We depend on customers buying our products, so it is essential we provide them with extremely good value. We constantly strive to improve our existing products and to come up with new solutions that make our customers’ work and lives easier. By doing so, we believe we can create sustainable and mutually beneficial partnerships with them.

Objectives

Our aim is to create products and services which help to make our customers more productive in their working lives. Online solutions to the challenges our professional customers face in their daily work is the primary way we are driving value. To ensure content matches price, we have been accelerating the range and usability of our products, allowing customers to cross-link, cross-reference, and search information to an extent and scale never before possible. By providing workflow solutions, we are improving our customers’ productivity, achieving competitive advantage, and closer partnerships. In 2009, online accounted for over 59% of revenue, up from 37% in 2006.

Results

In 2009, we surveyed 100,000 customers across Reed Elsevier through the Net Promoter Score (NPS) programme to determine their willingness to recommend us. In the short term, NPS allows us to identify customers that would benefit from more of our attention and in the long term, to increase loyalty by fixing core detractor issues and activating promoters. Results, reviewed by the CEO and senior managers, and communicated to staff, illuminate where we are doing well and where we must do better. We saw increases, for example, among science journal editors and book authors, and among large law clients. We are addressing areas for improvement like better editor communication at our health journals and greater assistance for financial service customers affected by the global economic downturn in our risk solutions business.

Doing Good by Doing What We Do Best

We can make a difference by providing access to our essential products and services. For example, in 2009 we donated almost 35,000 books to key partner Book Aid International. Reed Elsevier has worked with Book Aid for over a decade. We have contributed staff time; in-kind donations including over 800,000 books; and helped raise awareness (every Elsevier book since 2005 has had a stamp with the phrase “Working together to grow libraries in developing countries” featuring the logo of Book Aid, Elsevier, and US book donation partner, Sabre). We have provided financial assistance for special projects including library and reading programmes in Kenya, Namibia and Sierra Leone. And since 2008, we have helped with library development in Cameroon, enabling Book Aid’s local partner, Education Information Services International (EISERVI) to refurbish five community libraries across the country. Established and managed by local people in villages and neighbourhoods, Cameroon’s community libraries are learning centres for the majority of the population unable to access mainstream education. 

LexisNexis UK has been a key partner of the International Law Book Facility (ILBF) since it began in 2005. The ILBF has a simple goal: to provide printed legal texts to legal professional bodies, advice centres, pro bono groups, law schools, institutions and individuals involved in access to justice across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. In 2009, LexisNexis UK donated 2,000 books to the ILBF which aided a range of organisations including the Rwandan Supreme Court; the judiciary in Juba, Sudan; the Bangladesh Bar Council and the Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers’ Association; the Law School at the University of Dhaka; and the Paralegal Programme of Zambia.

2010 Objectives:

• Improve customer loyalty as measured by Net Promoter Scores; advance dashboard programmes
• Continue to improve website accessibility