Climate change and the consequent energy transition from fossil to renewable and zero-emission energy sources are accelerating the need to develop new smart services for consumers. Fortum Consumer Solutions is working closely with customers to develop such services.
Fortum digital smart charging service is a good example of the new service development that Fortum Consumer Solutions is doing together with customers. It was developed in response to the need for charging electric cars at home. “Digital smart charging at home was a natural next step to charging on the road, where Fortum Consumer Solutions already had a strong foothold. At the same time, we saw a trend in connectable devices at home and this provided an opportunity to utilize the devices that consumers already had”, notes Kristina Hoff Wanderas, who is heading new personal living environment services.
The work to develop Fortum digital smart charging started in Norway, the largest electric vehicles market in the world. A test group of customers was very much involved along the way, with their opinions and views carefully listened to and taken into account. As a result of this collaboration, Fortum was able to bring to market a purely digital smart charging solution. “The solution, which in practice is an app, ensures that the car at home is charging when the power price is low, and it works with all types of charges. Now that it has been successfully taken into use in Norway, we are ready to take all that learning with us and scale the service to new markets,” says Kristina.
Small Steps - Big impact
Another example of Fortum’s customer centricity work, is the customer loyalty program called Small Steps. It all started with feedback from a customer and ended up being a new kind of customer program that engages Fortum Consumer Solutions customers to do good for the environment through small actions every day. Examples of actions include saving electricity, reducing daily food waste, recycling, or other little things that help customers to live a more sustainable life every day.
“Many of our customers have been involved in the development of Small Steps program from the beginning and have continued to further develop the program with us. Through our daily choices, each and every one of us can have an impact on our environment. But when many people are doing these small things, the positive impact on our environment is even bigger”, stresses Elisa Blomberg, Head of Customer Centricity. Fortum also rewards customers with free electricity hours for every small action they take. “Many of our customers appreciate how these small steps make it easy to reduce their own carbon footprint and environmental load”, Elisa adds.
Customer’s voice is everywhere
The two cases above are good practical examples of what customer centricity means to Fortum Consumer Solutions. “It means that the voice of our customers is reflected in everything we do and develop,” says the Head of Customer Centricity. It is at the heart of the business strategy, high on the management agenda and on the metrics that everyone follows. “In addition to having a continuous dialogue with our customers, achieving customer satisfaction also requires cooperation, sharing and agile way of working across our country and function borders, as well as benchmarking the best practices in our own and other industries,” clarifies Elisa.
“For us, customer satisfaction is not a project; it is something that we strive for every day and it guides our daily work. I am very pleased that our work was recently noticed by the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA Finland), which rewarded us among several top companies and industries for our work”, concludes Elisa Blomberg.