LibAnswers - Instructions and Best Practices

Text questions are referred to by the more technical term SMS in the LibAnswers system. Here are some screenshots to help you identify when the question you are responding to is a text reference question.

Some best practices when responding to text messages:

1. Keep it simple and short. Encourage the patron to email, call or visit if the question is too involved.
2. There is no need to say goodbye in a text message interaction or to ask if the patron received your reply. Your answer to the initial question is all that is required. It is up to the patron to send another text if they have more questions or need clarification.
3. The goal is to keep the number of messages sent to a minimum. Some patrons pay by the text on their mobile plans.

Sometimes a user will send an image, like a screenshot or a photo, in a text to us.

Unfortunately, we cannot receive images via text, so we won't know that they sent one. 

So we have to be alert to clues in what the user is writing to us, that they think we are seeing something we actually can't see. I know that's confusing, but we just need to be aware of this issue.