In recent years, Vattenfall has taken major steps towards making customer communication increasingly personal. This is reflected not only in the message itself, but also in the freedom customers have to choose the channel through which they receive communication. While customers can currently choose between a letter or email, the expectation is that in the future they will be able to differentiate per message.
Through digitalisation and personalisation, Vattenfall aims to give customers more control over their communication preferences. AddComm fully understands the complexity that a company like Vattenfall faces when it comes to customer communication. In this interview, Michiel Deurwaarder, Senior Strategic Buyer, and Heleen Boer, Manager Process Management, explain why AddComm is their print partner of choice.
When Vattenfall started looking for a new partner for physical transactional communication, several key criteria played a role. “Vattenfall is subject to European tender regulations, which means we are required to run formal tender processes,” Michiel explains. “In such a tender, you work with exclusion criteria and scored requirements. If data security and fallback facilities are not in order, we simply cannot do business.”
“In addition, we were looking for a partner that operates extremely efficiently in this part of customer communication, has a strong implementation plan and offers the ability to track and trace all documents throughout the entire process. Based on all these criteria, AddComm won the tender.”
Vattenfall has now been working with AddComm for some time, and both Michiel and Heleen are very positive about the collaboration. “Would I recommend AddComm? Yes, and that is not something I say lightly,” Michiel states. “What I value most is the direct communication and the fact that they truly have a can-do mentality and live up to it.”
Heleen recognises this as well. “I find AddComm to be a very flexible partner. The people are highly motivated to take on work and to do it well. Because the communication lines are so direct, the organisation feels very compact and we can align quickly.”
“Towards the end of last year, for example, we ran a loyalty campaign where part of our customer base received a booklet by post. We requested quotes from several parties, but AddComm came out on top. Even though it was an ad hoc request, they responded quickly and professionally. That speed and flexibility really stand out to me.”
“In our conversations, I notice that AddComm’s specialists have a deep understanding of the entire spectrum of customer communication,” Heleen continues. “They understand the markets Vattenfall operates in. They actively share possibilities with us and regularly show that they would like to do more for us. Time will tell how that collaboration continues to evolve.”
For Michiel, the key added value of the partnership is certainty. “We know that what we intend to send actually gets sent. We communicate with two million customers, both on paper and digitally. If there are disruptions in the process and letters are delayed, we notice this immediately in our call centre. And if invoices are sent too late, it impacts our cash flow forecasts.”
“With AddComm, we can trust that things are handled properly. The fact that we have also outsourced the first batches of marketing communication to them, in addition to transactional communication, is a clear sign of our satisfaction.”
Would you like to learn more about this collaboration, or are you also looking for a partner to optimise your customer communication? We are happy to think along with you about shaping your customer communication process, both offline and online.