Stephen Abram has just blogged about a journal article from RUSQ v. 47 no. 2 which studied several hundred chat reference transcripts and correlated various Best Practice factors with user satisfaction. They found:

chat reference services were perceived to be more satisfying to the patrons when librarians:

• used the patron’s name during the reference interview;
• communicated more receptively and listened more carefully;
• searched with or for the patron;
• provided pointers;
• asked the patron whether the question was completely answered; and
• asked the patron to come back if they needed further assistance.

and:

The strongest predictor of user satisfaction among all ten behaviors was “Answered?” (for example, asking patrons if their questions have been completely answered), followed by “Offering Pointers” (for example, offering pointers, detailed search paths and URLs, and names of resources used to find the answer), “Come back” (for example, encouraging the patrons to return if they have further questions), “Searching” (for example, searching with or for patrons by explaining search strategies and sequences and reformulating searching strategies), and “Listening” (for example, receptive and cordial listening).

(I’ve removed the statistical regression coefficient stuff from that quote but it’s in the original paper along with bar graphs and more information about what each of these “librarian behaviours” involves. I’ve downloaded the full paper to L:\K_Eng\Deborah\Bits\kwon_gregory.pdf and will keep it there for a couple of weeks to save on re-downloading.)