UPM Pulp Matters 2/2023

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TEXT: TIMO NYKÄNEN PHOTOS: UPM

OPEN FEEDBACK BUILDS STRONG PARTNERSHIPS

UPM Pulp’s regular customer surveys provide valuable input for the continuous development of products and services and in ensuring customer satisfaction.

Through customer surveys, UPM Pulp is able to deepen its knowledge of customer attitudes, thoughts and perceptions. Surveys have provided valuable insights to help further improve the company’s standards of excellence and offer a tool for continuous development that brings an external customer dimension to performance management. UPM Pulp conducts a survey twice a year to measure customer satisfaction. The survey has been carried out in its current form for three years and this is sent out to around 500 customer contacts. According to Miikka Kangas , Senior Manager Commercial Development, Pulp Sales at UPM Pulp, the aim has been to keep the survey light and simple, with only two main questions. The first of these refers to the global NPS (Net Promoter Score) metric, allowing for industry benchmarking and providing a target for development. “We ask customers how likely they are to recommend UPM Pulp to their friends or colleagues, and how well they consider us to have performed compared to the pulp industry in general with regards to certain criteria. These include pulp quality and service, handling exceptional situations, and listening to and understanding customers,” Kangas explains. The latest NPS score was 46, comparing well to the benchmark average of 39. However, UPM has set a target NPS score of 53, which would place the company in the top 25% within the industry.

Tomas Wiklund (top) and Miikka Kangas point out that survey results are responded to promptly in customer teams.

COMBINING GENERAL SATISFACTION AND TOPICAL ISSUES

Although the survey is mainly a “happy or not” type of questionnaire, additional feedback can be provided to open questions on how, in

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PUL P MAT TERS 02/2023