What We Learned at the EBSCO User Group
Several EBSCO Product Managers attended the User Group to talk to our customers and learn from the diverse presentations. As part of our Pragmatic approach to Product Management, we highly value customer input to drive our roadmaps and enhancements. While we learned many lessons at the User Group, this represents the top themes and requests we consistently heard.
Documentation is Crucial
Customers appreciate our extensive documentation on Connect, and EBSCO needs to stay consistent in ensuring any new feature has corresponding documentation. This is especially important as we release more net new functionality in the New User Interface and EBSCO Experience Manager. This functionality allows EBSCO to ease the burden on customers to create their own documentation. We also learned that customers value the information and transparency that our quarterly roadmaps and release notes provide. We are looking to expand these into all product areas.
“Customers appreciate our extensive documentation on Connect, and EBSCO needs to stay consistent in ensuring any new feature has corresponding documentation.”
“Customers appreciate our extensive documentation on Connect, and EBSCO needs to stay consistent in ensuring any new feature has corresponding documentation.”
Ability to Configure and Customize is Paramount
While EBSCOadmin can be overwhelming, it provides the ability to customize and configure nearly every EBSCO product and service. As our customers support all different types of users in different markets and regions, it is important for EBSCO to allow customization to tailor the product to their specific needs. We strongly heard this feedback in the context of New UI filters and limiters, where some settings are not customizable. We plan on incorporating this feedback into our near-term roadmaps. We also heard it was important to have a guide on where settings are handled – EBSCOadmin or EBSCO Experience Manager – and plan to create this soon.
Make Sure Your Library is Prepared to Migrate
We know migration to the New UI is a big deal for a library, especially when some libraries have been training users on our Classic interface for 15+ years. In the User Group sessions focused on migration, we learned that customers may require up to a year to prepare for migration as they need to rework materials such as LibGuides and train their staff on the New UI. Presenters also highlighted that it is important for customers to review their New UI preview instance and make any changes before going live.
Streamlined Linking
Many customers told us at the User Group that our linking can be too complex and feels redundant to manage. This was common feedback from EDS customers who needed to manage linking in a few different places. Our teams are looking into ways to streamline this process and reduce the number of times a similar link needs to be set up in EDS. We recently released improvements to our SmartLinks+ service, which now leverages Holdings Management and the EBSCO KnowledgeBase. This will increase the pool of available links and make it easier for libraries to manage.
Visibility into the Enhancement Request Process
We often encourage customers to submit enhancement requests to our Support team. These get logged into our internal systems and are used by Product and Development teams when prioritizing work and building out features. However, the feedback we heard from customers is that they feel they have no visibility into the process. They will often submit a request and not receive an update or confirmation if it gets added to the product. Our Product Management organization recently kicked off an improved Voice of the Customer program in conjunction with Sales, Marketing and Customer Satisfaction to ensure that all enhancement requests are reviewed in a timely manner and consistently updated. Our end goal is to improve visibility through an external portal where customers can track or vote on desired enhancements. As we work towards this goal, we will continue to engage with customers for feedback and best practices in this area.
“Our Product Management organization recently kicked off an improved Voice of the Customer …to ensure that all enhancement requests are reviewed in a timely manner and consistently updated.”
“Our Product Management organization recently kicked off an improved Voice of the Customer …to ensure that all enhancement requests are reviewed in a timely manner and consistently updated.”
Free Resources to Increase Usage
Libraries are looking for low to no cost ways to promote library resources and increase usage. The User Group featured many sessions that highlighted newer tools that EBSCO has created to drive these initiatives. This includes the new EBSCOhost Passport Browser Plug-in, which provides users access to their EBSCO full text entitlements when conducting research on the open web. The EBSCO Mobile App supports users starting research anywhere and provides a continuous experience when switching to a desktop. Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) supports seamless access to EBSCO content from within the Learning Management System, helping faculty and students engage with library content. Finally, we are continually improving our content’s discoverability and linking from Google and Google Scholar, which we know is the first stop for many users.
Thank you
We appreciate the opportunity to attend the User Group and hear your feedback. We are working hard to implement changes based on what you shared and hope that you notice improvements and enhancements to our products. We look forward to seeing you all at next year’s User Group!