âClear invoicing saves money. Itâs as simple as that.â

“Our invoices must be easy to understand, we must have really good prices and our customer service should answer phone calls and emails quickly enough to enable a good customer experience,” says Peter Mero, MD of Finkraft.

The Finnish energy market consists of about 80 suppliers. Most are local companies that also transmit or produce energy. Finkraft is different.“All we do is sell green electricity at good prices. We’re totally independent of all producers and power transmission companies. That makes us unique,” says Peter Mero, MD of Finkraft. Finkraft is a new name. The company, which used to be called Market Energia, has been owned for a short time by a holding company, the European Energy Group. They own similar companies in Norway (Maxkraft) and Sweden (Svekraft).“This gives us far greater opportunities as a company, due to synergy from nordic co-operation in leadership as well as electricity purchasing and electricity trading with the help of our own Trading & Origination company within the group” explains Peter Mero.

A totally new group of customers

The new ownership structure also brought with it an adjustment to the business strategy. In only a short time, Finkraft has moved from serving private customers only to between 30 and 40 per cent B2B customers. The aim is 50 per cent within one year.“Both areas are growing just as quickly for us, although the volume of electricity isn't growing at the same rate. It’s quite simply more efficient for us to have B2B customers,” confirms Peter Mero, explaining that the benefit of having more B2B customers is that contracts are taken out for longer and that they purchase far more electricity. Finkraft’s customers used to be acquired via active telemarketing work, good reviews from other customers and a competitive lowest price on the consumer comparison website energiavirasto.fi. This continues to work well – when it comes to chasing private customers.Approaching business customers demands a different tactic.

Simple invoices and knowledgeable salespeople

“Our invoices must be simple, we must have really good prices and our customer service should ideally answer phone calls within one minute,” says Peter Mero, Concluding bigger, more complex agreements takes time and requires knowledgeable salespeople. It also takes more work to retain the companies as customers. Add to this the fact that competition is much tougher in the B2B segment, with several major competitors.“At the same time it’s more profitable for us, although it does place demands on having good internal processes, as otherwise you’re wasting your money,” says Peter Mero, explaining that it’s a matter of giving customers the right level of attention at all stages, even if you can’t have personal contact with them all the time. The aim is that once Finkraft has acquired a customer, that customer will stay forever.“The initiative to achieve 50 per cent business customers has turned us into a service company,” confirms Peter Mero.

Fewer calls to customer service

When Finkraft’s services are invoiced, the details included are based on a lot of information. Communicating this simply and clearly is a challenge. There are also a lot of customers and the margins are small. Everything has to be 100 per cent correct. The way to achieve this is largely to make the invoices as simple as possible. This is so that expensive calls to customer service are avoided.“As we’re constantly changing our products, we need a flexible solution that quickly adjusts the invoice templates according to our needs. Stralfors provides us with this,” says Peter Mero. And the effects have quickly become evident.“We now have significantly shorter processes when we change our invoice templates, which naturally saves us money. We can also see a big difference in the invoice deliveries, and the number of calls made to customer service has also fallen by over 20 per cent.”

Aim to grow organically

Finkraft expects to achieve turnover of seven million euros in 2014. In all, they have 1,000 B2B customers and over 12,000 private customers. But these numbers will rise significantly now that the company is a part of the European Energy Group.“We aim to grow organically, and we’ll be much more visible in future. Within five years I expect us to be a much bigger player in Finland,” says Peter Mero, explaining that Stralfors will be an important part of this process.“They’ll be supporting us to become more efficient. Our products must be updated all the time, and the invoice is an important element of this as it’s our only regular contact with customers.“Clear invoicing saves money. It’s as simple as that.”