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Enquiry Management Systems

Libraries use bespoke or commercial systems to manage library enquiries and acquire in-depth statistics about the enquiry service. A few library management systems (LMS or ILS) include a basic enquiry management module which usually require the enquiry staff to enter the enquiry details. Dedicated enquiry management systems are more sophisticated and include functionality to integrate with web forms and social media and intercept emails sent to a group or dedicated email address for enquiries. Dedicated systems increase the chance of capturing all enquiries no matter how they are submitted.

The benefits of using an enquiry system include:

  • Improved user experience
  • Automated replies
  • Achieving consistency by using reply templates
  • Improved performance - never missing deadlines using alerts
  • Monitoring and managing workloads
  • Increasing team productivity
  • Qualitative statistics for management insights
  • Recording costs
  • Recording time

Some systems, like Enquire from Bailey Solutions, are capable of managing enquiries for more than one team or enquiry desk using roles and permissions models to present enquiry queues to different teams or individuals. Likewise they can be multi-lingual and multi-time zone to manage enquiries across a global enquiry service.

Available solutions

Enquire (From Bailey solutions)
“The enquiry management system gathers statistics about enquiries as they are processed in the system, providing managers valuable insights about the enquiry service:

  • When enquiries are submitted
  • How enquiries are submitted
  • Average processing times
  • How the team meets deadlines
  • Time spend on enquiries

This enables librarians to

  • Justify staffing levels
  • Demonstrate value
  • Learn where train or improvements are needed
  • Enrich the user experience
enquiry_management_systems.1542706722.txt.gz · Last modified: 2018/11/20 04:38 by 82.27.219.91