The most common measures for the customer service are Service level, NPS and additional sales. Service Level can include e.g. how much of the calls should be answered and in what time, this same logic also applies to e-mails and other channels. Service Level is a good and clear metric to guide customer service with numbers, but unfortunately it does not tell everything about the customer experience or the success of the customer service event.

The NPS measurement, on the other hand, tells specifically the customer’s honest opinion about the quality of customer service and the probability that she/he would recommend a brand or store. From the NPS results, we can also conclude what would be the probability the customer will purchase again from a certain store.

Additional sales in customer service divides opinions, whether it is part of customer service or not. In our opinion, this is part of good customer service because it’s very customer-oriented to tell, for example, about ongoing campaigns or even offer benefits available only to current customers in a customer service situation, since many campaigns are aimed only at new customers.

By developing all these results, you can see the positive correlation with the customer lifetime value.

How do you measure your customer service?

In Finland, domestic marketplaces and online stores can gain a competitive advantage from the following values: local products, reliability, and responsibility of Finnish-language service.

In foreign online stores and marketplaces, the difficulty of contacting the customer service in problem situations is perceived as one of the challenges of using these channels. (Source: online shopping in Finland 2022 survey)

So, a tip for foreign online stores, when you operate in the Finnish market, invest in good Finnish-language customer service.

“In Finland, 34.7 percent of respondents consider face-to-face transactions to be the most personal, but the phone comes right after with a good 30 percent. New digital channels, such as chatbots, comes clearly behind.”

This is a quote from Finnish online media called Markkinointiuutiset (Marketing news) and the numbers are based on research made by Enreach. (Article is in Finnish only, link is in the comments)

Though the most personal ways of handling the customer service situation are face-to-face or on the phone, you should not forget these people who prefers these new digital channels, because this might be the majority in the future, so brands and stores serving also them through these preferred channels today are definitely firming their position right now and also in the future.

There are around 20 million people shopping online in the Nordic countries.

We as Mixtra are specialized to help companies’ entry and succeed in these markets. Although the Nordic market may be seen as one, there are still differences between the countries, for example in payment methods, ways to handle the customer service and of course language is different in all these countries.

Source: E-commerce in Europe 2020 by Postnord

Companies have brought more content and information to their sites, for example in the form of various instructions, tips and frequently asked questions. Of course, as information increases, finding the right information also becomes more difficult, in which case a clear website structure and, for example, a semi-automated chat service works very well by first mapping out the customer's needs and then guiding them to the right information or directing the customer directly to the human chat customer service, if the need requires it. Outside of customer service opening hours, you can also leave a contact request from the chat service, in which case the customer service representative will be in touch when the customer service opens.

The role of social media in customer service has also been emphasized, because for many customers this is a natural and easy approach channel, and they use it also for other communication daily.

You could say that effective customer service today consists of a combination of these things and is more than just answering the customer's questions. It is accessibility, guiding, helping and increasing the customer lifetime value. So, with a good plan and great combination of channels, customer service can also a significant function in growth.

There are several reasons why TV advertising is still popular in Finland:

1. High TV penetration: Finland has a high TV penetration rate, with most households having at least one TV set. This makes it easier for advertisers to reach a large audience through TV advertising.
2. Targeted advertising: TV advertising allows advertisers to target specific demographics and geographic areas. With the help of data analytics and audience profiling, advertisers can identify the most appropriate channels and time slots to reach their target audience.
3. Brand recognition: TV advertising has been a popular marketing tool in Finland for many years, and many brands have established a strong presence through TV advertising. Consumers often associate these brands with their TV ads, which helps build brand recognition and loyalty.
4. Emotional impact: TV advertising can evoke strong emotions in viewers, which can be a powerful tool for advertisers. By creating ads that resonate with viewers on an emotional level, advertisers can create a lasting impression and build brand loyalty.
5. Creative freedom: TV advertising allows advertisers to be creative with their messaging and visuals. They can use humor, drama, music, and other elements to capture viewers' attention and make their brand stand out.

Overall, while digital advertising is becoming increasingly popular, TV advertising remains a key part of many companies' marketing strategies in Finland, thanks to its ability to reach a wide audience and create emotional connections with viewers.

Mixtra Agency helps numerous clients with their TV advertising and campaign planning in Finland, and if you are planning on starting TV advertising in Finland, be sure to contact us!

Customer service and customer experience can determine the success of your company or your brand, and the importance grows even bigger when you enter a new market area such as Finland – then localization is the key to success. This means understanding the needs of a local consumer and to have knowledge of the culture, which gives you the possibility to meet the customers’ expectations. By providing native Finnish customer service you can meet the foundational need of the customer and that is the best base for all interactions.

All localization services under one roof

Here at Mixtra we can provide you everything you need for entering the Finnish market smoothly and successfully, and all under one roof. We have experience and best practices for localization and translations and copy-writing, e-commerce platforms, logistic services, Finnish customer service and all marketing services from traditional to digital marketing. Whatever your challenge, problem or need is – we will help you find the best and cost-efficient solution. Besides Finland we also offer all the above and even more in all Nordic countries.

Our contact center offers your customers the best possible multi-channel service in a timely, efficient, and pleasant way. We can also adapt to your order management system and other processes or even help you build everything you need from the start. Our strength is the flexibility to integrate and adapt to different system environments and operating systems of our clients.

Your customers will have all the thinkable ways to reach out for support and the option to choose the most pleasant method for contacting regardless of their age or any other factor. Our professional, native call center agents are sales-minded and have been trained to meet customers and various people always in a friendly and solution-oriented way – we treat your customers as our own.

Happy customer = returning customer

Customer service encompasses all interactions between a customer (or potential customer) and a company. This may happen over the phone or email, on social media services, and in chat conversations. Customer service covers the entire customer experience from the very first contact to sales and beyond – and is crucial for success. By offering a top-notch customer experience you'll gain a competitive advantage and have loyal customers that bring in new customers – absolute win-win-situation. Customer service is now seen as a new competitive advantage, and it can be the key factor on how to differentiate from other e-commerce players.

How customer experience can be a differentiator

But what are the benefits of localization and having native speaking customer service and how can it be foundational to your success?

• Better sales – customers are more likely to buy when they have information in their own language
• Larger audience – you can reach a larger audience using the local language
• Good customer experience – there is a native speaking professional customer service as the face of your company, there are no misunderstandings or chaos because of a language barrier
• Retaining customers – customer service is the key to retaining customers and extracts more value for them
• Customer loyalty – loyal customer brings in new customers and positive testimonials are more effective and cheaper than any other marketing efforts.

Finland is an exciting prospect for many e-commerce players planning to expand their business to the Nordic market. What the Finnish consumers lack in volumes they make up in consumer behavior. The stereotypical view of Finnish people being reserved and antisocial is quite accurate when it comes to our preferred shopping habits – we like to do our shopping from the comfort of our own homes where no salespeople will attack us with “can I help you” as soon as we enter the store.

If you are planning market expansion to Finland, you might have your doubts over our small population. Can we get enough volumes from Finland? Why would we take the chance?

If you are past this point you might also be wondering:

How should I translate my website content? Should I find a suitable translation agency, use a translation service, or even take a chance with Google Translate? Or should I just stick with English texts?

Finnish consumers do understand English well but its never a good idea to leave your texts in English in the long run as Finnish consumers do prefer content in their native language and of course it affects your search engine visibility negatively. Using Google Translate is a certain recipe for disaster as Finnish is one of the most difficult languages in the world and we have seen too many cases where it has gone wrong especially if the original language has not been English. The same applies to automatic translation tools. We cannot really recommend anything else than human translations.

Where can I find a call center in Finland that can give my customers quality service in their native language?

There are several companies that can provide you with similar services but besides Mixtra, its very difficult to find another that specializes in foreign companies, being able to work in all sorts of systems smoothly but the thing that really separates Mixtra from other call centers is our personnel´s skillset in the art of selling.

Many of our clients have a separate phone line just for orders and when taking in orders it’s only logical to do some additional sales. Our personnel are highly trained in upselling and gather a lot of praise with their sales statistics, often beating other countries in upsell rate comparison. Not to mention our super friendly customer service in both Finnish and Swedish, state of the art call-system with specified reports, ability to moderate social media accounts, operate a chat and efficiency in handling emails. 

How could my company get a physical location in Finland? I want to provide my customers smooth order return process. I also need some warehouse space for my products so that they can be shipped quickly to the customers.

Not a problem. We handle returns for many of our customers and as our office space also contains a large warehouse, we have plenty of space for your returns so that they can be sent back to your main warehouse in bulk. We also storage the whole product range of some of our clients and send their orders to the end consumers. This is very efficient for our clients that are from outside the European Union and would normally be restricted by free movement of goods from outside the EU.

What digital marketing agency should I turn to in Finland? I want to find one that is easy to communicate with and has a real desire to see us growing in Finland

Have you ever been in a situation where you ask your digital marketing agency a question and it takes a week or two until you get an answer? We at Mixtra always respond to you usually on the same day and if the question is difficult, we will still reply to you straight away to let you know that we are working on it. There is no such thing as radio silence with us.

And why we want to see your company grow? Because we understand the fact that when we can grow our client’s business it has a huge effect for our future collaboration. If we manage to sell our other services to your company seeing you grow brings us more events to charge which is a win-win for both parties but even if it’s just our digital marketing services you are interested in, the mentality in digital marketing strategy remains the same – fast but profitable growth.

The cornerstone of our profitable growth strategy is effective measuring, active testing and allocating the ad spend where it actually brings results. Looking blindly at a certain level of return on ad spend will only get you so far, especially after all the changes in consumer privacy and measuring becoming more difficult all the time. Sometimes you need to be bold when spending on ads but not too bold – its all about the balance, making sure that the most cost-effective marketing channels like Newsletter and SEO are in place and the overall result stays profitable from month to month.

Our main area of expertise in the field of digital marketing consists of Google Ads, Facebook ads and Search Engine Optimization.

Google Ads is a challenging game in Finland. If your business is not on a mainstream field selling electronics, clothing etc. the search volumes are low, and you will face difficulties finding eligible keywords. Finnish words are also extremely long which causes problems with the character limits on the headlines. But working with us these things will not cause any problems as we will find the best keywords with enough search volumes no matter what field of business you are working in. And abbreviating words and expressions comes naturally to us not only because we are fluent in Finnish but also because we have spent so many hours scratching our heads thinking on how to rephrase typical marketing copy-texts that are much easier to use in other languages.

Facebook and Instagram advertising is much simpler in Finland. Our population is so small that you don’t really have to worry about targeting – keep the audiences broad and the algorithm will find your best audience. And even after all the IOS 14 changes taking place Facebook and Instagram are still the best channels besides Google Ads in prospecting and generating sales. But there are still mistakes to avoid that we see from time to time: using identical audiences in different campaigns causing audience overlapping, optimizing for link clicks instead landing page views in traffic campaigns, not tracking all the important events or optimizing campaigns on events like purchase when there are not enough purchases coming in. Just to name a few. No matter if you have winning formulas in other countries that you are looking to replicate in Finland and just need our help with the copy-texts or want us to take charge of the account completely, creating banners everything else we are happy to help.

In search engine optimization the most important thing is quality content. Some companies take the easy road buying backlinks and there is nothing wrong with that. We do not have a moral dilemma and can help you buy those links, but we don’t recommend doing so. We recommend creating quality content – category and blog texts rich with relevant keywords. Creating useful content that people will share to others online. And if don’t have those texts for us to translate no worries – we have a house full of copywriters that can create that content for you. And if your budget allows it – buying for backlinks can always be done in a better way in commercial cooperation with influencers that provide your site links that have authority. We are happy to help in finding your company the best influencers to highlight your products or services. And our vast network means that we can do so relatively fast.

Besides Google, Facebook, Instagram ads and SEO, our digital marketing services include Analytics, tracking and tag implementation, Bing Ads, LinkedIn ads, site checks and much more. We help both B2C and B2B businesses with their digital marketing endeavors so no matter what kind of business you have or what services you are interested in we can surely tailor a package that suits your individual needs.

What payment and delivery methods should my store have in Finland? Are there any legalities I should know when operating in Finland?

 We are happy to consult you with anything related to the Finnish market. We have vast experience of running webstores and companies in Finland so we have already solved those potential legal issues you might face, and we know all the winning formulas to make your webstore´s conversion rate as good as it can be.

By the way, if you wish to expand to all Nordic countries, we have can help you with all the mentioned services above also in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. If you are curious to hear more about our services and the Finnish/Nordic market, let’s get in touch!

Mixtra is one of the leading service providers in Finland for e-com companies from abroad with a long and profound experience in all areas of market entry, e-commerce, customer service & support and digital marketing.

As we know, Finns appreciate websites and service in their own language. Localization is not just removing language barriers by translating texts in your website or contents in your social media channels. It is not enough that people can understand if it does not resonate with the recipient. Localization means adapting into a specific market and meeting the needs of language, culture and local look and feel – without losing the company’s own tone of voice.

We have been extremely happy to create several success stories when we have been part of our clients’ progress from translating to localizing and adapting. After that they do not just only sell and ship to Finland – they also exist in Finland.

By localizing your business, you can improve the customer journey, and show your local customers that you care about them. A well-adapted company appears more convincing and trustworthy to customers and stands out in a good way. That strengthens the position on the market.

Customer experience is linked to a company’s success. Every little detail, that weakens customer experience and leads to an extra contact, causes costs for a company. And opposite: successful, well-structured, and executed customer experience engages effectively and helps to reach sales goals.

If you are curious to hear more about our localization services and the Finnish market, let’s get in touch!

Mixtra is one of the leading service providers in Finland for e-com companies from abroad with a long and profound experience in all areas of market entry, e-commerce, customer service & support and digital marketing.

1. Google is the most important source of information when Finnish people are online shopping

So, make sure your website content, SEO & SEM marketing is translated in Finnish properly. We have helped our clients with these topics with great success.

2. These are TOP 4 categories people in Finland have bought recently

• Clothes, shoes and accessories
• Home electronics
• Books and magazines
• Beauty and health products
  

If your e-com is offering these products Finnish market is very fruitful landscape for you! We have a solid experience working with these areas.

3. These four topics are highly valued by finnish customers in the delivery process of the e-com.

• Clear delivery costs (93%)
• Good product information and photos (93%)
• Simple returning process (86%)
• Website in their own language (80%)
  

With a well-structured and executed customer experience you can stand out from your rivals. It is also good to remember that the customer experience does not stop when the item is delivered and because the returning customer is also highly valued there is always a need for excellent personal customer service. Well performing customer service is also a corner stone for upsell.

(Source: Posti – Suuri verkkokauppatutkimus 2020)

We are more than happy to help you with a successful market entry. So if you are interested, please contact us!

Mixtra is one of the leading service providers in Finland for e-com companies from abroad with a long and profound experience in all areas of market entry, e-commerce, customer service & support and digital marketing.