What is the three minute telephone rule?

The three minute rule reflects the cutoff at which library staff will do one of three things:

• Satisfactorily conclude the transaction.
• Ask the caller if they can find the answer and call them back.
• Ask the caller to come in to the library to assist in the search process.

This limit on phone calls avoids having staff tied up on the phone, during which time they are perceived to be unavailable to customers. Also, staff become sensitive to overly long calls, can be trained to disengage from chatty customers and if needed, do the search when time is available vs. while a customer is on hold. In the unusual case, asking the customer to come in to assist in a complicated search may be necessary to avoid providing too much service, which then becomes an expectation which the library staff are unwilling, and really incapable of providing on an ongoing basis.