Press release, 25 January 2005

Saunalahti and Sonera received the highest customer satisfaction ratings of all mobile phone operators in Finland. This is one of the results from the latest EPSI Rating study concerning mobile phone operators in Finland.

The best scores were given to Saunalahti (75.6) and Sonera (74.4), followed by DNA (72.3) and Elisa (70.7) on the EPSI Rating index scale (from 0 to 100). The industry as a whole received a customer satisfaction index of 72.9.

The first EPSI Rating measurement in Finland was done in 1999. Since then, satisfaction with mobile operators has decreased by 0.7 points. As a comparison, the Finnish banking industry has been able to increase its customer satisfaction index during the same period by 5.0 points.

Among individual mobile phone operators, Sonera's customer satisfaction rating has improved by 0.4 index points since 1999, while Elisa's decreased by 1.7 index points in the same time.

The main source of customer dissatisfaction with mobile phone operators seemed to be the lack of personal customer service and customer assistance.

In addition to customer satisfaction indexes, customer loyalty indexes were assigned to the operators. Interestingly, the loyalty indexes showed much greater differences between operators than the satisfaction indexes did. The loyalty indexes for the individual operators were: 80.1 for Saunalahti, 73.5 for DNA, 72.1 for Sonera, and 67.2 for Elisa.
 
The error margin for the indexes is +/- 2 index points.

The data were gathered through telephone interviews in December 2004. Only mobile phone users who pay their phone invoice themselves were included in the study. In total, 750 respondents were interviewed.

This research is part of an international customer satisfaction research measurement, the EPSI Rating program. It is coordinated by the Institutet för Kvalitetsutveckling (SIQ) and the Stockholm School of Economics. The research is coordinated in Finland by Dr. Juhani Kuokkanen.

In Finland, the next EPSI studies to be published concern fixed-line operators and supermarket chains.

Additional information:
Dr. Juhani Kuokkanen; phone: +358 40 5093401, e-mail: juhani.kuokkanen@epsi-finland.org
Docent Jan Eklöf; phone: +46 70 6964185, e-mail: jan.eklof@hhs.se

On the Internet:
www.kvalitetsindex.se
www.epsi-finland.org