Do You Put Customers First?

Handshake Are publishers customer-centric? The question was raised recently in a blog post from The Scholarly Kitchen in an attempt to determine whether the enhancements and features publishers are implementing are focused on customer needs. Various chefs weigh in on the question, but instead of answering that question directly, they step back and ask a new question: Do publishers really know who their customers are?

The challenge: Meeting the needs of many
Is your publishing operation customer-centric? The question is immediately challenging because publishers — especially scholarly publishers and those in the STM space — serve many types of customers, all with different needs.

Your reader audience — These individuals may come to your publication for information about their subject, to conduct research, or to pursue publishing their own work.
Institutional customers — Libraries and other institutional bodies may have requirements that are very different from those of end users.
Scholarly and trade organizations — These organizations may look less at how you deliver your content than at how well you support the scholarship and direction of their particular discipline.

Obviously, it’s important to both balance your support of all audiences and understand which audience segment has the highest priority. If you don’t take the time for this essential step, you run the risk of pursuing business goals and introducing features that don’t actually meet customer needs.

Discover your options
When you meet customers where they are, then you’ll know what features and approaches you need to employ to build your business.

What do they want? As markets shift and technology evolves, your customers’ needs and wants are constantly changing.
Where do they want it? Your customers may be subscribers, but perhaps not adhering to the traditional model. Look at digital users and subscribers who use mobile apps. Then, too, look at readers outside the subscriber base who want reprints or special collections. You need the capability to disseminate in various formats, to numerous devices, and through disparate partner channels.
How do they want it? Do customers want high-quality print? Faster delivery? Online ordering? A mobile app for browsing? Perhaps they want email alerts for upcoming articles.

Of course, defining your customers and determining their needs is only the first step. After that, you need to be able to cost-effectively provide for those needs.

Fortunately, once you understand these foundational elements, you can easily find guidance and advanced technology solutions to enrich your content and help you provide it to diverse distribution channels.

But it truly starts with the customer.

[cta]Do you have questions about how to provide for your customers’ diverse needs? Contact your Sheridan representative, Susan Parente at susan.parente@sheridan.com, to learn more about new publishing technologies and how they can provide added value to your publications.[/cta]