The number one in the previous study, telecom and digital service provider Elisa finishes second, and insurance company Fennia third.

The other organisations reaching the top ten are telecom operator DNA, which shared fourth place with Finland’s most popular online retailer Verkkokauppa.com, employment pension company Elo (6th), insurance company Pohjola Vakuutus (7th), and the companies sharing eighth place: energy company Fortum, the Port of Helsinki, and Vaisala, a specialist in weather, environmental and industrial measurement solutions.

The average Shirute CEM index score in Finnish organisations is slightly lower than in previous years.

Jaana Matikainen, Concept and Development Director of SOK travel chain management of the hotel chain Sokos Hotels, which was number one in the international results and returned to the top in Finland, emphasizes the importance of customer experience amid change:

“Thank you very much for this fine recognition! It warms our hearts especially in these times. The operating environment has been exceptionally volatile in the entire travel and hospitality industry in recent years. Fluctuations in demand, cost structure and workforce have kept us on our toes and in a constant state of change. I am grateful to the entire Sokos Hotels family for their unwavering work towards common important issues. Making our guests happy has remained a matter of the heart and at the core of our value base even during this time.”

“I am happy that we have been able to develop and enrich the customer experiences we deliver even more. Among other things, our constantly renewed hotels, concepts, and digital services have received a great reception. For this, a big thank you also to our guests! Thanks to their feedback and strong participation, the work continues,” asserts Matikainen.

With the help of this study, the current state of customer experience management (CEM, Customer Experience Management) was mapped in Finland and around the world. The participating organisations were evaluated against the Shirute Customer Experience Management Index™. This index measures the extent and systematic approach of these companies Customer Experience Management. It measures, e.g. how systematic and goal-oriented the activities are, how well the respondents are organising themselves, and how much they invest or plan to invest in customer experience management. The index does not take a stand as to the content of the customer experiences, nor their quality from the point of view of customers. This aspect can be measured with other indexes that are based on exercises such as focus group interviews, customer journey mapping or audits in various CEM competency areas.

The data was gathered through an online form and phone interviews in May-December. The target group consisted of top 500 companies, public administration and the most famous brands in Finland and around the world. Altogether, 99 CEM professionals from 84 organisations participated. A third (32%) of these organisations average a turnover of more than 100 million euros, and about almost half of them (50%) over 20 million. A good third of them (35%) have over 1 000 employees.

The study was this year carried out for the tenth time in Finland and internationally. It was originally based on a multi-year international study conducted in the United States by Temkin Group. The study has been conducted for the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA) Finnish local network by the customer experience agency Shirute (www.shirute.fi). Partners in the survey include Surveypal, CX Magazine, CX Network and Women in CX.

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CXPA Finland (CXPA.fi) is the local network of the international, non-profit Customer Experience Professionals Association network in Finland, operating as a community of customer experience management professionals. The goal is to get companies to offer even better customer experiences and increase their success.