Customer service sample scenarios

1. You are serving someone in person and the phone rings. What do you do?
Should probably excuse yourself briefly from serving the person you’re already serving, apologise for the interruption and answer the phone and find out briefly what the caller requires. If the caller needs to be dispatched through to another library worker, do so. If you need to deal with them directly, ask them to wait briefly while you deal with the original patron waiting for your services, before returning to the phone call and dealing with it appropriately.

2. You are on the phone and someone comes to the desk. What do you do?
Acknowledge the library patron with a nod or smile, and try to finish the call. If the call is going to take some time, interrupt the caller and place them briefly on hold, before apologising to the library patron and finding out what their business is. It could be something simple and quick that they need that could get done before returning to the call.

3. You approach a customer service desk in a department store and two clerks are talking to one another. How do you feel? What would you like them to do?
Most people like to be acknowledged when they’re in a store and to feel that they’re at the centre of the clerk’s attention. Seeing two clerks talk suggests that they’re not concerned about business. Understandably when there is a brief period of ‘downtime’ general chit chat is expected to occur, but in general for most of the day, this shouldn’t be one of the main priorities someone has. Therefore, clerks should always be aware of what is going on around them, and if they need to have their conversation interrupted to make business, that should be the case.

4. You have tried to help an angry customer, but you feel that you have not completely addressed his or her concerns. What do you do?
Ask them if there is anything else that you can help them with. Ask them if they would be willing to submit feedback – anonymously if necessary – on how they feel that you have performed, or would have liked you to perform. If you feel that you’re not the appropriate person to deal with their concerns, ask them if they would like to talk to your supervisor. If the supervisor is available, introduce them. If they are busy, ask for the customer’s contact details and ask if it’s convenient to be contacted to discuss the situation further.

5. Someone has asked you to “bend the rules” in his/her favour. What is your first response?
No one should have the rules bent to their favour. If one person does, they could either expect the rules to be bent for them in the future, when they would like them to be, or all the time, or even tell other people, and therefore numerous people come to the library expecting rules to be bent in their favour. Therefore it’s necessary to abide to the rules as most as possible, with exceptions in special cases. There can sometimes be unfortunate circumstances that require the rules to be bent, and these circumstances need to be kept an eye on.