Foley Library User Services Training Guide

 

Standards of Behavior and Communication During a Chat

from Nicole Gustavsen's "Virtual Reference Service Standards" document.

Communicate in a friendly but professional tone, and use complete sentences and appropriate capitalization and punctuation. Abbreviations and acronyms are discouraged. Avoid emojis.

Remember that the user’s experience is of a small box on the screen, where the operator they’re talking to is called only “Librarian” and there are no images or sounds. Chat is very impersonal. Do what you can to provide a personal, human experience, and to work around the limits of the chat box design.

Try to limit each response to no more than 1-2 sentences. If you feel you need to communicate more information than that at once, break it into a few smaller messages. This makes your messages easier to read.

Always send URLs in their own, separate message. This helps them stand out.

Avoid using gendered language (sir/ma’am, “he said,” “she needs”) unless a a user explicitly identifies their pronouns to you, both when talking directly to a user, and when talking about the user to a third party such as a supervisor or system administrator.

Try to keep the user updated on what you’re doing. If you need to step away to address something that’s happening outside of chat, say “I need to step away for a moment; I’ll be back soon.”  

Always close the loop on the chat, if possible. Make sure to ask if there are any other questions, and thank the user for using chat services. 

 

Chat etiquette

If you have ever used an online chat service before, then you know that it can sometimes feel like a cold and impersonal way to interact with someone. Remember to keep that in mind when you are staffing the chat. We want to be welcoming in inclusive (even in our online spaces), so try to sound warm and welcoming in your replies.

Additionally, the user’s interface is a tiny chat box, so keep your replies brief rather than writing long paragraphs. Here is what it looks like on the user end:

 

Sample Scripts

Here are some examples of messages you may want to send to the patron when you are chatting with them. You may find it helpful to keep this page open while you are staffing the chat so you can copy and paste messages into the chat client, so that you can respond quickly to the patron.

from Nicole Gustavsen's "Virtual Reference Service Standards" document.

Greeting the patron:

•  “Welcome to Foley Library’s chat service! How can I help you today?

While looking up information for the patron:

• “I’m searching the catalog now. I’ll be right back.”  
• “It’s taking longer to find [information] than I thought. Thank you for waiting! I’ll be back soon.”

Referring the patron:    

• “The librarian who can best answer your question is [full name], and their email is [name@gonzaga.edu]. You can email them or schedule an appointment from this webpage.”

Stepping away from the computer:

• “I need to step away for a moment; I’ll be back soon.”

At the end of the chat:

• “I haven’t heard from you in awhile, so I’m going to close our chat. Please come back any time for more help!”  
• “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
• “Thank you for using the library’s chat services today! Please come back any time if you need more assistance.”