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- Talk in short sentences. Lengthy paragraphs
of text take a long time to type and are hard to read in a chat window.
- Give the user lots of feedback.
- If you type slow, tell the user.
- If you have a slow connection, let the user know.
- If the question is a tough one, tell the user
that it’s going to take awhile to answer.
- Remember that the user can’t see or hear you.
The danger of not giving enough feedback is that they may think
that you are ignoring them.
- What’s the user’s time frame? Offer to email answers
if the user is in a hurry.
- Find out in the reference interview if the user
wants the answer or would like to learn how to find the information.
- Expect that transactions may be longer than at the
reference desk
- Keep the user occupied. If it’s going to take awhile
to answer the question, give the user something to do. Verbalize what
you might tell a user at the reference desk.
- Have the user search the database too.
- When finding an answer involves searching more
than one database, set up the user to search in one, while you search
the other database.
- Offer to email the answer if the answer lends
itself to an email.
- Ask the user 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 too.
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