A Multi-Channel Approach to Listening
Silverchair's approach to gathering client feedback operates across multiple channels and timeframes. In 2025 alone, we conducted dozens of Strategic Product Alignment Meetings (SPAMs), providing direct connections between individual clients and our product team. These sessions allow us to understand not just what features you need, but why you need them and how they fit into your broader strategic objectives.Another tactic we really like (attended by over 100 members of our client community), are the Publisher Working Groups. We bring together multiple clients facing similar challenges, creating forums where shared priorities emerge organically. These cross-client conversations have proven invaluable in identifying industry-wide pain points that deserve prioritization in our development queue. When multiple organizations independently surface the same need, it signals an opportunity to deliver value across our entire community.
Our annual client surveys and ongoing informal feedback sessions round out this ecosystem, capturing both structured data and spontaneous insights that might otherwise go unheard. Together, these mechanisms ensure we're listening across different contexts and timeframes, from urgent tactical needs to longer-term strategic imperatives.
From Feedback to Roadmap: How We Translate Input into Action
The volume and diversity of feedback we receive each year creates both opportunity and obligation. We take seriously the responsibility of synthesizing hundreds of conversations, survey responses, and feature requests into a coherent development strategy that serves our entire community.Our product roadmap reflects this. Rather than simply tallying requests and building the most frequently mentioned features, we analyze feedback for underlying patterns. When multiple clients describe different problems that stem from the same root cause, we can address the fundamental issue rather than building point solutions. When emerging industry trends appear in client conversations before they show up in conference presentations, we can position the platform to support new workflows before they become widespread.
Transparency forms a core element of this process. Our roadmap remains readily accessible for our clients and updated in real-time, giving everyone visibility into what we're building and when. This transparency serves multiple purposes: it allows organizations to plan their own initiatives around anticipated platform capabilities, it provides context for understanding our development priorities, and it creates accountability for delivering on our commitments.
And we know it matters to our clients a great deal:
“We love the transparency and openness - about your mission, focus, roadmap. Being able to engage openly and directly about priorities and focus for us and for you is really important to working effectively together and ensuring that we can make the right decisions for our organisation to optimise our customer experience. Our relationship with Silverchair feels like a real partnership.” (Natalie Jacobs, Emerald Publishing)“Keep bringing your customers into conversation with each other and with you. It's refreshingly open, transparent, and honestly, brave.” (Allison Belan, Duke University Press)
Budgeting That Reflects Partnership
Product development roadmaps only matter if they're backed by appropriate resource allocation. The feedback we gather throughout the year directly influences how we allocate our development budget and where we invest in expanding our product and engineering teams.When client conversations consistently surface capabilities that require significant architectural changes or new technical infrastructure, those insights inform our multi-year technology investments. When we hear about emerging requirements that will affect broad segments of our client base, we adjust our hiring plans to ensure we have the specialized expertise needed to deliver quality solutions.
Annual surveys give us longitudinal data showing how priorities shift over time. An emerging need mentioned by a handful of clients one year might become a widespread requirement the following year, allowing us to staff appropriately and allocate development capacity before the need becomes urgent.
We were so glad to see that our new(er) ScholarOne clients see it too:
“The roadmap is promising in comparison with other players in the market. In addition, since ScholarOne was acquired by Silverchair, I am more confident that planned innovations and ideas will be implemented.” (Claudia Gampe-Braig, Thieme Group)
Your Trusted, Expert Partner
Partnership means we bring expertise to the table, not just a listening ear. While client feedback fundamentally shapes our roadmap, we recognize that genuine partnership requires us to arrive at every conversation with our own informed perspective on where the industry is headed and what challenges need solving.Our teams actively research emerging standards, analyze workflow inefficiencies across our client base, and identify opportunities for innovation that individual organizations might not yet see from their vantage point. When we observe patterns in how researchers interact with content, or notice friction points in editorial processes that span multiple publishers, we have a responsibility to surface those insights and propose solutions, even when they weren't explicitly requested.
This approach has led to some of our most valuable platform capabilities. Features that streamline complex workflows, anticipate technical requirements driven by evolving standards, or address accessibility needs often emerge from our team's proactive analysis rather than reactive development. We've built infrastructure to support requirements we knew were coming based on industry trajectory, positioning our clients to adopt new practices without waiting for platform catch-up.
The balance matters. We need to hear what's keeping you up at night while also bringing forward-looking perspectives on what should be keeping you up at night. We need to understand your immediate pain points while also sharing what we're seeing across the broader landscape that might inform your long-term strategy. Real partnership means both parties contribute vision and expertise, creating something stronger than either could build alone.
Continuing the Conversation
As we look ahead, we remain committed to expanding and refining how we gather and incorporate client feedback. The mechanisms we've built serve us well, but we recognize that the scholarly publishing landscape continues to change and our listening must evolve accordingly.Your feedback drives our roadmap, shapes our budget allocations, and ultimately determines whether we're building a platform that serves your mission effectively. We're grateful for the partnership and the trust you place in us when you share your challenges, aspirations, and ideas. Keep it coming: every input contributes to our collective understanding of where the platform needs to go next.
Don’t just take our word for it:
“Silverchair is constantly looking at ways to improve and is open to feedback.” (Amy Moran, American Diabetes Association)“I believe that Silverchair is serious about enhancing the peer review landscape.” (Simon Smith, Taylor & Francis)
“In uncertain times, when publishers face many challenges, Silverchair provides security and adaptability, while embracing technological innovation.” (Kirsty McCormack, The Company of Biologists)