Assessment of Customer Service in Academic Health Care Libraries (ACSAHL): an instrument for measuring customer service.
OBJECTIVE
In a pilot study, the library had good results using SERVQUAL, a respected and often-used instrument for measuring customer satisfaction. The SERVQUAL instrument itself, however, received some serious and well-founded criticism from the respondents to our survey. The purpose of this study was to test the comparability of the results of SERVQUAL with a revised and shortened instrument modeled on SERVQUAL. The revised instrument, the Assessment of Customer Service in Academic Health Care Libraries (ACSAHL), was designed to better assess customer service in academic health care libraries.


METHODS
Surveys were sent to clients who had used the document delivery services at three academic medical libraries in Texas over the previous twelve to eighteen months. ACSAHL surveys were sent exclusively to clients at University of Texas (UT) Southwestern, while the client pools at the two other institutions were randomly divided and provided either SERVQUAL or ACSAHL surveys.


RESULTS
Results indicated that more respondents preferred the shorter ACSAHL instrument to the longer and more complex SERVQUAL instrument. Also, comparing the scores from both surveys indicated that ACSAHL elicited comparable results.


CONCLUSIONS
ACSAHL appears to measure the same type of data in similar settings, but additional testing is recommended both to confirm the survey's results through data replication and to investigate whether the instrument applies to different service areas.
Crossno
J E
JE
Information Resource Center, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, 5323 Harry Hines Boulevard, Dallas, Texas 75390-9049, USA.
Berkins
B
B
Gotcher
N
N
Hill
J L
JL
McConoughey
M
M
Walters
M
M
D003258:Consumer Behavior / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D007255:Information Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007993:Libraries, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods; D015397:Program Evaluation; D013781:Texas