Bridging the gap between service provision and customer expectations

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to serve as a reminder to all managers that they must understand their customers, from the customers' perspective, and not make assumptions about customer needs. Design/methodology/approachCustomer Value Discovery workshops are held with undergraduate on-campus students and academic staff at Nottingham Trent University to identify customer values and irritations. Library staff participate in the workshops and vote as they expected their customers to vote. The gaps identified between staff assumptions of customer perceptions of service importance and performance serve as a catalyst for staff engagement in the change process that is necessary to deliver on the value propositions and reduce customer irritations. FindingsLibrary staff assumptions of customer perceptions were not always accurate. The gaps identified helped to engage staff in the change process that was necessary to improve perceptions of value and to reduce irritations. By explicitly addressing the value propositions with the aims of adding value and reducing irritation, student satisfaction with library services, as measured by two independent satisfaction surveys, improved considerably. Research limitations/implicationsThe research is based on two customer segments of one university library. The research should be repeated after a gap of three-four years to check if the value propositions and irritations have changed in that time. If so, the goals of the library's operational plan would have to change to reflect the new value propositions. Practical implicationsA comparison of the Customer Value Discovery methodology with LibQUAL+™, which is used internationally, and the Rodski Research Group's methodology, used in Australia and New Zealand, is given. Originality/valueThe Customer Value Discovery methodology is most often used in the commercial sector. This paper explores its potential in the not-for-profit sector in the context of a university library service.

Making sense of higher education: students as consumers and the value of the university experience

“…Briggs, 2006;McKnight, 2009). This would provide a basis for identifying detailed improvement opportunities -something that scale-based methodologies cannot achieve because of their inherent parsimony.…”

Reflections on the value and impact of library and information services

“…The important difference between the customer value discovery process and other general library quality/satisfaction surveys such as LibQual+™ is the clear delineation of what users view as the ideal service and the identification of existing practices that are irritants (McKnight, 2009). It seems perverse to discover what matters to users about library service provision through finding out what annoys users, but the customer value discovery process does help library staff to see how they are performing from the perspective of the users.…”

“…The IAM work and customer value discovery (McKnight, 2009) both allow for identification of specific negative impacts (or irritants) as well as positive impacts on practice. Such questions would help to identify whether too much (or too little) information was obtained, or whether the information was occasionally deemed harmful.…”

Key library service dimensions for serving the needs of higher education students in Namibia

“…Client satisfaction data is the key to understanding customer needs and initiating service quality improvements in a library. Therefore, it is a commonly used indicator of library performance (Cullen, 2001;Woodberry, 2006;McKnight, 2009;Paberza, 2010;Tyler and Hastings, 2011;Hossain and Islam, 2012;Balog and Plascal, 2012). With the rapid technological changes and the changing needs of users it is important that library management establish a culture on continuous improvements.…”

“…Measures of satisfaction are not always conclusive. For practical service improvement the degrees of satisfaction with the various elements of satisfaction is more important (Spreng and MacKoy, 1996;Schneider and Bowan, 1999;McKnight and Berrington, 2008;McKnight 2009). These service component groupings were identified above.…”