That's What Happens

When we met with the Rochester Ad Council to strategize ways to market our services and our successes, we talked often about customer service. We shared stories about bad experiences we have had, and one of the ladies shared a story about getting coffee at a local place. The coffee was terrible, and when she went back for a refund they gave her a hard time.

We decided to use her story for a skit to demonstrate to our student workers the importance of how every experience our library users have matters. Staff took the major roles - I the uncooperative store manager - and we asked one of our students to place the role of friend of the unsatisfied customer who learns vicariously not to patronize the coffee shop based on the testimony of the person who had the bad experience.

We read through the script that laid out the scenario. It was not exactly Oscar nomination material, but it made the point. A bit pedantic perhaps. Enter the student. He ad libbed in the most unpredictable ways and brought our puny efforts into the limelight of memorability. When the dissatisfied customer spent a long time arguing with the manager, the student became more and more bored, fiddling with stuff, and eventually lying down on the floor and taking a nap.
He was a natural and thought up all sorts of "business" that brought our skit to life.

This is not the first time we have found our work enriched by the contributions of our students. They came up with the idea of a better reserves system that eliminated the 20 minute wait at the desk while we figured out what the person needed, just one idea among many improvements and efficiencies we have implemented over the past three years.

I so appreciate these wonderful young people. It gives me hope that our world in their hands might just be a better place after all. I certainly hope they continue their trend of great contributions when they graduate and enter the work force. Who knows what they might be capable of out there??!!