“Customer experience” (CX) is the buzz phrase of the moment. These days everything must be an experience, from having a cup of coffee to buying a television. It’s as if the idea is somehow new! It’s not.

CX is a process that Softlink Information Centres has always focused on. Just because you chose Liberty, our library management system, or illumin, our knowledge and reference management system, does not mean that is the end of your experience with us!

It is a great outcome of course, but it is just the start of your “customer experience” with us.

What is Customer Experience?

According to webopedia, CX is a phrase “used to describe the relationship a customer has with a business”. There are products in the market that will literally step organizations through the process to deliver a CX focussed service. Seriously, it’s not rocket science!

Depending on the products a business sells, a seamless interaction online without the need for an ongoing, personal relationship is perfectly acceptable.

Competitive pricing, ease of purchase online and efficient delivery means the positive customer experience may result in future business. Having said that, how many products have people purchased online that come with woefully inadequate instructions!

For other products like library software, a simple look, pricing comparison, purchase, and delivery process is nowhere near enough.

What Experience Can Liberty and illumin Customers Expect?

So you’ve implemented Liberty or illumin in your library or knowledge centre. Great choice by the way. The bonus is our relationship doesn’t end once you “go live”.

Softlink recognizes that our customers can face challenges, for example:

• Learning a new system is daunting and stressful – we help through those times.
• Library staff will leave – if our customers are lucky, at least some are replaced. However, new staff means the need for additional training opportunities and resources. We provide them.
• Problems with hardware can present difficulties. We offer an alternative with a fully cloud-based system.
• Timely IT support can prove challenging. We provide an alternative with hosting.
• Managing rapid technological changes can be exhausting. Liberty and illumin minimize fatigue.
• The never-ending threat of funding challenges. We understand and try to work within any constraints where possible.

In a sector that is familiar with rapid change, we know a positive CX with us is the key to maintaining and sustaining our customer relationships. Making our customers’ working days more manageable is our goal.

So what is it Softlink IC does to enhance our customers’ experience? Here are a few examples:

• Ensuring our staff are our products’ specialists.
• Including excellent training before and after “go live”.
• Great free training days and boot camp training opportunities several times a year.
• Including help guides in the software.
• Providing a customer portal with additional guides and training videos.
• Stocking our YouTube channel with training and information videos.
• Providing outstanding customer support via email, phone, and live chat. Our fantastic support team are real people, not chatbots.
• Consulting with customers – via surveys, user group meetings and our customer forum. We are always open to suggestions.
• Regularly enhancing Liberty and illumin so our customers can deliver more value-added services, more efficiently and easily.
• Holding regular customer events.
• Organizing customer visits.
• Offering cloud hosting to remove some of the system administration tasks that can be time-consuming.
• Providing economical, additional storage as resources grow. No need to investigate new servers and all that goes with the installation process.

Whether our customers need any of those offerings or not, simply knowing they are available is reassuring!

Customer experience is a subjective thing. What is common for everyone is the need to be taken seriously; to be acknowledged, helped, listened to, and communicated with. At Softlink IC, we continuously strive to do precisely that. If you would like to more about Liberty or illumin, please contact us. Rest assured, we will get back to you.