Last month, my brother gave me the heads up on the new Danger Mouse DVD, which I, of course, had to then have. So I ordered it from Amazon and waited for it to arrive. And waited. And waited. And waited. After a couple of weeks, I decided to contact Amazon about it, so I started digging through the “where’s my stuff” screens to find a phone number to call. Eventually, I got to a screen that had a button on the right-hand side that said “telephone help” or something like that. I clicked on that button and a small window popped up. It asked for my phone number and for when I wanted them to call me. I gave them my number and chose the “right now” option.

Sure enough, my phone immediately started ringing! I was put into their automated voice tree and was able to get to a human being to resolve the problem. It was very slick, and I’m curious how they run this. Of course, now I can’t find that screen to take a screenshot or point you to it, but it was very easy and efficient. It’s just the kind of thing I’d love to see from a library, both on its on web site and embedded in others’ sites (local government pages, school pages, etc.).

So I guess next time you order from Amazon, look for that button somewhere in the “where’s my account” or “contact us” pages before your order arrives. It’s pretty damn cool.

Oh, and Amazon did eventually send out a replacement package for the lost one, so I can indeed confirm that Danger Mouse is the greatest, he’s fantastic, and wherever there is danger he’ll be there. 

Update

Brian sent me a link to a Eric Zorn’s blog on the Chicago Tribune site for a link roundup. The very first item mentioned is Library ELF.

“The Library Elf is a free service that allows you to ‘manage your library loans and holds (and) avoid overdues with email alerts.’ Participating local public libraries include those in Arlington Heights, Aurora, Chicago, Homer Township, Mount Prospect, Riverside, Roselle,Waukegan and Wheaton.”

I’ll reiterate that I love the ELF and use it myself, but how pathetic do our catalogs/services have to be that a company in Canada is continuing to get press for a service we should be providing? I know a lot of libraries are already doing this, but look at that list in Zorn’s post. One of those listed is the Riverside Public Library, a member of my System’s consortial catalog (SWAN), which is also listed on the ELF site because I added it myself as a patron last year. It is sad beyond belief that Riverside and other SWAN libraries have to resort to promoting the ELF for email alerts because there are some SWAN members that don’t want to deal with email bounces. And it’s just plain sad that they have to resort to promoting the ELF for RSS feeds because it has taken Innovative so long to add them (still waiting for the release….).

This is basic customer service 101 that we’re failing, so I’ll once again beg SWAN libraries to add this functionality, and I’ll keep waiting for RSS feeds, and ELF will keep getting good press.

On a completely off-topic tangent, I also followed Zorn’s link for the Nickel-and-Dime Scandal in Ohio. I really loved the use of Google for sarcasm:

“The BWC also lost $215 million (!) in a high-risk hedge fund and recently the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the BWC continued to allow another fund manager, Alan Brian Bond, to manage $50 million for eighteen months after the New York money manager had been indicted in a high-publicity kickback scheme. This prompted Democratic State Senator Marc Dann to craft a bill requiring BWC administrators to Google the investment managers once a month to make sure they haven't been indicted.” [The Nation]

Which just goes to show that it’s not true that everybody uses Google….