Customer Feedback - April 07-March 08

We welcome your feedback on the services we provide. Your compliments tell us when things are going well but your complaints and comments when the service does not meet the standard you expect help us to focus on where we need to improve.

 

Over the year you paid us nearly 9,500 compliments – thank you and made just over 3,000 complaints or commented on aspects of the service you were not happy about. Here is an overview of these and our response:

 

We take these very seriously as a high standard of courtesy and helpfulness is expected of all staff at all times. All such complaints will have been investigated by a Manager and addressed appropriately.

 

We acknowledge that libraries should be open more. Some minor increases can be achieved by changes to work patterns but significant improvements would require more staffing resources. This is one area which local communities will be able to influence with increased local decision making.

 

We recognise that physical access to some libraries is not of an acceptable standard. We are addressing the two buildings where it is particularly poor. A new library at Broomhill is planned on a new site and will be fully accessible. Plans are in hand to improve access into and within the Central Library by means of a new lift.

 

We appreciate the frustration and inconvenience of not being able to telephone your library. The number of occasions when telephones have not been working was unacceptable but this has improved. Faults are closely monitored and we assertively require the service provider to maintain service and correct faults promptly.

 

Unfortunately we do need to raise some income to help meet the costs of your library service but we try to keep them as low as possible. If fines or charges are incorrectly made we will apologise and correct the error. Some customers are exempt from some charges – please ask staff for details. This year we reduced the borrowing cost of CDs and two years ago we abolished the charge for reserving books.

 

It is always regrettable if the behaviour of a customer spoils another customer’s enjoyment of the service. We will not tolerate unacceptable behaviour but libraries are open to everyone and at times patience is required. We encourage families and children to visit libraries so at times the library may not be the very quiet place it once was.

 

We realise that your time is precious and always try to serve you promptly. However libraries can be busy places at times and even when all available staff are on public duty a queue can develop. We aim to give everyone the best possible service and the full attention they need to ensure their visit is successful and enjoyable. We also aim to use staff time as efficiently as possible and one result is the radical redesign of counters in the Central Lending Library.

 

The majority of enquiries are responded to immediately or within what we hope are acceptable timescales which we will explain to you. On occasions when we fail we will apologise and explain and investigate why to see where we can improve.

 

We aim to supply over 70% of requested books within 7 days and during the year we exceeded this target. The time taken to supply books on inter-library loan dropped by 2 days for the third year in succession. We recognise that a delay in receiving your book is at the least frustrating and can seriously delay your ability to track information or complete a work or study assignment. We monitor supply times closely and explore the reasons for poor performance to see where processes need to be improved.

 

We appreciate that you want a wide choice of books. We have acted on the findings of the stock survey and we are circulating stock between libraries.

 

We take training seriously so that staff are equipped to deliver the best possible service. We recognise that in emergencies, and to keep services open, staff may be working in libraries with which they are not familiar or recently appointed staff may be working more independently than is usual.

 

Occasionally newspapers may arrive late and we do raise this with the supplier. We are aware that some dissatisfaction has been caused when, for example, free community papers are not delivered to the Library. We have little control over this but do make the organisations aware that customers are missing the publication.

 

We recognise that several library buildings are unattractive. We have a rolling programme of refurbishments to make libraries more attractive and modern inside, and your feedback on internal refurbishments has been very positive. We are actively exploring rebuilds for some of the least externally attractive buildings.

 

Any instances of the system being slow are reported to Systems Support. We acknowledge that the People’s Network needs to be upgraded and modernised. The City Council is in the process of finalising a new contract for its ICT services. Part of this contract includes a ‘refresh’ of the People’s Network technology and will include facilities such as access to USB memory sticks.

 

We recognise that many people want to donate unwanted books to the library service. However, at present our priority is to get books which we purchase on the shelves of your library ready to borrow as quickly as possible so we have decided not to accept donations except for a specific range of romances.