In preparation for the Information Commons this year, I read Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service.  I thought the book really geared towards businesses focusing on services particularly.  The information was really interesting, although some were somewhat irrelevant to IC workers particularly but one could always apply it to the real world experience.

 

The researches were very interesting and I really enjoyed the quotes at the beginning and the end of every chapter. I thought a lot of them were very powerful and inspirational.  I absolutely love the tip “How you feel about yourself in your job is as important to your self-esteem as the way you feel about yourself as a parent, a spouse, or a friend. No job is important enough to lie for, no paycheck big enough to compensate for feeling bad about your treatment of another human being. Perhaps the best reason to be honest with your customers is that it allows you to be honest with yourself.”  This made me think of my experience working this summer. Some of my co-workers did not particularly enjoy/like the job but when I asked, they said they did.  Although you can figure out what they really feel through the way they are treating their customers.  Honesty within yourself really is the core for success.

 

For the most part the author explained everything in details, which was quite beneficial for the most part (the rest felt as if the details were space fillers).  A lot of information on how to handle different types of people (different generations and personality for example), which I thought was the most beneficial part of this book.

 

Although I don’t necessary agree with everything the book said. As Keegan pointed out earlier that with certain phrase such as “I don’t know” would be an appropriate thing to say if you are sincere and are trying your best to help and guide the customers in the direction that they need to go (ask for help from someone who knows the answer for example.)  The telephone chapter did not apply to Infocommons really since we don’t deal too much with phone but it was beneficial.  Having to work as a commodity merchandiser this past summer at ADM for my internship really helped me see how I can apply these concepts into real life with angry customers over the phone.

 

Reading Kate’s reflection I think that iBrain sounds very interesting as well. Overall I thought this book gave nice information about services on the technical side. Although, personally I would rate the book from last year about social media to be more insightful and intuitive.  This book has many general common sense rules rather than exploring why the people do the things they do and how we can use that to our advantage by understanding how people works. I think the last book give a greater perception of how to handle different situations within the scope of technology and it was more helpful to me.  However, Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service did a good job of reminding you the little things that make a difference for getting and keeping the customers as well.