Harcourt Education

The client A top three supplier of educational publications to schools and colleges in the UK.

The challenge A need to differentiate their offer in a declining market and to secure key contracts in order to maintain profits and turnover growth.

Our objective To focus the business on using its customer experience to create a competitive differentiator in the market and review the planned switch to solution selling.

Our approach We ran a series of workshops for senior executives and middle management to identify the current state, future need and the scale of the gap to be bridged in order to become more customer focused. A number of key actions were agreed along with a tight reporting process for cross-business teams to resolve some of the issues raised. Using Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) we established an overview of the existing customer experience, and the required experience to deliver a solution sell was developed using a similar approach.

Results Key issues were dealt with within three months by the cross-business teams, building a sense that change could be achieved and a more direct focus on the customer.

Internally, the business language changed to become more aligned and customer focused and, following identification of key activities that would most benefit customers, the switch to solution selling improved profits. Soon afterwards, Harcourt won a large competitive tender on the basis of their ability to listen to and respond to customers.

“The value that Harcourt Education has gained and indeed continues to gain from its work with Mulberry Consulting and our engagement in CJM is the way in which it has transformed our organisational culture.”

Chris Jones, CEO, Harcourt Education