Problem with FamilySearch Centres not responding to emails or phone messages
I help run a FSC in the UK. There is a problem with the wrong information about FSCs opening days/times showing online and worse nobody responding to non members queries when they send an email or phone message.
I have had non members book with us who have left messages, even visited FSCs nearer to them as they have not had responses to find they are not open to the public.
This does not put the church in a good light - for some a FSC is their first contact with the church.
Surely collectively we can do better. We need to remember that mostly people come to us as it is the only place they can view a particular set of records.
Answers
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This issue is mentioned in the FamilySearch Users facebook group quite frequently
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This problem has been going on for years. In my view, Family Search has no interest at all in doing anything about it.
I made a comment on a topic about a year ago "I have suggested in the past, (some years ago probably) that there should be an email address, where members of the public can write to, to advise that details need to be changed, but no notice was taken of this suggestion, so it seems as though the current system will continue."
Unfortunately, I cannot find my previous posts, which were probably on the previous Community platform.
I do not know why FamilySearch seems so uninterested in this problem.
As FamilySearch Centers are part of the FamilySearch Library (as I understand the situation), perhaps @Julie Kinouchi you would get more response by writing to the FSL
From my observation of this Community, I can't remember anyone from the Library ever having made a comment. I would be surprised if anyone from the Library ever even reads Community posts.
Edit My comments made Feb 6, 2020
MaureenE said: I agree that this is a problem, and sometimes it can be very difficult to find out the correct details for a particular Center.
There is a previous topic which says that it is the responsibility of the Family History Center Director to keep the details up to date.
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea... (Note link no longer works)
As however some Directors appear to be unaware of the responsibility, or do not know how to update the details, I think FamilySearch/Family History Library should introduce some sort of system to either remind the Directors of what they should be doing, or to get the correct details from the Director.
Perhaps when the Director opens up the Center's computer system, a screen could flash up with the opening hours and address and contact phone number/email address, and the Director has to indicate whether the details are correct, or not, and if not, put in the correct details.
https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/100786/#Comment_100786
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@Julie Kinouchi Perhaps your thoughts would gain more traction if you post (or ask a mod to move this post) to the group FamilySearch Center Support for Leaders and Staff.
Good luck!
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Thanks :-) I have just today found it and asked to be added. I have not found in the very good FamilySearch Center Operations Guide 2023 mention of the importance of answering phone and email messages from the public. It mentions creating a good ambience in the Centre, which is not much use if people can't book in!
I had a university student take a train, a bus and a taxi to get to us in North West UK as the 3 ish other FSCs which were much nearer to her did not answer her query. Collectively we must improve.
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As a Director of a FSC, I am forced to agree: not nearly enough attention has been given to this detail. I have to admit that some of it is due to poor communication from the "central authority" and some is due to poor tools to help us stay on top of this. I was never trained or pointed to any document about center hours or maintaining communication with patrons. It seems it is mostly up to Directors to "think responsibly for themselves" and figure out how to do it. Fortunately, in the area of "tools", there have been some recent improvements. Directors now have a "Center Tools" option available from their Family Search login that finally provides a single, usable tool for maintaining contact information and hours. Now they just have to use it! In my opinion, this tool should also have a direct link to the center's email so that a Director has a similarly easy method to look at messages sent to the center. As for telephone, it is problematic to maintain that method of communication for several reasons. I have opted to not advertise our phone and prefer to use email, which is accessible, more easily understood, and answerable from anywhere. (If needed, one can Hopefully, the new Center Tools will help to generally increase the accuracy of contact and hours information!
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I don't know about other locations, but the FSCs I have frequented over the years, in several US cities, have no answering machine or voice mail, so there is no way to leave a message. The only time the phone is answered is when the center is open and someone is there. And, if someone is calling to find out when the center will be open, that's a problem.
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That would work fine as long as the online details for the FSC just has an email address as a contact. I am debating whether to just do that with ours as David above mentioned - less hassle having to open up the shutters to check the phone on a Sunday! 🙂
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To be clear - the online details and email access are usually no better, in my experience.
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There is no doubt that access to accurate information has been bad in the past and that it totally depends on the behavior of individuals. I'm just hoping that a better system for editing and displaying hours and email online will help in some cases for the future.
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