6. Remember it's all about the customer.
Your home business is not about the products or services that you sell. Your home business is not about the prices that you charge for your goods and services. Your home business is not about your competition and how to beat them. Your business is all about your customers, or clients, period. After all, your customers are the people that will ultimately decide if your business goes boom or bust. Everything you do in business must be customer focused, including your policies, warranties, payment options, operating hours, presentations, advertising and promotional campaigns and website. In addition, you must know who your customers are inside out and upside down.
*taken from 25 Common Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs on entrepreneur.com http://www.entrepreneur.com/homebasedbiz/article200730.html
The Library is a customer service industry. That is more than a sentence or a statement, it is a philosophy and an approach to operating your library that will influence nearly every aspect of your organization. Let me say (write) it again. The Library IS a customer service industry. Agree or disagree, but ignore the wishes, desires, needs and wants of your customers at risk to you and your library.
Today's library is not about books on the shelves or movies on display. Today's library is not even about how many ebooks you can afford to buy. It is about your customers. Your library policies, rules, collection, staff training, building layout, hours of operation, furniture selections, shelf height, everything is about the people who walk through your front door.
Every policy or rule you make that creates a "barrier to service" (now there's an old term), that makes life harder for your customers will discourage them from coming back. And once they reach the tipping point, and choose to leave, you may have lost them for good. Not good for any business, and possibly suicidal for libraries.
So remember that every decision you make regarding the operation of your library needs to be made in light of what is best, easiest and most convenient for your customer. You are here for them, not the other way around.
