & Skills for Learning

DECEMBER Learning Spaces

JANUARY & FEBRUARY Communication & Feedback

MARCH Equity

APRIL & MAY Knowing Our Customers

Quality Promise Timeline


OUR QUALITY PROMISE CAMPAIGNonto the year-long conversational timeline. See Quality Promise Timeline below.

• Encouraging social-media skills development and peer-to-peer support. All staff were encouraged to commit to trying ‘one new’ communication tool in their conversations. And to pass on these new skills to their colleagues.

• Encouraging staff to be imaginative in their capturing of impact and to try to capture ‘one difference’ with their own audiences for each

customer conversation.

2.5Themed Monthly Campaign Our next decision was when it was best to hold these conversations. We knew from our Toolkit that messages were most effective when timely.We first established a year long Quality Promise Campaign Timeline positioning each promise in a relevant month to map onto key University and Faculty events e.g. articulating the strength of

our customer care when students are new in Spetember, or promoting the quality of our learning resources when students really begin to need them in October and November.We then encouraged staff to ‘hang’ their conversations from these central themes by contextualising and exemplifying them with their own customer audiences.They were encouraged to support each other, stimulate ideas, share innovation and skills.

Liaison Librarians developed a more detailed Conversational Timeline to

map out these conversations and promotions.

See the Quality Promise Timeline below.

Our Quality Conversational Timeline


3QUALITY PROMISE BRAND CHARACTER

3.1ConceptOur aim was to define a visual concept which would:• Ensure that our Quality Promise

brand is instantly recognisable.• Ensure that each individual Quality

Promise or ‘service-strand’ can be represented as a stand-alone promise or can be combined as relevant with others.

• Ensure that when displayed together, our Quality Promises brand depicts the holistic nature of our combined service-strands in making up the complete University Library Services offer and our overall commitment to service quality.

3.2Character• Bright, pleasing, light, cheerful,

fresh, sunny – in keeping with our

library spaces• Friendly, welcoming, accessible,

helpful, proactive, flexible, fluid, receptive

• Not stuffy, pretentious, traditional

3.3The quality coloured dotEach Quality Promise was defined by a colour and / or the motif of a coloured dot. This colour motif was embedded throughout the annual campaign. The intention being that customers could easily recognise the link between the promise colour and the promotional acitvities taking place.

3.4Versatility of brandThere was a practical element to the choosing of our ‘dot’ brand.

With our core aim of staff ownership and engagement in mind, we needed an image that was easily recreated and

re-purposed by staff of all skill levels. A design requiring an expert to create it, would have been pointless. All staff could apply a colour or a coloured dot to their publicity materials.

Our brand also needed to be versatile – it needed to sit effectively on print mediums and with our online presence.

To support staff further we:

• Purchased new design software• Encouraged and facilitated staff

development and skills sharing• Created templates for easy re-

purposing• Created central repositories of

images using Facebook and Pinterest

3.5Suite of publicity materialsThe new Quality brand was initially applied to a suite of central publicity

materials:

• Library bag• Library guides

3.6Expanding Online Presence and BrandingOur new brand was applied to our web pages and onlline presence.

• Blog headers• New Facebook and Twitter

Accounts – branding• Netvibes• Pinterest Boards• Videos/Interactive guides• Monthly Promotions• Promotion each month

QUALITY PROMISE BRAND CHARACTER


BRAND CONCEPT: Promises branded individually and together

Web icons used to illustrate each individual quality promise

Web icon showing how promises were branded together

BRAND CONCEPT:

2011-2012 Library Guide for Partner College Students with ‘Equity Green’ as the main accent colour

2011-2012 Library Guide with ‘Customer Care Raspberry’ as the main accent colour

Example of guides when folded to A3

Lovely Learning spaces leaflet Business Card sized key contacts for students Examples of themed subject and I.T Guides

General service-wide guides depicting how all service-strands/quality promises come together to make our holistic offer

BRAND CONCEPT: library promotional items

The ‘must have’ library bag, given free to students at the start of term

Photograph showing our staff wearing the T-shirts they designed to be worn during freshers week - branded with the Quailty Promise ‘dot’ theme

Roving Support staff easy to ‘spot’ in their Quality Model branded T-shirts!

Table display from Induction 2011

BRAND CONCEPT: online presence branding (1)

Series of web icons created to promote library blogs and Quality Promise concept. Note the use of blue to illustrate the ‘Communication Promise’

Series of web icons created to promote library blogs and Quality Promise concept. Note the use of blue to illustrate the ‘Communication Promise’

BRAND CONCEPT: online presence branding (2)

Our Library Facebook Banner (Cover Image) using the Communication and Feedback blue and red colour themes. We also incorporate ‘Equity Green’ into this banner and accompanying posters.

We also branded our Library Twitter with this image as the background. The image matched the Library Bag design and uses the ‘Feedback Red’ colour.

This is the Feedback Database icon that you will see throughout our Library and wider Student and Learning Support web pages. This also uses the ‘Feedback Red’ colour.

4QUALITY PROMISE CAMPAIGN THEMES

This section of the document contains multiple images. The quality of these images has been reduced in order to meet the document size requirements.

YoucanviewthematahigherresolutionatoutPinterestpage.PleaseseeourPinterestattachmentorlookonlineat:

pinterestcom/UniOfSunLib

September to October 2011Quality PromiseCustomer Care and Customer Support

‘Every time you talk to us you will meet approachable, knowlegeable, caring staff whose key motivation is to help you and to ensure you get the most out of library services’

‘We will give you help and support to enable you to use library resources to best effect.’

Aim

To emphasise not what we do but how friendly and warm we are when we do it.

TimelinessTo embed our warm, approachable, helpful ethos at the start of the new academic year

HowThrough induction events, Meet & Greet Events, at Helpdesks and through library roving support. Supported by attractive publicity materials and key ‘warmth of welcome’ messages in all publications and induction materials.

Impact‘Warmth of our welcome’ poll

A light-touch, fun poll inviting students to vote how warm/cold our library welcome is. Students could either vote online or post a pink (for warm) or blue (for not so warm) pom-pom at our voting station.

ResultsWe received an enthusiastic response to our poll and some valuable verbal feedback.

72% thought our welcome warm.

This was not a scientific poll – it was the ethos affirmed by the asking that meant the most!

We had very publicly proved to our customers that we cared about the quality of our welcome and the importance of our customer care.

CAMPAIGN THEME 1: CUSTOMER CARE & SUPPORT

web icon showing the result


THEME 1: CUSTOMER CARE & CUSTOMER SUPPORT‘How warm is our welcome?’ poll

A1 poster Photo showing table display

A5 flyers A0 trifold display Photo showing table display The video we made and embedded in our Facebook page to advertise our campaign

You will see that these materials were made using the ‘Customer Care Raspeberry’ colour

October to November 2011Quality PromisesResources and Information Skills

‘You will have access to appropriate resources when you need them.’

‘You will have the opportunity to develop information literacy skills that will help you to use library services to your best advantage, support your academic progress and your future development’

AimIn response to National Student Survey feedback regarding text-book availability and reservation waiting times we wanted to promote our growing e-book collections. We wanted to participate in International Open Access Week and to promote the value of information literacy skills, in making the most of our resources.

TimelinessOctober and November are the time when new and returning students begin to use our resources; International Open Access Week 24th October 2011 & Halloween.

HowOur e-book campaign

Our aim was to avoid ineffective generic promotion by contextualising our messages to subject audiences. We matched our most reserved

physical items to our e-book availability.

Promotional tools included:

• RSS feeds of eBooks by subject and new eBooks added to stock from library catalogue to subject web pages

• Shelf edge labels denoting heavily used items and linking to the e-version via QR codes

• Stickers on text-books with an e-companion

• Flyers placed in reserved items awaiting collection

• Posters in all libraries and promotion via Subject web pages and blogs

Our International Open Access Week Campaign

We promoted International Open Access Week by exemplifying open

access resources in our diverse subject areas and to our research community using a Halloween theme.

An imaginative example was our Media Librarian’s Open Access Film Festival – showing lunchtime open access horror films on public screens in our Computing/Media Faculties and on screens in the libraries accompanied by Halloween sweets and treats. Viewing times were publicised on-line.

Impact

• Oure-bookRSSfeedbecamethemostpopularsearchonthelibrarycatalogue.

• Staffconfidenceinpromotinge-booksandopenaccessincreased.

• Fulle-bookusageevaluationplannedforOct2012tocomparewithOct2011usage.

CAMPAIGN THEME 2: RESOURCES & INFORMATION SKILLS


THEME 2: RESOURCES & SKILLS FOR LEARNINGeBook Promotion

Web Icon for RSS feed Stickers for Book Jacket Covers Book Reservation Flyers

A2 / A1 Poster Book Shelf Edge Labels - customers scan QR code to access ebook versions on demand

You will see that these materials were made using the ‘Resources Orange’ colour

THEME 2: RESOURCES & SKILLS FOR LEARNINGOpen Access Week Promotion

A2 poster Plasma Screen display stand decoration

‘Horrorfest’ themed dsiplay at St Peter’s Library

Art Library Display with Damien Hirst styled skull pumpkin

‘Horrorfest’ themed movies at St. Peter’s Library

‘Horrorfest’ themed dsiplay via our Information Kiosks

You will see that these materials were made using the ‘Resources Orange’ and ‘Skills for Learning Yellow’ colours- very handy, as pumpkins are orange!

CAMPAIGN THEME 3: LEARNING SPACESDecember 2011Quality PromiseLearning Spaces

‘Library spaces and virtual environments which are responsive to your learning needs.’

Aim

To promote our newly refurbished 24/7 learning spaces which now provide a range of flexible, colourful and imaginative environments. To encourage customers to make best use of our various learning spaces.

Timeliness

Our three-phase refurbishment came to fruition in Summer 2011. December is usually the time when students begin to use our learning spaces for serious study purposes for the first time and many are new to the concept of 24/7 and self-services. We felt these new spaces were a gift to our customers and wanted to tie it in to the Christmas/festive theme.

How

Our ‘Lovely Learning Spaces’ leaflet which aimed to guide customer’s through our new spaces using ‘treasure-map’style.

This was accompanied by new learning space web pages and interactive maps on touch screens.

Our Gift of Learning Spaces

Playing on a Christmas theme we presented our learning spaces as gifts to our students. We wrapped luxurious parcels representing gifts of ‘Quiet’ ‘Silent’ and ‘Social’ spaces. Pretty mix and match cards describing the full range of learning spaces spilled from the open parcels.

Impact

Festive Wishing TreesLED Christmas tree displays in each library invited customers to write a ‘Wish for our learning spaces’ on a bauble and hang it on the wishing tree. We responded to the wishes on the flip-side of the bauble. (Thanks to Sheffield Hallam Library staff whose wishing tree idea we adapted for this promotion.)

Festive Card LinesCustomers were also invited to add a ‘wish’ to our festive feedback cards and peg them to Christmas card lines that ran the length of our newly refurbished library spaces.

Examples of Customer Feedback

‘I like coming to Murray Library as it is bright and friendly’

‘The update decor, lighting and layout of the refurbished Murray Library creates a welcoming, inspiring and refreshing learning environment that will appeal to a range of learners.’

‘Fantastic Library layout. Really love the colouring. Brightens my day. I want to spend more time here.’

‘The top floor library refurbishment is terrific’

‘It’s like a temple.’ Light and airy and also workable for all. ‘Very impressive, comfortable, welcoming facility for staff and students. Meets all student needs.’

‘The studying environment is the best I have ever seen’

By openly sharing all customer comments we demonstrated our commitment to openness and conversation. We also very publicly shared both the positive feedback and the steps we were going to take to address any issues and to further improve our learning spaces.


THEME 3: LEARNING SPACES (1)

Gift of Learning Spaces promotion and Christmas Wishing Tree

Lovely Learning Spaces leaflet Example of display cards Learning Spaces Info Cards

Festive Card Line A2 poster ‘what do you think of your library spaces?’. Uses the purple Learning Spaces Quality Promise theme

A2 poster ‘what do you think of your library spaces?’ Uses the red Feedback Quality Promise theme

‘Christmas Cards’ used by customers to write down their comments and peg them on the Festive Card Line

Photo showing customer christmas cards pegged on the Festive Card Line

You will see that these materials were made using the ‘Feedback Red’ and ‘Learning Spaces Purple’ colours

THEME 3: LEARNING SPACES (2)

A3 poster Photos of the Christmas Wishing Trees and customer ‘2012 Library Wish’ comments at St. Peter’s Library

You will see that these materials were made using the ‘Feedback Red’ colour

January & February 2011Quality PromiseFeedback & Communication

‘We will always consider your comments and suggestions and respond to you. We will take action and develop services where appropriate.’

‘You will always have the information you need to ensure that you are aware of service developments that may affect you.’

AimTo promote our commitment to building relationships and nurture conversations with our customers in person, through our many new social media channels and Feedback Database (in itself the result of a Quality Model working group.) To convey our culture of openness and transparency in the sharing of our customer feedback. To increase our Facebook and Twitter followers.

TimelinessSix months into the year; six months after the introduction of University Library Services Feedback Database; to help us prepare for the National Student Survey and Student Experience Survey.

HowTo help students articulate the difference we make to them and to develop them as advocates for our service we developed our ‘Share your ideas with the library and watch them grow’ campaign.

A very popular campaign with striking posters and online branding. Using

the theme of Spring and ‘new-growth’ we used attractive tractor and tree motifs to depict how customer ideas and feedback grow into new and better services for all.

We promoted the benefits of following the library on Facebook and Twitter and the many ways there are to talk with us.

Using feedback themes from the previous year we fed-back common feedback themes to customers, the new services that had been developed as a result of their engagement and why some suggestions had not been possible, making alternative suggestions instead.

We concentrated on key service developments in the areas of our central Quality themes of:

Resources; Ways We Help You More; Learning Spaces and Technology

ImpactOur spring feedback treesWe re-used our feedback trees to invite new ideas for our libraries. Customers

were asked to ‘grow’ new ideas on the bare winter branches by writing them on new spring leaves and ‘growing’ them on the trees.

We responded to their comments using blossom-shaped post-it notes to depict the concept that their ideas would blossom into new services.

As a result our Facebook and Twitter followers increased considerably.

Examples of our customer comments as a result of developing enquiry support through Facebook

‘Thanks sooooooo much for your quick reply. Got, it, tried it, it works. Felt like the 13th hour. We were running out of time depending on SBCS getting it for us before exams and cases. So had decided email and send an FB message to you all directly.’

Use Tweet ‘Off to my favourite place: UniOfSunLib. Hunting for James Joyce …’

CAMPAIGN THEME 4: FEEDBACK & COMMUNICATION


THEME 4: FEEDBACK & COMMUNICATION (2)

• Photos of the spring wishing trees. We hung spring leaves to communicate the new services and resources we had made available to customers in response to their comments and requests.

• Customers then ‘grew’ leaves themselves to tell us what they thought about this and to make new suggestions.

• .. And then we added blossom notes to further feedback to customers to develop this feedback conversation further.


A1 posters and matching plasma display screens images

A1 poster

You will see that these materials were made using the relevant Quality Promise colours. The images depicted in the trees are all examples of the new services launched in these service areas as a result of customer conversations. E.g. the ‘New Resources’ poster sees images depicting our SURE Institutional Repository, eBooks etc. The ‘New Ways We Can Help’ poster depicts images of Facebook, Twitter, Roving Support with iPads, YouTube channels etc.


Series of ‘did you know’ information images for our small scale digital photo frames - promoting our new spaces and I.T. resources that have been developed as a result of customer conversations

CAMPAIGN THEME 5: EQUITYMarch 2011Quality PromiseEquity

“No matter where you are, when or how you reach us, we will strive to deliver an equivalent library service”

AimUniversity Library Services delivers library services to many diverse customer groups – customers whose experience of library services differs according to their situation.

Our customers may have geographical differences – on campus, throughout the UK or worldwide; they may never visit or see our on campus libraries; they may use all of our services as a full-time undergraduate or perhaps only visit on a weekend or evening as a part-time student.

We cannot promise that these customers all experience the ‘same’ library service but what we can strive to achieve is an ‘equitable’ experience.

In addition to situational differences customers needs change throughout their University ‘journey’. We need our services to change alongside them so that their needs are always met.

TimelinessDuring March the majority of full-time, on campus students are occupied competing projects and preparing for exams. It was felt that this was a suitable time to promote the many bespoke services we offer for our different customer groups ie:

• UK Partner College Customers• Overseas Customers• Researchers• Customers with Disabilities• Services to 6th form students• Work-based Learners• Visitors and members of the public• Part-time students

HowWe produced a series of posters, plasma screen slides and online images based around the concept of

the ever changing shapes of clouds in the sky. As clouds constantly change shape so do the needs of our customers and so, in turn do our services, to ensure that we meet these needs.

Each themed image highlighted the ‘package’ of services that we offer each ‘type’ of customer.

The themes we chose were:

• Studying on the Move• Studying at College• Studying at Home• Studying in the Library at Night• Studying Overseas• Studying at Work• Studying as a Postgraduate• New Students


THEME 5: EQUITY & KNOWING OUR CUSTOMERS

Series of plasma screens displayed within library buidlings.

You will see that these materials were made using the ‘Knowing Our Customers Turquiose’ and ‘Equity Green’ colours.

April & May 2011Quality PromiseKnowing Our Customers

‘We will always treat you as an individual and where possible will deliver support and services to meet your specific needs’.

AimTo promote our commitment to our ‘Knowing Our Customers’ Quality Promise. This is a very important promise, as by getting to know our customers, we are better able to shape and deliver high quality services to meet their needs. Much of this work goes unseen by our customers so our aim was to very visibly undertake to get to know their needs better.

We wanted to demonstrate how valuable it could be for customers to share their thoughts, ideas and suggestions – not just with us but with each other. In doing so we would also fulfill our original campaign aims of nurturing our customers to become advocates of our service and to be able to articulate the positive impact we have upon their University experience.

In addition, we wanted to encourage our customers to interact with us more, to stay up to date with our conversations, to talk to us and share their thoughts and experiences. In order to do this we wanted to

encourage more customers to ‘Like Us’ on Facebook and ‘Follow Us’ on Twitter. Having investigated how commercial Facebook sites eg. Sainsbury’s, encouraged Facebook ‘Likes’ it was clear that we needed an incentive. As this was the final theme of our year long Quality Model Campaign we also wanted it to act as a ‘grand finale’ – hence the very generous prize of a new iPad 3.

TimingOn a very practical level – as we were beginning to plan for Induction 2012 we wanted to gather practical information about what new students would find it most useful to know. We felt that sharing what last year’s new students had found most helpful about the library and what they wished they had know would have greater impact with new students.

Most of our students begin to ‘disappear’ from the middle of May so it was important to gather the feedback we needed throughout April.

HowWe invited customers to ‘Share something wonderful, win something wonderful’ by sharing on the Library Facebook page, ‘The one thing you’ve learned about the library that will help others.’ We promised that once we reached 101 ‘wonderful thing’ posts we would announce the winner of our iPad 3 and that we would use all of the feedback to help inform our 2012 induction messages.

On reaching 101 posts we invited library staff to shortlist and choose their favourite entry. Much to her genuine delight the iPad was won by a very grateful 1st year Art and Design Student - this is her winning ‘one thing’:

‘My one thing ... well there are many things that I have learned and love about The University of Sunderland’s Libraries and their Services, but the most important is how helpful and friendly the staff are. There is nothing worse than going somewhere and feeling on

CAMPAIGN THEME 6: KNOWING OUR CUSTOMERS


your own with no-one around to give you a hand or second opinion, but Sunderland Uni Libraries are the total opposite. If you have an idea you want to talk about, want a hand finding a particular book or even just want a friendly chat, there is always someone who will find the time for you. And being a first year student myself, I find this is exactly what you need in your first year of Uni. :)’

Impact

The ‘Knowing Our Customers’ Campaign proved a very powerful campaign one from both a customer and staff perspective. The campaign seemed to capture our customers’ imagination and they participated very enthusiastically.

The fact that we asked for a good or useful thing that customers have learned about the library resulted in

very visible post after positive post of how helpful the library had been, all over our Facebook pages. This positive reinforcement proved a powerful and valuable promotional tool in further nurturing positivity. This helped to achieve our initial Quality Campaign objective of encouraging our customers to become positive advocates for our service and to be able to articulate the positive impact that our services have on their University experience.

Customers seemed to enjoy being included in sharing advice with the new student intake and enjoy being in a position of knowledge and experience. The fact that we actively included them helped reinforce our commitment to the Quality Promise of ‘Knowing Our Customers.’

On a practical level our Facebook ‘Likes’ increased by over 100 in a very short time. As the majority of

these students were first or second year students we now have them ‘captured’ and are able to begin new conversations with them when they return to University in September.

The campaign also had a very positive impact on staff culture.

We decided to offer an iPad 3 to the winner as we were keen to offer a useful and generous prize. It was another positive step that we were able to pay for the iPad using revenue generated from arduous collection management activity on the part of our staff. It was a very positive ‘end’ to our campaign that staff were able to see a student so delighted with the prize that their hard work had generated.

The fact that we invited our staff to select our winner, and that the team at our Art & Design Library were tasked with presenting the prize further increased a valuable sense

of ownership around this campaign theme.

Staff found the outpouring of such positive feedback and the genuine delight of our winner very rewarding and an inspiring culmination to our 2011-2012 Quality Model Campaign.

Through our final campaign theme positive conversations had certainly been nurtured!

The winner, one very happy student - the best impact measure of all!

CAMPAIGN THEME 6: KNOWING OUR CUSTOMERS


THEME 6: KNOWING OUR CUSTOMERSShare One Wonderful Thing promotion

Facebook cover used for duration of theme 6 Photo used to promote prize on library Facebook page

Plasma screen image Web icon Promotional flyers A1 poster

You will see that these materials were made using the ‘Knowing Our Customers Turquiose’

THEME 6: KNOWING OUR CUSTOMERSShare One Wonderful Thing promotion (1)

THEME 6: KNOWING OUR CUSTOMERSShare One Wonderful Thing promotion (2)

5WIDER IMPACTS, FIGURES & FURTHER ADVENTURES...

CULTURAL IMPACT FROM A STAFF PERSPECTIVE

University Library Services Cultural ImpactOur journey towards cultural change will be on-going if it is to be meaningful. However at the close of our first Quality Model Campaign it is clear that there has been significant impact on our staff culture:

• Quality is now a word that resounds throughout University Library Services

• The benefits we bring, the impact we have and the difference we make are now our key performance drivers

• Our customers’ perception of Quality is becoming our predominant measure of success

• Our service feels more flexible and more able to change to meet

customer need• We are not afraid to experiment, to

give things a try and to learn from our experiences

• Our staff are more comfortable to take ownership for new cross-team functions, for change and to lead ‘self-starting’ service development projects

• Our staff increasingly support each other in skills development and sharing professional best practice

• Meaningless data collection has stopped and staff are becoming used to more ‘needs-led’ performance measurement

• We have established many new channels of communication eg. Facebook, Twitter and our Feedback Database which will enhance our future customer conversations

• Our dialogue has become much more open with our customers – we no-longer feel the need for wholly positive ‘spin’ but can engage in honest conversations about why service developments may or may not be possible

• Staff feel happier to encourage students to feedback openly and honestly eg. Our How Warm is Our Welcome Campaign

• ‘Customer Conversations’ is a phrase that is becoming embedded in our culture as we see the true benefits that nurturing such conversations can bring.

Quality and Marketing Team

One very central and visible impact of our Quality Promise Campaign has been the formation of the ‘Quality and Marketing Team’ at University

Library Services Sunderland. This team replaced the existing Customer Services Team in the Service Restructure that took place in May 2012. In addition the team has also been allocated an extra staff member, making our numbers up to 3. This is a very strong affirmation of and commitment to, the value our Service places on our Quality and Marketing initiatives.


PROFESSIONAL IMPACT

Professional impact of our Quality Promise CampaignThroughout this submission we have made reference to the impact our campaign has had on our customer relationships and service culture. It should also be noted that our Marketing Toolkit, Quality Model and Adventures in Conversation Campaign have also had a noted professional impact.

How Do You Like Your Eggs in the Morning: 7 Step Strategic Marketing ToolkitsSince its inception in 2008 our Toolkit

has been enthusiastically greeted by library services throughout the UK.

We receive many requests for delivery of our workshop and additional requests for advice and guidance on strategic marketing.

To date we have shared our Toolkit with staff from approximately 90 library services and feedback has been 100% positive.

“It lived up to all (and more) of my expectations … it was one of the best I have been too.’ Delegate ARLIS Conference Goldsmiths, London 2012

The Toolkit has been applied to many purposes from service restructuring,

to web page design to planning for the Customer Service Excellence Award.

The Toolkit has also been shared at the following national conferences:

• UCR Conference Exeter 2010• UCR Conference Newcastle 2012• ARLIS Conference London 2012

Quality Promise CampaignOur QualityPromise Campaign is also having professional impact:

• Increasing professional Followers of our Pinterest presence

• Invitations to visit a number of UK libraries to share our experience

Conference Presentations• UCR Conference Newcastle 2012

• International Internet Librarian Conference, Olympia, London. October 2012


FURTHER ADVENTURES IN CONVERSATION...

We are about to launch our Quality Promise Campaign 2012-2013 and we are looking forward to building upon the successes of our 2011-2012 campaign and using what it has taught us.

2012-2013 Central Publicity MaterialsOur central publicity materials have been redesigned for the new academic year. Further developingour Quality Model theme, this year we have also experimented with the medium of ‘infographics.’ See our Pinterest Board ‘All new Library branding 2012-2013’ for examples.

2012-2013 Nurturing Customer Conversations Quality Model Campaign This year’s campaign aims to further

embed our commitment to our Quality Promises at a deeper level throughout the different strands of our service and to align our staff development activities to better support staff in sharing our key messages and objectives:

• The central month by month Quality Model Campaign will be repeated and refreshed for the new year. The benefit of this central campaign is a consistent service-wide approach which maintains momentum and gives all staff a central theme from which to ‘hang’ their own campaigns.

• Subject Liaison staff have created a new timeline of Quality-based conversations enabling us to contextualise and embed our Quality messages at a ‘subject-support’ level.

• Staff with management responsibilities for key customer groups ie. Overseas learners, partner college students etc have

created a timeline of Quality-based conversations enabling us to embed our Quality messages at a ‘customer-type’ level.

• Substantial planning is in place to ensure that our front-line services reflect, support and strengthen these quality messages through day-to-day conversations with our customers.

Staff DevelopmentSocial-Media/Learning Technology development for all subject liaison staffAll liaison staff are encouraged to try ‘one new way’ per term of holding a conversation with customers ie. Through the creation of interactive video, LiveChat surgeries etc and ‘one new way’ of capturing impact. Staff are encouraged to be proactive in developing these new skills and in supporting each other in sharing their skills.

Staff ‘Quality’ planning meetingsAll teams are engaged in proactive ‘quality planning’ meetings with the aim of encouraging front-line teams to develop in advance, the skills required to support customers in our monthly quality campaigns eg. Accessing e-books and promoting the benefits of our services in their conversations.

Staff Development CampaignOur front-line staff development campaign will this year ‘inter-lock’ with our Quality Model Campaign. Staff will support and train each other (with the input of external speakers as required) to prepare for Quality Model Conversations and to provide quality support to our customers eg. Subject Liaison Librarians to deliver training to front-line staff on use of subject resources; IT staff to share the benefits of specialist software etc.


CONCLUSION

Through our Adventures in Conversation: Quality Promise Campaign 2011-2012 we achieved our initial aim of successfully delivering a year-long co-ordinated campaign.

The experience has been an extremely valuable and enriching one for University Library Services, Sunderland.

Our campaign has enriched our customer relationships by:

• Placing our customers firmly at the heart of all that we do.

• Explicitly demonstrating our commitment to service quality and the experience of our customers.

• Nurturing meaningful conversations and a culture of friendliness, openness and honesty.

• Articulating the true benefits of our many services and helping students use them to best effect.

• Developing our customers as true advocates of our service.

• Effectively capturing the impact

of our services on our customers experience and enabling our customers to articulate that impact.

Our campaign has enriched our staff culture by:

• Ensuring our staff place our customers at the heart of all that we do.

• Developing ownership and responsibility.

• Encouraging self-starting innovation and service development.

• Engendering openness and honesty in our customer conversations.

• Enabling us to demonstrate and articulate the impact that we have on our customers experience.

• Supporting self-development, sharing and peer-to-peer skills support.

• Inspiring creativity and imagination.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading our Campaign portfolio and thank you for considering our entry for the 2012 PPRG Marketing Award.


PPRG MARKETING EXCELLENCE AWARD ATTACHMENTS

WebAddressesUniOfSunLib PinterestHigh resolution examples of all campaign artwork. Arranged thematically, month by month on our Pinterest Boards at:http://pinterest.com/UniOfSunLib

UniOfSunLib FacebookLaunched in September 2011. Our Facebook page has been a powerful tool in nurturing our customer conversations and depicts many of our Quality Promise Campaign promotions. Our Facebook page is now being developed as a very flexible and friendly enquiry medium.http://www.facebook.com/UniOfSunLib

Slideshare: Conference Workshop Presentations • ‘How Do You Like Your Eggs in the

Morning?’ A simple 7 step toolkit for creating marketing plans that really work. UCR Conference Newcastle 2012

• Feel the Quality: Placing the quality of your customers’ experience at the heart of your library service. UCR Conference Newcastle 2012

http://www.slideshare.net/UniOfSunLib

Supporting DocumentsGrieves, Kay, ‘University Library Services – Our new Quality Model.’ August 2008 (The initial Quality Model briefing paper shared with University Library Services staff in 2008)

Grieves, Kay ‘How Do You Like Your Eggs in the Morning? A simple 7 step toolkit for creating marketing plans that really work’: Including Toolkit Workbook; Example of Toolkit Workshop and list of Toolkit audiences to date.

Grieves, Kay, ‘How Do You Like Your Eggs?’ CILIP Update , March 2012


TALKING TO US

University Library ServicesUniversity of SunderlandThe Murray LibraryChester RoadSunderlandSR1 3SD

University Library Services Onlinehttp://library.sunderland.ac.uk

University Library Services Facebookhttp://facebook.com/UniOfSunLib

University Library Services Twitterhttp://twitter.com/UniOfSunLib

University Library Services Pinteresthttp://pinterest.com/UniOfSunLib

Kay GrievesQuality and Marketing ManagerUniversity Library ServicesUniversity of Sunderlandemail [email protected] 0191 515 3273

Michelle HalpinQuality and Marketing Co-ordinatorUniversity Library ServicesUniversity of Sunderlandemail [email protected] 0191 515 2417


uos internet librarian 2012

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