Overall, respondents found this service to be helpful and appreciated the quick email responses to their queries. Patrons also noted that this was one of the most convenient ways to get a hold of a librarian and to get questions answered. There was only one respondent that had a bad enough experience to rate they were not satisfied with the service and would not use it again. One respondent said that this was a last resort and that they prefer to chat live with a librarian over sending an email.
According to the feedback, this service works well for the library, but there are improvements that can be made. One recommendation is to include a time frame for responses in the away message. Telling people that responses could take up to 24 hours would help alleviate some patrons’ frustrations with not receiving what they deem a timely response. This would also increase satisfaction if responses were sent out before the time limit. It could also be important to advertise librarian hours in the “Chat is Away” box. One respondent suggested that all questions should be answered by the end of library hours, not realizing that librarians are not available the entire time that the library is open. As library hours continue to expand, it is important to let patrons know what hours they can expect service help.
It is also recommended that librarians email the patron when they started working on answering their question to let the patron know that someone has received their query and is answering their question. This could cut down on what patrons see as the “response time” and give librarians a place to ask follow-up questions and include quick links to the patron.
Rebranding what this service is called will also alleviate some confusion as to what "Ask a Librarian" service this survey assesses. Some respondents seemed to be answering the survey for chat interactions with librarians instead of the email service.
For the survey itself, it is recommended to add a question to the end of the survey that states, “How could we improve the Ask-a-Librarian” service?” This question could be used instead of or in addition to Question 12. The addition of this question would give respondents a place to suggest improvements to the service, even if they have had an overall positive experience with the survey.
It is also recommended to move the survey to SurveyGizmo.
