Focusing on Support: Using an Existing Shared Customer Service Platform to Provide Technical Instruction to Health Sciences Librarians

Background: Kaiser Permanente Librarians oversee several websites, over 20,000 e-resources, and 25 databases, providing clinicians with easy access to information needed for patient care. These websites and e-resources did not have a shared internal ticketing system where library staff could submit questions regarding technical issues. As a result, library technical administrators received questions in multiple ways: instant message, email and phone. Tracking technical issues was extremely difficult, resolutions were sometimes delayed, and occasionally, questions would be lost. Utilizing an existing shared customer service platform enabled library staff to submit tickets for themselves and for their patrons.

Description: The internal ticketing system was created to communicate technical issues and resolutions to 32 librarians covering 39 hospitals and 690 clinics over the continental US and Hawaii. An inter-regional committee was formed to establish best practices for design, metrics, and information collection. An email address and web-based form were made available for questions and issues noted by staff. Live and asynchronous training was created for staff as well as frequently asked questions (FAQs) and job aids for librarian self-service. The internal system gave administrators the ability to assign the issue to the correct person, track the progress to resolution, as well as allow librarians to consult with one another for support. The system also helped the team identify when new or updated technical documentation was needed. Evaluation included FAQ growth, surveying librarian satisfaction, and deep analysis of usage metrics.

Conclusion: Using an existing customer service platform to deliver technical help to health sciences librarians is an innovative way of addressing the common challenge of providing ongoing support to a library team. Benefits of this system include the provision of just-in-time training, organization and tracking of ongoing issues, easy access to troubleshooting solutions, and robust metrics on the team’s technical support needs. Library technical administrators and health sciences librarians alike will appreciate access to up-to-date technical documentation, asynchronous and multimodal instruction options, as well as the collaborative nature of the platform for both asking and answering questions.