Keywords
library experience; client service; service excellence; client service charter; service culture
Description
UWA’s strategic plan to enhance the student experience underpinned funding for the refurbishment of several UWA libraries in 2016/2017. The benefits of these projects were quickly realised with library visits increasing by 30% in two years. An imperative emerged: how to align a large group of frontline staff with diverse experience and skills to a shared vision, reflective of the university’s strategic priority, and use this as a basis to evolve library services in line with changing client volume and expectations, without additional staffing?
In 2018 UWA Library commenced a project to create a client service charter for all frontline staff, with aim of articulating a unique, high quality and holistic standard for client service in the UWA context. All frontline staff as well as UWA students and stakeholders were invited to participate in the co-creation of the service charter. The crafting process utilised user-centred design strategies and strategic environmental scanning. Embedding the charter more deeply into the culture, as well as the interpersonal and technical practices for frontline staff involved a range of creative techniques, including peer dialogue, personalising and serious play. For the leadership team, new competencies were needed to enable a more modern client service culture to emerge. Research in the disciplines of customer service and emotional labour provided new insights into the client, employee and management perspectives, and empowered a more confident and proactive service culture.
The UWA case study presented in this paper will illustrate the necessary interconnected elements of client service transformation in the academic library context. The paper will also demonstrate the sustained performance improvements at UWA as a result of action on all three elements, the head, the heart and the hand. Finally, it will offer a framework for improving student experience via the co-creation and personalisation of a charter and service culture.
Included in
The Head, the Heart and the Hand: Co-Creating and Personalising a Client Service Charter and Culture at the University of Western Australia
UWA’s strategic plan to enhance the student experience underpinned funding for the refurbishment of several UWA libraries in 2016/2017. The benefits of these projects were quickly realised with library visits increasing by 30% in two years. An imperative emerged: how to align a large group of frontline staff with diverse experience and skills to a shared vision, reflective of the university’s strategic priority, and use this as a basis to evolve library services in line with changing client volume and expectations, without additional staffing?
In 2018 UWA Library commenced a project to create a client service charter for all frontline staff, with aim of articulating a unique, high quality and holistic standard for client service in the UWA context. All frontline staff as well as UWA students and stakeholders were invited to participate in the co-creation of the service charter. The crafting process utilised user-centred design strategies and strategic environmental scanning. Embedding the charter more deeply into the culture, as well as the interpersonal and technical practices for frontline staff involved a range of creative techniques, including peer dialogue, personalising and serious play. For the leadership team, new competencies were needed to enable a more modern client service culture to emerge. Research in the disciplines of customer service and emotional labour provided new insights into the client, employee and management perspectives, and empowered a more confident and proactive service culture.
The UWA case study presented in this paper will illustrate the necessary interconnected elements of client service transformation in the academic library context. The paper will also demonstrate the sustained performance improvements at UWA as a result of action on all three elements, the head, the heart and the hand. Finally, it will offer a framework for improving student experience via the co-creation and personalisation of a charter and service culture.