Cultural change
Over the last several years Elsevier has shifted from a product based culture to a customer based one. This has been a challenging process and profoundly affected our approach, not only in terms of the way we develop and deliver our products and services, but also the way we interact with our customers and partners – we now operate in a culture of interdependence rather than independence.

As part of this process several years ago we introduced the Editor Feedback Program. A research program developed to gather the opinions of editors. We wanted to hear directly what you thought and felt about the services and support we offered to you. So far over 3,000 editors have told us what they think, a clear sign of your commitment.

Laura Hassink, VP Strategy & Journal Services, says, “The initial feedback wasn’t always comfortable reading, but it did give us for the first time a holistic view of what editors thought and how we should respond.” Though sobering in content, we knew we were receiving your candid views. As a result we were much better placed to improve the services we offered.

Clear signs
So, what did you tell us? First and foremost that we could do more to improve the level of support for managing peer review. You clearly indicated that you wish to be better informed about the performance of your journal - from usage statistics, citations, to being able to track submissions. Some of you, but by no means all, wanted to be more involved in the marketing of the journal; others just wanted to be clearer about what marketing activities were taking place. You told us that you needed more support handling submissions from countries where the author’s first language is not English. A number of you thought that we could improve the support we offered authors. You wanted to hear from us more often, to have regular meetings, to meet us face to face.

Meeting the challenges
As with all research it is of little to no use, unless it results in action. So how have we responded to what you told us? To support peer review we introduced free access to Scopus for reviewers, which will soon be expanded to include ScienceDirect. In order to help authors struggling to write their article in English we established relationships with ‘English polishing Bureaus’, introduced technical screening on a number of journals to help manage the volume of articles being received. We have run campaigns to increase awareness of authors’ rights. Our policies are lenient - many authors and some editors too, were simply unaware. As a result Elsevier.com is now much more transparent. We have been helping authors in other ways too. For the last three years we have been posting all relevant accepted manuscripts directly onto NIH’s repository, PubMed Central, on the author’s behalf. Our reports to you have been improved, you now are receiving more regular detailed updates. To improve marketing we have introduced the flyer machine, and have been actively engaging with many of you on the marketing direction of the journal. The four editor conferences we run every year in different parts of the world allow you to share opinions, not only with one another but with senior management. The conferences are an opportunity to ask us difficult questions, find out from the very top of the organization about the latest developments and the direction of the organisation.

Where next?
Since its inception the Editor Feedback program has very quickly embedded itself in the way we work and how we support you. It is used at all levels in the organization - it influences us, and informs our strategy. “Feedback shows we’re making good progress in many of these areas, but there’s still more to do,” says Hassink. “We want editors to keep telling us what they think - the good as well as the bad, this will allow us to enhance our support and ensure we deliver world class services.”