Case: Metsä Forest – From good service to sales

From good service to active service

“Our customer service group had previously concentrated on customer service, responding to customers’ requests and processing these requests in various channels. And we were good at that. We wanted to change the role of our customer service group so that it better supported sales and we wanted to stay in touch with certain customer groups more actively,” says Juha Jumppanen, SVP, Member Services at Metsä Forest.

“The goal of our collaboration was to learn skills and gain tools for cold calling and work more efficiently”, says Kalle Ikonen, Manager of Electronic Services at Metsä Forest.

“We asked our contacts who is the best trainer for call centre and outbound calling in Finland. Trainers’ House was highly recommended,” Jumppanen says of the background to the collaboration.

Results followed actions

The target by which the collaboration was measured was to increase the customer service group’s proportion of sales of forest management services and the timber trade. Reaching this target would require higher standards of customer service, sales orientation and activity.

“Both training sessions also included a real call scenario where team members contacted forest owners and then engaged in sparring with professionals from Trainers’ House specialising in telephone work,” Ikonen says.

“The expert element of the work has not disappeared, as a key task of the customer service group is to prepare deals for employees in the field to finalise. The collaboration has also played a part in influencing the forthcoming change in our reporting. During the joint calling time on training days, we had a large number of conversations with customers. These conversations led to direct requests for quotes as well as a large number of meetings with forest owners. Our team experienced a tangible improvement in terms of calling and efficiency,” Ikonen says.