Suggested chat style

Talk in short sentences. Long paragraphs of text take a long time to type and are hard to read in a chat window.

Manage expectations

• What’s the visitor’s time frame?

• How much information does the visitor need?

• What kind of information does the visitor need?

Be honest and kind

• Give the visitor lots of feedback

  • If you type slowly, tell the visitor

  • If your computer is running slowly, let the visitor know

  • If the question is a tough one, tell the visitor that it’s going to take a while to answer

  • Remember that visitors can’t see or hear you. The danger of not giving enough feedback is that they may think that you are ignoring them

• Expect that some transactions may take longer than at the reference desk

Keep the visitor engaged

Keep the visitor occupied. If it’s going to take a while to answer the question, give the visitor something to do. Verbalize what you might tell a user at the reference desk.

• Instruct the visitor to search the database too

  • Start your visitor on the main page of the library website

  • Walk them through the process using short and easy to follow steps

  • Check that they’re following along

• When finding an answer involves searching more than one database, set up the visitor in one while you search the other database

• Ask the visitor a question every now and then to keep them intellectually engaged while you are database searching

• Describe what you are finding as you go along. Ask them what they are finding if they are searching searching too