>>> We do use chat throughout as a way to share questions and comments. So I'm going to post one more time the page where all of this will be archived so that you can all have a look at the slides that are posted there, if you have any trouble viewing your slides today, or any of the links that Maurice and Paul will be referencing are available there. And, again, if you do need to access by telephone, that's available under the little telephone request button. One more time, if you do have any technical difficulties, please chat privately with WJ Support. And if you do end up outside of the room, there is a toll free number for WebEx and you will want to make sure and have that event number handy so that they can help you get back into the room. All right. I note we are at the top of the hour. We will go ahead and get started here. I'm going to give you a quick visual introduction of myself, I'm Jennifer Peterson, and I'm helping to moderate this session today. And I'm joined by Kendra Morgan, Webjunction's program manager, and WJ Support. Those are the faces behind the production team today. We are thrilled to have all of you here as a part of this session with our special guests today, Paul Signorelli and Maurice Coleman. Just a quick introduction. I know they have a lot to share. Paul has more than 20 years of experience in libraries as a writer, trainer, and consultant with a focus on workplace learning and performance. He served as director of volunteer services and staff training for the San Francisco public library system. He is a writer, a trainer, he is involved in the E-learning guild, learning solution magazine as well as American libraries, and working on a book with cowriter and fellow ALA learning round table blogger Lloyd Reed on a book about trainers and you can look for that to come in May of 2011. Welcome Paul. >> Paul: Thank you. >> Jennifer: We're also joined by Maurice Coleman, technical trainer at the Harford County public library in the northeast corner of Maryland. He has had 20 years of training experience helping people use technology in the real world, hardware, software, program training, technology planning, deployment, social media, nonprofit organizational development and fundraising, communication, organization, and presentation skills. We are thrilled to have both of you here today. And I'm going to pass the ball on over to Maurice and he is going to get us started. Thank you all for joining us. >> Maurice: Great. Welcome everybody. And thank you to Jennifer, Kendra and the Webjunction production crew for making Paul and I look good and really if you have ever met us, you know that is really a stretch to actually make us look really good. Today we're here to talk about dealing with difficult customer, or as we like to call it, why am I so angry and what are you going to do about it? Again, presented by myself, Maurice Coleman, and Paul Signorelli, the the writer, Paul Signorelli and Associates. First of all, let's talk a little about empathy. Empathy with the difficult customer. Really we have all been that difficult customer. We have all been on both sides of that issue either as the person whose having the issue or the person who is listening to the person that has an issue. Always remember to have empathy for whatever difficult customer you are dealing with, simply because it really helps you to work through the problem. Put yourself in their shoes. I'm sure everyone has ripped over a package and discovered the item wasn't the right thing, and it just didn't work, but we didn't realize that it couldn't be restocked without a 20% restocking fee, or you get the cable company, it's Sunday, it's Thanksgiving, for example, and your cable goes out. Nothing you've done, all of your connections are working, but, of course, it is Thanksgiving. They have three people on for the entire country. I happen to be a person who has Comcast cable and they tend to do nationwide technical support on holidays. You could be dealing with one person dealing with 5,000 calls and you are the angry customer, I have turkey, mashed potatoes, all I want to be able to see is television with my family. Just remember to have empathy for both sides as that person who has been the angry customer or disappointed customer and the person who is receiving the message, know that really what sometimes you're not feeling really reasonable at that particular moment. Worse yet, sometimes in that moment, you feel that blood -- if you are the person who has been passed through three, four different people, you finally get someone to talk to you and you are feeling that anger, disappointment. Those skills, conflict resolution skills are not at their peak dealing with the person because this person is in your face, agitated, etc., and you are, sited. Having problems, can't stand to think, just remember, you need to, as a person receiving the message from that customer, you need to control your inner demons so that you do not fan the fire. Now, you need to really relax, calm yourself down to know that this person is really -- this person is not mad at you, they're mad at the situation. You happen to be representing in this case the library in this situation. But really, they're not mad at you. You did not do anything to them. You did something to them in quotation marks as a representative of the library or perceived representative of the library. Okay. How do you deal with this? How do you deal with basic conflict resolution techniques? All right. Number one, as I mentioned before, make sure you take the emotion out of it. What you are there to do is you're to work with the person that is having the issue to solve the problem. It is not about you. It isn't personal. You're there to solve the problem. So no matter what anger they're directing at you, you just happen to be there. So, it is not about you. It is not personal. It is anger at the problem. And as soon as you can move the person into a partnership position with you to deal with the problem, the faster you will be able to come to some sort of solution. Your job is to seek a solution. Okay. And really remember it is not you. It's all about the the issue. Okay. And I see that I -- we perhaps have echoing going on. I apologize folks. This is a brand new headset and I'm getting over a cold, I thought the echo was just in my head. I hope that this sounds better. >> Maurice: We're supposed to be dealing with other people that have voices and can -- and echos in their heads today -- >> I hope that sounds better, Jennifer. Tell me if I sound better or if I am continuing to echo. Remember to refuse to be drawn to the heated moment. How to people survive these particular fights? They tend to remain, cool, calm, collected in a hostile situation. If you have observed anyone at all in these situations, the people who you should exemplify, the ones who truly remain -- three C's, calm, cool, collected, when dealing with a stressful situation. If you have a situation, customer has a situation, move it along, all right. They tend to remember truly that it is not personal. It's all business. Okay. Get past the blame being laid at your feet. The blame -- you really should move on from it. You can start by issuing a sincere apology. You really are sorry this situation happened to that person. Okay. That is an immediate, really fire extinguisher. That's all I wanted was an apology. Sometimes that's it, all the person really wants to hear. If it is not something that you personally did, all the better, that you can help to continue to listen to that person, okay. Acknowledge what you are hearing. Really acknowledge that, okay, this -- restate the problem to the person. This is what I hear. I hear that you had X, Y, and Z problem at A, B, C time. We can work together to do this. We can work together to do that. This is what I need from you. This is what I can do for you. Okay. As I mentioned, using your best tools, using active listening skills. And a caveat to that, if you do use those active listening skills, make sure there are some action behind those listening skills. Restate the problem, state an action, and say, yes, this is what I am going to do. This is what I need you to do. This is what we can do together. This is what I can do by a certain date. Make sure that you do not listen without action. Make sure you listen, acknowledge, restate the problem. Acknowledgment is truly what a person wants about their problem. Again, the anger that the person -- resolving the problem may or may not be the issue. What happened to that person before and how they felt they were dealt with by someone beforehand in your library, outside of your library could be the issue. Okay. That acknowledgment is important. Okay. And someone brings up, they don't feel that they should apologize, well, we do not have anything to apologize for. That's true. You need to use your skills. There we go. Thank you, Blake. It is a retail apology. I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm sorry you were treated that way. But I'm sorry you feel that way. This is what I can do to help resolve your problem. Apologizing for the situation. Thank you, Scott, you are apologizing for the situation, acknowledging that situation. And you don't necessarily have to grab someone's hand when you are doing this, but acknowledge that person. We will talk a little about body language. You will notice that when you do acknowledge the problem, if you're face to face with someone, their body language will open up. They're not as angry, not looking to jump over the desk or throw something over, they relax a little bit. What that means is their problem has been acknowledged, and someone -- they have confidence will help them rectify the situation, okay. And then take action. As I mentioned before, listening, acknowledging are all great, wonderful things, but if you do not take some sort of positive action with deadlines and consequences, you will be back to the angry person. And you know what? They deserve to be angry if you didn't do anything, they deserve to be angry. This time they deserve to be angry as you, both you and the situation. Remember to take appropriate action to the situation. Okay. Do what you can do in a timely manner, and communicate with that person the manner you will try to talk to them, contact them them, ask if that is best for you. Be reasonable as much as you can. These are for the reasonable folks as Paul pointed out in chat, these are for really the reasonable folks. Okay. But doing something substantial can really, really help to transform that difficult library user into your best ally, your most vocal ally, okay. And Katherine at some point we will talk about something that you can't do anything about. Again, acknowledging the problem and saying this is what I can do. Not this is -- this is what I can do. This is what we can do. You are working with the person to try to get the best possible solution. Libraries truly as we -- we're truly a service industry. We have customer expectations, etc., but I like to say we need to be -- have something for everyone. Not all things to all people. We cannot solve every problem. We can try to get the best solution for you. Very different philosophies. We can get the best solution for you. We can't solve every single problem. We can solve many, but we can't solve every single problem. Okay. I hope that makes sense to everybody. That was our first part. That was the easy stuff. Putting yourselves in the shoes of the person you are facing, really using empathy as opposed to mirroring the anger, trying to diffuse the anger so that you can truly handle the situation. You are trying to depersonalize it. If you can take something away, when you are dealing with a stressful situation with a customer, internal, external, customer, patron, however you want to call it, remember, you are trying to work for the best solution for both you and that person. Depersonalize it. It isn't about you. It is about the situation. Be angry at the situation. The person is angry at the thing, not at you. And remember, take that high road. Remember to take the high road, and you will be in such a better position to solve the problem with a partner, as opposed to an adversary. We looked at all of these different resources, our abilities to listen at a meaningful level. Now I will turn this back over to Mr. Paul Signorelli to talk a little about some ways of overcoming difficulties, and reading body language. >> Paul: Let's take a minute before we jump any further. Great stuff going on in chat. Maurice and I both want to encourage you to jump in with the simple situations that you can deal with up front. We will come back to the hard ones in the final third one of this. The stories of some of the things you have faced and what you have done to resolve them and get these issues on the table. Somebody observed again that they're not too much in favor of apologizing unless they have personally done something wrong. Granted, yes, none of us wants to grovel or do something that we feel is demeaning, and that will come across through our body language. As other people have noted in chat, as we are trying to make a point here, if you can hold yourself out of feeling like it was personally directed at you, no matter how personal it feels, somebody talking about the lack of hair on your head, the way you talk, way you look, clothes you're wearing, remember, as Maurice said, some of this is just people unhappy over other things and you happen to be the unfortunate one there. Hey, it is not me, even though it feels like me, if we can do something to feel them into our side rather than a us versus them thing you stand a chance of diffusing this before it gets really ugly. We will talk about the ugly things. Not to say oh, yeah, everything is solvable. If you want to jump in with chat about something that you faced or something that you did was effective. Were you able to get somebody to a manager that was responsive? Were you able to make a connection other people hadn't made? Were you able to see beyond some of the stereotypes that you may have had based on what your colleagues are telling you. Oh, here comes that person again and you saw the person as an opportunity rather than a challenge. >> A woman who yelled at her for a communication error. You couldn't get in a word, yelled at you and walked out. Alicia, did that person ever come back to your library, service desk and how were they the next time they came in? It is very possible that they had a bad day, yelled at you, got it out of their system and it is done. That is where not taking it personally comes in. Do not take it to heart. It is not always about you. That person needed to vent. >> Paul: Also if you are in a situation where they were trying to help somebody with software, there is absolutely nothing wrong with saying, yeah, I have that problem, too, let's see what we can do to solve it. If you are in a large institution, great I.T. department, some of those people may be willing to come down the stairs and resolve it. Think of the statement that makes to people. You are responding, you are helping rather than saying it is you are all wrong. It is the you are all wrong thing that we fall into and get annoyed and helps to escalate. >> Maurice: Customers -- you say within our group and guidelines as an organization, library, etc., this is what we can do for you. This is what I can offer you, offer choices to people. >> Paul: Diane just said that she has an action that is apparently unacceptable to some patrons, my first reaction, I would never say to someone, that is too bad that you don't understand actions because it is part of the beauty of our language. Acknowledging to yourself, you know the action is perfectly okay. That is not something that you will change. If you have the strength to say, yeah, that is part of me, and turn it around and say I'm sorry that you are having trouble. Let me see what I can do better. Something that helps diffuse that and you walk away feeling okay and maybe you helped to educate someone. That is the trainer in all of us. >> Maurice: And what if it is personal? That is when you start to lean on your fellow staff members. You can simply excuse yourself from the situation, Mr. Jones, Mrs. Jones, I think you best be served by another member of our staff and in our case, call your supervisor. That is what your supervisor is paid for to handle these people. You can pass them on to another staff member who can better assist them. >> Paul: Blake said something about calling I.T. in front of a person -- don't always believe them when they say they have something that is not going to work. Difficult people are not always people outside of the organization. Sometimes they are colleague. Pat Wagner out of Denver says, sometimes we have to understand who the the toxic people are inside and recognize that awful moment when we become toxic, but you can vow to that. Call even if you know it is not going to be a moment that gets you help. If you make enough of those calls, and as you talk at a nonemotional level within your institution, you have a chance of step by step trying to make a change. When we throw in the towel, we give up all hope. >> Maurice: April talks about a customer who is a repeat difficult customer. Maybe that is a situation sometimes that you need to get -- we will talk about this a little later, social services involved, other community agencies involved. It may not just be you and your organization. This person is always like this, this may be the tip of the iceberg of a much larger, deeper issue. >> Paul: Bobby makes the same point in chat when she says sometimes patrons affix their frustration on you, and when you pass them on to another person, it might help solve the problem because it is just a different voice, that really helps. >> Maurice: Yeah, it really does. >> Paul: So if we are going to stay on schedule, we should move into the next part of this. Let's keep the chat comments coming. Maurice and I with the help of our wonderful producers will do our best to come back to some of those. >> Maurice: Thank you all very much. 411 people, it is a very nice, lively chat. >> Paul: Yes, moving on to resources here. Dive a little deeper into the challenges of resolving conflict, it helps just a little bit before we jump into the worst of them to lay additional ground work. Part of what we need to recognize when trying to deal with a difficult situation that it is all about change management or change facilitation. Maybe the only difference is the terminology. Management sounds like I'm trying to make somebody else do something, suggests that I am part of the process of helping other people to find the solution and I think that helps a lot. The book you see on the right there, Chip and Dan Heath's new book, "Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard" gets to the heart of it. The gist of the book is we can only do so much by trying to resolve problems -- sometimes it just goes nutty and emotional. Change occurs when we attain to emotions in easy -- they are firm believers in seeking small changes that are easy to grasp and implement. It is the small moments that make the difference. We will not try to scale mount Fuji -- Sandra Smith, a book that she loves, "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High," what she found to be extremely helpful it offers guidance as it explores situations when we back wrapped up in the motions that drive us nutty. The writers, they lead us through a series of chapters and topics including the idea that we need to start from the heart. Let's not forget there is a human inside all of us and probably a human inside the most difficult of the people looking at. We need to learn to look, find ways to make the conversation safe and also we have to use persuasive skills, skills that we have developed from all of the great customer service that we give rather than taking the abrasiveness and blowing up and turning conversations into things that are not so good, we want to go for NIS results. Another tool we can all draw from is the whole concept of body language, and spotting what a person's unspoken says to us as well as the words they're saying. Joe Navarro, an ex-FBI agent, wonderful book, he talks about our stance, our gestures. We look at our facial expressions and much more, incorporates a series of wonderful black and white photographs into the book that makes us think what does that stance tell us. Conversely, what does our stance, body language, raised brow, anything else that we have -- what does that say to the person we're trying to work with. If we say too much that is negative, we are contributing to it without thinking about it. Navarro uses black and white shots. We went to creative common stuff so we could do this without getting up against copyright things. We will look at body language and start at a broad level and hone in on it. Let's look through the chat, look at the image, what would you think this suggest to you, that personal image that pops up to you. What does the body language and facial expression tell you about the feeling when that picture was taken. Don't we wish that was all of our patrons. >> Maurice: One person said relaxed, another angered. Interested. Relaxed, engaged. Watching something, inquisitive. Relaxed. Common thread, majority of threads, relaxed, engaged, open, receptive to something. >> Paul: We're not going to have the opportunity to put a pillow and couch behind our reference desk, wouldn't that be a nice model of what Maurice just looked at and what all of you are talking about, most of us are seeing a relaxed posture. If we are aware of the posture that we have and can do things that show us to be a little bit more relaxed without being slovenly about it, a different image here. What is your immediate reaction if you see that person coming to the desk? We are getting definitely angry, scared, stressed. I think I saw the word wow pop through there. Mental, maybe that's going on here. Evil -- any coincidence that we saw evil and teenager back to back? I hope that isn't a statement of how some of us are looking at some of the wonderful teens coming into the building. Help, rebellious -- >> Maurice: I'm glad someone put up GOTH, because this is the GOTH look, it has nothing to do with how they are, but this person may or may not be intense, but they may be -- they may or may not be a danger. You just never know. >> Paul: Takes you back to a wonderful colleague at San Francisco public, she came in to work every day. She was tall, muscular, and she had streamers in her hair every day. First reaction from a lot of people was run for the hills. She was one the the warmest, best customer-oriented people in that whole institution, and as much as this particular person may set us on edge, it could be by the time the person DPETS gets to the desk, that was a fleeting look -- as much as we want to see the warning signs coming, we want to think what is behind that and how to turn that to our advantage when it comes. Thank you, Maurice. Another one, now we see this person. What are we perceiving that that look if that person is sitting at a table in our library? Lots of bored, depressed, tired, annoyed. Day dreaming. Day dreaming was what I first saw. Interesting how all of us are getting different looks here. >> Maurice: I think actually this person is reading a computer screen. Because this is what I know I look like reading a computer screen. >> Paul: I wish I looked like that when I was reading a computer screen. >> Maurice: I'm engaged in the information in front of me. My face is blank and engaged in the information. >> Paul: I'm not seeing anybody in chat say that they feel threatened by this. What would your perception of him be if that look was focused straight on you while at a service desk, rather than that person looking outside of a window or away from you? Okay. There we go. Creepy, creeped out, stalker. Calling the cops. Uncomfortable. It is an interesting how there is no absolute on the body language stuff. Part of it is what we see, part of it is where the person is and how they're interacting with us if at all. One more on this slide before we start to hone in a little on more focused things. Teenager, young adults on the extreme left, lower corner, cell phone, cigarette, what is the stance, the whole feeling that we get from that person? Not attentive. Social teenager. Multi- Multitasker. Oblivious. Annoying, busy -- distracted, self-confident. Self-absorbed, comfortable in her own world. Lunch break. Let's go to lunch and we will be right back. Relaxed. No smoking in the library, thank God she is outside of our building and 20 feet away from our doors. Just waiting for a bus. >> Look at all of these different responses to each of these different things. Keep that in mind when you are dealing with someone across the desk from you or across the -- across from you. They have such a wide range. You may think oh, wow, I have this great poker face. They may be looking at you and saying wow, you're really mad about something. What's wrong? >> Paul: And if your feelings -- if you are feeling bad vibes, it is not a bad idea to turn to a colleague and say that one is causing me to feel this way. What is your take on it? If the other person is comfortable with what they're perceiving there, step back a little bit, if you have that luxury. Some of you are sitting in libraries where it may just be you at the desk and there may not be anybody else nearby. You may have to deal with it at one level or another. You are never totally alone. If you have help there, take advantage of the feelings you are getting, situations that have helped you to deal with these experiences and jump into them. Let's focus on details. A person that we are looking at. Focus first on the eyes, down to the hands, a little at the mouth and the body language. What are those details suggesting to you? Possessed -- exorcist kind of thing. Closed. Yoga -- >> Maurice: Straight jacket. >> Paul: That is a nice one. Don't we all feel that ways sometimes. Protect themselves, not open, angry. Somebody that is looking for the best of a situation where you are not sure if she is nervous, if she is attentive, if there is something holding her back. Dramatic, intensive. Leave me alone. Absolutely, cross your arms, cross yourself like that. One step forward, one step away from saying please back off. I don't want you in my space. Let's focus in on the position of the lovely feet on that stone pavement. Is there anything that we get there? Perfect. We have relaxed. One person thought weird. Gentle, fun, relaxed, casual, proper, content. Nice shoes, yeah, nice shoes. Maurice anything you want to jump in on on that one? >> Maurice: Someone who likes to wear, you know, OB VISous -- obviously confident. They look like dance shoes. >> We see somebody come up. If we start to look at different things, you just notice those little things. Somebody else says you can't tell too much by feet. Sometimes the stance is wonderfully revealing. That thing we're seeing here, looks relaxed as opposed to somebody whose feet are three, four feet apart, planted strongly, and you have the sense in that case these feet telling you what you see in the rest of the body language, trouble ahead. What about the eyeball? Scared, fear, surprise, alarm, apprehensive. We see that person coming to our desk, shields up, captain, we better be watching to see if we can identify what the cause of the fear was and if it is possible for us to deal with that, stay calm and see if we can take the person's fear down a little bit. I love the OMG. Absolutely. Oh my God, what are we looking at here. The crossed legs, this one here, the position of the arm, the way the back and headresting against the wall, very, very relaxed. Maybe too relaxed for our comfort. Amazing what we can see when we strip things down to the natural level, and -- of course, if I saw that one in my workplace, I probably would be scared and I would not invite the person over for coffee. That might be too much information watching the coffee go down. Granted, that one is a bit silly, but in humor we can make a point but statement we can find useful tools to help us resolve situations we are talking about today. Even with the skin and organs, posture is extremely suggestive and that is part of what we want to keep in mind as we continue to think about what we notice consciously or unconsciously when we are dealing with people that are sometimes difficult to respond to. Our diving in exercise, where we think about what we have just seen, the things we can do, perceptions that we have and how the perceptions change from situation to situation. Observations you want to make wheel we -- while we follow the chat comments. >> Maurice: It is amazing the sort of wide range of what people think one static image conveys. It is such a -- a -- it is really -- it's amazing how the exact same image every single person sees slightly differently. >> Paul: Somebody said the person had to wait too long, person didn't pay their fines and they were sitting there, talking about the skeleton figure. We need to make sure that -- all of that stuff that Paul talked about, body language, 75 to 80% of communication is actually via body language. >> Paul: It is a huge amount. Much of what we perceive is the body language. >> Maurice: You can apply this to your body image at the desk. How are you perceived by people? I am not a small person, but I have an open air -- I try not to be threatening at my job. My job is to talk to people. I have a very open manor about myself. I also was a bouncer at one point and I was able to reduce that open manner to be sure if I told you to get out of said night club that you would get out of said night club. >> Paul: Great point here, amazed at how many people don't simply smile. A lot of us have probably read surveys, if you smile at an unsmiling person, humanity, rationaleity there, they will be forced to smile. The more you get somebody to smile, the for they start to feel good. You can somehow almost accomplish the impossible by keeping the smile there, you stand a chance of winning them over in spite of how they're feeling. >> When someone approaches your desk, whether you are at circulation, reference, or some sort of special service desk, while you are walking from point A to point B, open, smile, have that open body language language. That diffuses a lot of situations. Out of your peripheral vision, that body language that they're able to explode, you being open and welcoming, sometimes that diffuses the situation immediately so that you can get to solving the problem and not hearing the venting. >> Paul: At her branch, everyone smiles and says good morning. I want to go to that branch. Send me your address and I will be there right away. I need the smiles. >> Maurice: Conflict management is a form of change manager, Chang facilitation. We would like to hear briefly, because we have 400 plus people here, what aspect of body language makes you feel comfortable when someone approaches you or how you sound on the phone. Folks who have worked on the phones know that some places put mirrors up because people can hear you smile on the phone. And that is true. You can hear someone smile on the phone. So, what makes you feel comfortable. A lot of people walk an easy gait -- >> Paul: I'm here in San Francisco in my own place, talking to 300, 400 people here, first thing I did when I got ready for this, I dressed up. A lot of people claim they go in their P.J.s and do that, but the simple act of dressing up, wearing a neck tie while I sit here by myself, it makes me feel more professional, I'm taking my audience seriously, and I know that changes the way I present myself. If I'm doing that in a tiny room, think of the impact we do out in public and everybody's eyes on us. >> Maurice: Expectation of the customer, about how you dress at work. Some can feel more relaxed -- it depends on the library, particular library system, those standards that you all have. Let's move on. Thank you all again for your conversation and talk in chat. Let's talk a little bit about the difficult customers. Remember what Paul just went through, the exercise of the assumptions, do not assume that this person is nutsy cuckoo. Assume nothing about the person. Everyone should be equal in your eyes as you approach them and as you talk to them. When you talk to them, it is very possible that they have some issues that you cannot solve at the library. Remember something that everyone, not all things for all people. And he may be your next benefactor. Do not assume by someone's look, whether it is dishevelled, full long beard, you know, the -- ability, how they look, etc., let nothing as much as possible cloud the way you deal with someone. Okay. A lot of times you will be pleasantly surprised. Okay. Take your customers at face value, not the value of their face. Remember you're probably -- there are some folks, I dealt with with libraries before, they are the only person in the library. For the most part, you usually have a colleague with you in the building. Okay. If you are -- if you are the colleague of someone else and you see someone and you can read your colleague's body language, you can walk in the general area and ask if they need any assistance, etc., just to be a presence. Okay. If you have security, if you have some sort of security and you may or may not need assistance, call your security guard over, or have a colleague call that person over. All right. Really and truly, you should not feel that you're alone. Also, when you are dealing with problem in stress -- stressful situations, remember to use your library rules when dealing with these situations. I'm sure every library has some sort of code of conduct, expectations of customers, okay. >> Paul: At this point, as you talk about policies, we have a strong chat going on where people are asking about what do you do with the person coming up to the desk smelling? Do you want to tackle that right now? >> Maurice: I mean, it -- the fact that someone -- someone may not know that they do. They may have just come from the gym. Homeless folks, you may want to -- this is part of the -- this really you're not alone thing. Partnering with people outside of the library system. Whether it's some social service agency for your city, town, county, etc., area, partnering with another group or a nonprofit who bring in the folks who have expertise, identifying people's issues. Paul mentioned yesterday -- we talked about this in our rehearsal that San Francisco public used to hand out shower cards as appropriate to customers. Go to the mission and get a shower. You know. Expertise about it, so that you don't make an inaccurate assumption about someone, and further escalate the situation. >> Paul: Denver public again, Sandra Smith, I was visiting there at an ALA conference a couple of years ago, talking about security in the building, and almost nobody felt threatening like you see in a lot of large urban library systems. The security guard, I asked them about it, their feeling was there are no difficult customers. There are people that are troubled by troubled situations or troubled by their own situations. If somebody smells bad or doing something else. They pull them aside. We want you here. Here is how your behavior is going to have to change. Can we get a contract with you that you will do that? Hand out the contracts, people sign them, and it cut down on the problems. Nobody saw them as problem people. They saw them as people that needed guidance to bring them back into accord with what was going in the library and its standards. A sweet way to handle it. >> Maurice: You're absolutely right, Paul. What did that particular person do? They used the library's rules and structures and applied them. They didn't say you are the problem. They worked on the problem is X, Y, Z, here is the conduct of our library. Here is what we expect of you as a customer. As long as you read those expectations expectations, feel free to come in. I hope that answer solves that question. And it is semantics. It really is an issue of semantics. Remember, you are not alone. You do have other staff members. There are a few people that work in the solo library by themselves all of the time, but for the most part, you do have other staff members, rules, guidelines, etc. And, yes, it is okay to sometimes call the police if you feel threatened. >> A question, asking for a repeat of the contract. Denver public library security guards have what they call contracts with people that are having problems in the building. They sit them down and explain how the behavior or the situation violates their standards and they try to help them through that, doing a written contract that says I will return to the library when I'm ready to do this. It takes them out of being labeled problem people and takes them into let's get you into the same situation we're doing. For those who don't have security guards, understand completely, maybe you as part of a staff can develop the same sort of thing in a nonthreatening way. >> Maurice: Right. That is using the organizational guidelines. It's cold. It's not personal. They are using a structure, conflict mediation structure to deal with that. And really make sure that you have a relationship with the police. That is always a good thing. Make sure that your library has a good relationship with the police, sheriff, or a place that has both, a good relationship with law enforcement in your area. Have them stop by. Another workshop for small libraries, they made sure that their local police can always use the phone, and the library they can make copies, do reports, sit down some place and write up their stuff, and that brought the police into the library as a presence. Not as a threatening at the moment dealing with the situation presence, but they're always there, and they're part of the community and just happen to be there. Created a sense of calm and security for the library staff. Remember you're not talking to me. Do not -- if somebody becomes irrational irrational, remember, it is not your job to figure out what is causing the delusions. You need to put them in touch with some sort of social service professional or campus security. A lot of people academics have campus security available. You are there to serve, they are the guest, and they have to conduct themselves properly. Nothing is DPANed -- is gained by someone who has an issue. If someone continues to argue with you, remove yourself from the situation. Bring someone else in to diffuse the situation. If you argue with someone, nothing is going to get accomplished. Okay. And remember to keep a safe distance or -- keep something between you and the person you are escalating. A table, something, something physically between you, keep your distance. Sometimes you never quite know when that person is going to snap. Okay. And think defensively, think about these as you approach anyone at your library. Remember, staying calm is very critical. You do have time, usually every library, no matter what type, has some type of back room, you can go in the back and let loose. Okay. We can't let this problem escalate. Remember, it is not about you. It's not personal. And, Paul, do you want to talk briefly about this thing, large urban library system about the library using a staff member? >> Paul: Absolutely. It is down in the atrium at the library where there was a staff member and patron on the other side of the desk. None of us caught on to what started the altercation. But words started to be exchanged, security was called, but what really made that a terribly inflammatory situation was somebody else who didn't know what was going on came in in the middle of it and started trying to gather people around saying, oh, look, police brutality. This poor person is being treated badly. And that could have gone south if we did not have a sensitive security guard that took it down many steps and a top administrator in the facility was alerted that there was a problem. Between the two of them, they isolated the person trying to inflame things, the person in the original confrontation calmed down a bit and -- that situation could have gone really bad if everybody stayed at an emotional level and not calming down and identifying where the real problem was at the moment. >> Maurice: Let's talk a little about -- briefly, in the few minutes that we have left, about the service recovery. This is a library of Congress. Really nice and quiet, expectations of behavior. Not every library is like this. And we do have people who are too burnt out after having lots and lots of conflict. What we can do is go in the place and learn from all of these previous instances who build into similar -- I'm sure that contract did not come out of someone's head. They probably had a few situations, how do we best solve this and resolve this positively? Okay. Really work to establish those as part of your library guidelines and policies of customer and employee behavior. Do what you can do. Make sure that you try to prevent these situations as much as possible, diffuse them when they happen, and make sure that they don't happen again. There is a lot of room for fun and games, noise, wild behavior in libraries. But folks should have an expectation of acting a certain way in a library. We are a public place, serve the public, and the public should act properly, etc. Remember to be as empathetic to a folk's situation as possible. Treat every customer with the utmost respect. And depersonalize those sticky situations. Really depersonalize them. Again, it is not about you. It's about solving the problem for the customer. If you can't do that, that's okay. You can bring in a colleague. Bring in someone else to help you or to pass that person off to, similar to a reference interview, pass that person off to get them to the place they need to get to. We can go over the resources that Paul talked about, we both talked about. "Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard," Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High," and "Dealing With Difficult People in the Library." All of these things can be found on the absolutely wonderful page that Jennifer and the producers here at Webjunction have put together that will also contain the archive of this session, and we're going to do our best to open up to a couple of questions at this point in the workshop. Briefly I saw something fly by about a small library, again, as I mentioned, try to bring local law enforcement in there. Sometimes those folks are far away from whatever the branch may be, bring them in and say, hey, feel free to use our phones. We will even, you know, knock over a desk here for you. You can sit there, relax, write your reports, etc., so that you don't have to go all of the way back to your headquarters 50 miles away. Bring them in as part of your group. I'm sorry, you have 911, that may be an issue of your library working with whomever your local law enforcement may be. Maybe be an issue that your board may want to take on having a private security firm come in if you can afford it, etc. A man asks, can you address handling difficult customers over the phone? Yes, a lot of the tips are not just for face-to-face interactions, but for phone interactions, too. Sometimes someone really just does need to vent on the phone, in person, etc. And sometimes if someone wants to say -- asks on the phone, say can I put you on hold for a minute please? I need to go help another customer. I will get back to you as soon as I can. I am the only person here, I need to deal with another customer. I will have to put you on hold. >> Paul: There was a question that just flew by what about the person that you can never say anything to and satisfy them? Colleagues suggest that you try two, three times to find a solution, and if you can't, you have to understand that maybe there is something going on beyond your ability. If you are lucky enough to have another colleague, maybe they can get involved. I would love to help you, but this is all of the time I have today to do this. I have five other people waiting. Is there something else I can help you get to beyond what we're talking about? See if you can diffuse it that way. But getting them off whatever they're on may have some positive impact for you. >> Maurice: Troubled patrons -- the best you can do is say we are -- as a library system, as a library system we're working to do X, Y, and Z with you. It is possible that someone, that that person, that patron dealt with, maybe they did really not do a really good job, but you don't throw your fellow coworkers under a bus in front of a customer. That is something that you deal with through whatever employee communication system that you have. Make sure that you deal with it that way. If they did something wrong. Otherwise say I'm sorry, again, I'm sorry you felt that way. I'm sorry that happened to you. I'm sorry you felt that way. This is what I can do for you. You bring them back to the situation, bring them back to the present, and what you can do for them without acknowledging that person, that issue, this person, blah, blah, blah, blah, you are working to solve the problem and keep it as professional as possible. >> Jennifer: I'm going to jump in here and thank you guys so much for all that you are presenting. I know that we have a little more time, and I wanted to address a couple of the things that I saw come through. One is that all of this conversation can continue. I actually really liked the question early on about giving out your name when a patron asks, and if there are policies around that, which brings up the issue of policies. I know that policies constantly need to be revised depending on the changing services and needs of our community. I did post a number of policy links that are already on Webjunction, but we look to you all to continue to bring reference to those policies to the rest of you because some of you really do have some great tactics and strategies, leveraging policies, partnerships, both with other staff in having maybe emergency words that you use. I remember myself backing out of a situation and then coming to a colleague and saying I need to take a phone call. Can you help this patron, than was our queue that, okay, I can't handle this person. I need someone else to jump in. Obviously it is a lot about communicating internally, building those relationships perhaps with your security guards and with your police. I think you need to go to the police and articulate, if we contact you, this is the reality of the situation. Give them those scenarios. Obviously there is a lot of communication that needs to go within the organization with those that you work with and with with the patrons. They need to understand that these are all of the folks that you are serving and you need to be able to address those needs and in a common environment. I love the conversations about how to deal with folks on phone conversations. I will mention that David Lee king has recorded a video about how to deal with folks in online situations. Obviously we're dealing with difficult patrons in online environments. There are a number of different ways that we're tackling this. We need to continue to share those and those of you that said this should be offered again, I will let you know that we are going to be doing a two-day online conference in December, December 1st and 2nd. I will jump quickly focused on serving the 21st century patron. We will address lots of issues about customer service and change needs of our communities. There are lots of additional resources that we can continue to surface with each other on Webjunction. I will follow up with all of you to share the link to the archives page, the link to that discussion, where we can continue to support each other in our work. Again, thank you so much to Paul and Maurice. Your contribution here was excellent. And obviously did a great job of bringing that discussion alive in chat. We will post chat as well as part of the archives. Thank you to both of you. >> Maurice: Thank you. Encourage people when chat is posted, there were a lot of questions flying by. If you have resources or answers to certain questions, I saw one about the person with hundreds of pennies coming into the branch and saying show me your policy about accepting hundreds of pennies. I have my own answer to that, but I will let someone else give a more diplomatic answer to that question. >> Jennifer: Excellent. Thank you Paul as well. >> Paul: Thank you. Wonderful being here. >> Jennifer: All right. >> Maurice: Again, the conversation continues on Webjunction Webjunction. >> Jennifer: Thank you all and have an excellent day. Thank you to Anne, our captioner. I know that these guys are fast talkers, so thanks for all of your great work. And everyone -- >> Paul: And we were going slow today. >> Maurice: This was slow, Jennifer. You should hear us on a podcast. >> Jennifer: Thank you everyone. We will follow up. >> Maurice: Thank you very much. Thank you for coming and proving we have value. This is a great workshop.