1. What are some key points to remember in customer service?-->Ensuring you are understanding the need, so that you are delivering the right thing (listening, repeating back in identical, sometimes paraphrased terms, what is being requested if it helps. Providing work completed, not work for the customer (I usually call it "homework," because that can have a pejorative connotation to it).Being available and timely.
2. How would you go about improving your own customer service to an individual (or group) without any instruction? I guess checking on the things I mentioned above and always considering that there is an opportunity for me to take in more information and master it and process it (stretch my limits). Sometimes I am not able to achieve "availability" and timeliness through either myself or staff because of limitations (my power over space and time and my staff headcount entitlements) - so, always finding ways to combat the lack of availability and timeliness.
3. In a library (if you have visited one), have you received good customer service? Can you give examples if yes or no, and if no - explain what could have/should have been improved?-->I have, yes. Sometimes I haven't. I don't know which is the heavier side. In the NO cases, I can remember feeling like I was bothering the staff. It seemed like their job was all about solitary tasks and not people - therefore I was an interruption. I'm not a frequent library-goer though. Last time was 2 years ago, and she was an emotionless stone. If you're interested in details on YES cases, I can remember people who were effective at being everyday people in the way they communicated and also rather eccentric people whom you weren't sure how to interpret, but that didn't mean utter disappointment in their effectiveness, maybe they just had a permanent smile, for example (not exactly a professional sin).
4. As a CSR, are there certain workshops, or handbooks that should be taken into consideration? Are they free, or costly? I'm not equipped with a lot to respond with here. Not sure, it's relative?
5. Should issues in hiring CSR's be taken into consideration (in terms of past employment, and issues arising from previous jobs), and should the hiring process be looked into more thoroughly from an HR perspective? Not an experienced spokesperson in the Library work context, but I think it would be ideal to go through some behavior-based stuff that has to do with the ability to shift gears between periods of silence and a sudden change to that; shift gears between periods of wading through a pile of monotony or handling something that requires a person to be focussed by yourself and then having to interact with others; and the ability to work independently and managed to transform yourself into someone that can be team-oriented and deal with people and their varying humors and demeanors. Would also take a lot of patience with customers' broad range of experience with libraries and how they work (there are "learned" people and people who are without too many clues at the extremes...the candidates would need to be able to conduct themselves in ways that don't feel like talking down to somebody - and not get their feelings hurt by a customer who has a know-it-all or condescending approach to the staff (someone who would see the staff as "the help". | 
