Stora Enso signs six-figure deal with SynGro to continue roll-out of industry-leading customer feedback programme

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Global paper group reports benefits through real-time customer feedback solution

Global paper group Stora Enso today announced a new six-figure deal with customer feedback management specialists SynGro Ltd. This will see Stora Enso continue the international roll-out of its enterprise-wide customer satisfaction and loyalty programme, VOICE (Value of Identifying Customer Expectations) and embark on a change management programme aimed at making the whole organisation completely customer-centric.

In what is a project on a massive scale, SynGro has been working with Stora Enso to provide the technology and strategic advice required to effectively gather continuous feedback from its 30,000 customer contacts, in over 61 countries, covering 17 different languages. SynGro’s solution not only allows Stora Enso to collect the data efficiently and effortlessly on this scale, but also empowers the organisation by giving it the necessary tools, enabling it to take action on customer feedback by implementing a continual improvement process across the business.

Stora Enso’s Vice President of Market Services, John McKechie, who manages the VOICE initiative, explained: “Customer feedback helps us to pinpoint the key processes we need to focus on to make our customers more satisfied. As the first company in the paper and pulp industry to embark on this kind of strategy, we have found it creates a competitive advantage allowing us to stay ahead of the field. We are already seeing the benefits of the programme through improved levels of interaction with our customers, which have increased since we first introduced the programme in 2008. In turn, we are now able to make the necessary changes to our business processes from the feedback we receive.

“SynGro offers not only a customisable software platform to support the processes, but also provides the necessary expert advice to guide us through the approach of measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty in a coordinated way across the entire company.”

Previously, Stora Enso’s customer feedback programme involved face-to-face interviews with a select number of customers on an annual basis. SynGro’s new Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) solution allows Stora Enso to continually gather real-time customer feedback using various methods, including phone, email and web-based surveys, and, importantly, from a much larger population of customers than could ever be achieved in the past.

Furthermore, the sophistication of the technology put in place means that communication with customers is carried out in their chosen language and feedback is then converted back to English for analysis within a central database. The system delivers automatic reports to the relevant people at all levels within the organisation, giving Stora Enso the ability to analyse customer feedback in a more strategic way and to employ better decision making in response to the feedback.

Keith Schorah, SynGro CEO, said: "Businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the need to integrate customers more closely to their business operations. This is no surprise bearing in mind a recent study by Oxford Brookes University, which claims that UK businesses are losing around 20 million customers each year, equating to losses of £3.69 billion, due to poor customer service. However, capturing feedback from all customers can be a challenge for global organisations, such as Stora Enso, due to the sheer scale of coordinating the work, not to mention language considerations.

“But this only tells half the story, and what is also proving problematic for organisations is what they do with the collated data. With our solution Stora Enso is leading the way in its industry in terms of putting in place technology and processes that ticks both boxes. It helps Stora Enso to effectively collect customer feedback and to take action on the data, both operationally and strategically, to help drive business growth. It is with this dual approach that I’m confident Stora Enso will see increased customer satisfaction and better profitability from longer-term relationships."

NOTES TO EDITORS

About SynGro

Founded in 2004, SynGro is a leading provider of customer feedback technology and customer retention programmes for large enterprise.

Working with complex organisations with large customer bases across the world, SynGro provides solutions to gather real-time customer feedback, and implement programmes to show organisations how best to act on data to help shape strategy, achieve continual business improvement and positively affect their bottom line.

Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) is an emerging market and since its introduction more and more companies are striving to integrate customers closely into their business operations.

For further information visit www.syngro.com.

Follow SynGro on Twitter @SynGro

About Stora Enso

Stora Enso is a global paper, packaging and forest products company producing newsprint and book paper, magazine paper, fine paper, consumer board, industrial packaging and wood products.

The Group has 27,000 employees and 88 production facilities in more than 35 countries worldwide, and is a publicly traded company listed in Helsinki and Stockholm. Its customers include publishers, printing houses and paper merchants, as well as the packaging, joinery and construction industries.

For further information visit www.storaenso.com

For further information or photography:

Denise Fraser
Firefly Communications

0131 301 5308 / 07739 007468

Syngroteam@fireflycomms.com