Electricity transmission company Caruna makes history, and not in a positive way. The company has received the worst figures in Finnish company history in the customer satisfaction survey – at least Epsi Rating in the studies carried out.
“Out of the industries measured by Eps, no other operator has ever received such low customer satisfaction scores. The situation indicates an exceptionally low level of dissatisfaction among customers,” says Epsi Rating’s country manager for Finland Heidi Laitinen.
In the Epsi Rating report, Caruna’s private customers feel that they do not get value for their money and do not feel valued. Caruna scored only 39.5 points in customer respect, while the industry average is 53.4. This situation is a sign of serious problems in the relationship between the company and its customers.
“Caruna’s customer satisfaction index scores among consumers have fallen by 5.9 index points and are now at a record low of 38.8. This negative development is in contrast to many other companies that have managed to improve or keep their customer satisfaction stable,” says Laitinen.
Caruna includes two different distribution companies: Caruna Oy, which mainly operates in sparsely populated areas, and Caruna Espoo Oy, which operates in urban areas. The lowest customer satisfaction scores were for Caruna Oy. Caruna Espoo was in second last place in the satisfaction of private customers. Its scores were also alarmingly weak.
Caruna has a total of approximately 740,000 customers.
No expectations for better
According to the results, Caruna is unable to meet customers’ expectations in terms of service quality and value for money, which explains the companies’ low customer satisfaction scores in the overall index as well
Electricity transmission companies are in a monopoly position. According to Laitinen, a monopoly company should not be lax in investing in customers.
“However, the customers are the group that the company must take care of: meet their wishes and expectations. Unfortunately, this has not been successful now”, Laitinen points out.
It’s a shame that with Caruna, customers don’t have better expectations.
“The worst situation is that customers no longer expect anything from the company. The situation has become difficult in terms of customer experience,” says Laitinen.
Bad publicity is not always reflected in customer satisfaction
Caruna has repeatedly been in negative headlines. In recent years, the company was hit hard by its drastic price increases. Recently, it has come to light that the owners of Caruna have taken the Finnish state to the arbitration court with their claims of two billion euros. The matter is connected to the changes made to the pricing mechanism of electricity transmission companies.
According to Laitinen, bad news should not mean that the company cannot keep its own customer base very satisfied.
“We have many examples of this from the construction industry. There are operators there who have taken care of the customers and kept them satisfied, even though there has been a negative stigma in the public eye,” says Laitinen.
In 2023, the turnover of the Caruna Group was EUR 494.3 million. It was EUR 9.7 million more than in 2022. The group’s operating profit last year was EUR 212.5 million, compared to EUR 184.7 million the year before. Caruna distributed 130 million euros in dividends to its owners.
Caruna: Customer satisfaction has improved
Caruna is not a client of Epsi Rating. The company has not yet seen the results of Epsi Rating’s study, so it is not able to analyze the results in more detail. Caruna’s account manager Kosti Rautiaise took revengeaccording to the company measures customer satisfaction using the NPS recommendability index.
“In 2017, we started from a level of -3.9 when we started developing a customer-oriented operating model. Since then, customer satisfaction measured annually has improved step by step thanks to customer-oriented network development and renewal of services. Currently, the customer satisfaction we measure is around 35”, says Rautiainen by email.
In the NPS index, 35 is already considered a good number.
“The operating models and processes of the customer service have been completely renewed in recent years, thanks to which the customers now find the transaction effortless CES (customer effort score) = 4.1 (on a scale of 0-5) and thanks to digitalization, we are also the most cost-effective operators in the field,” says Rautiainen.
According to him, the accelerating energy transition and the electrification of society create completely new requirements for network development and customer service.
This is how the research was done
For the Sähkönsiirto 2024 study, EPSI Data Collection Services interviewed about 4,800 people over the age of 18 living in Finland and companies that have an electricity contract.
The interviews were conducted between 26 September and 4 November 2024. The index is produced on a scale of 0–100, where 0–60 is dissatisfied, 60–75 is satisfied, and over 75 is very satisfied.
The margin of error for customer satisfaction is in the range of approx. +/- 2-3 index points on a scale of 0-100. The statistical confidence level is 95%.
EPSI Rating is a non-profit academic organization owned by the Swedish Institute for Quality (SIQ), which in turn is owned by the Swedish state.
“Simultaneously The Energy Agency control methods have been used to significantly limit the development of the company’s turnover, and this, of course, in a financial sense, sets boundary conditions for everything we can and are able to do,” says Rautiainen.
Kuopio number one
In the Epsi Rating survey, private customer satisfaction is at the top this year Kuopio Energy Electricity Networks, Vantaa Energia Sähköverkotas well as Nurmijärvi Sähköverkko. Kuopio Energia Sähköverkot’s winning score is 69.6, Vantaa Energia Sähköverkot ranks second with 67.8 points, and Nurmijärvi Sähköverkkot’s score was 67.6 points.
“All these companies have also improved their scores from the previous year, which indicates their continuous development work to improve customer satisfaction. The results at the top are consistent. Up to fourth Helen Sähköverkon the result is 67.5, and the top four can fit within about two index points of each other,” Laitinen points out.
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