Trump Entertainment Resorts Offers a “Full House” of Training to New Jersey Library Staff
Trump Entertainment Resorts, Atlantic City, N.J., and the New Jersey State Library partnered to offer customer service training to more than 100 library staff members on June 19, 2008. The training was held at the Trump Taj Mahal Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, NJ.
What prompted this unusual union? We brought noted library consultant Joan Frye Williams to New Jersey in May 2007 to present a program at our “Mid-Atlantic Library Futures Conference.” Ms. Frye Williams advised conference attendees about how to enhance our customer service. She suggested that we treat people who use our libraries as guests and that we acknowledge that we are in the hospitality business. We thought about different customer service models we would like to emulate, and decided that we had experienced the most exemplary customer service at the Trump Entertainment Resorts in Atlantic City, NJ.
Peggy Cadigan, New Jersey State Library’s Consultant for Innovation & Communication, reached out to Trump’s Human Resources Department to see if they would consider sharing their expertise with library staff members from around the state. The Trump Entertainment Resort staff, led by Jennifer Babcock, very generously offered to share their customer service training for free. Meetings between the two organizations revealed that there is much common ground and what seemed to be an unusual pairing turned out to be a very good fit.
The customer service training model offered by Trump Entertainment Resorts is known as “ACT.�? The acronym stands for Acknowledge, Connect, and Thank. The library staff who attended the training represented public, academic, school, and special libraries and staff members included professional and paraprofessional staff. The training included interactive exercises, job-shadowing of Trump employees, and discussion of similarities in customer service experiences.Evaluations were uniformly enthusiastic and attendees found the training professional and definitely applicable to the library setting.
For more photos, see the New Jersey State Library’s flickr account.
