Launched by Metsä Fibre in 2018, Fibre Online has established itself as an important information channel, serving customers irrespective of the time and day.
The service has received positive feedback from customers, who appreciate finding information about deliveries, delivery schedules and product quality at a single location. In addition, the service contains all the essential documents related to sustainability and product safety.
Tari Väätäinen is the technical customer service manager in charge of Fibre Online and its development. She says the company’s customers play an important role in service development.
“We receive a lot of feedback and development ideas from our customers and include the most important ones in our annual planning and implementation. In recent years, our development efforts have mainly focused on improving service functionality and diversifying the content.”
New functions gratefully received
The latest improvements and additions to Fibre Online include a Chinese-language version, a certification report and a function that makes it easier to monitor sea and road deliveries.
The monitoring function displays the delivery plans from mill to customer: how and when deliveries will take place, and when they are expected to arrive at their destination. The function, launched in 2021, met with a warm welcome, especially in Asia.
“Our Asian customers face long logistics chains and the current global situation can cause major changes to transport schedules. Up-to-date information about schedules is now available at a single location,” says Väätäinen.
The certification report on sustainability issues is another recent development. Among other things, the report indicates the share of FSC and PEFC certified wood in each delivery.
“The monitoring function and certification reports were both based on customer wishes, and user feedback has been very positive.”
The development of both is ongoing. The architecture of Fibre Online will be renewed next, and the service will be built on a new software platform.
“These reforms will improve performance, especially when opening reports with large data volumes. We will also simplify user administration.”
The importance of feedback for development
Although customers mainly use the online service independently, Metsä Fibre’s professionals can help them with deployment – hands-on, if required.
Once the access permissions and user IDs to the service are ready for use, Metsä Fibre’s staff test them with the customer to ensure that they work appropriately. The staff also go through the content and functionality of the online service.
“We can provide training handily through Teams, or as individual or group training. Of course, guidance is also available at other times should it be needed.”
Fibre Online already has more than a thousand users and the number continues to grow, especially in Asia. Väätäinen promises that service development will continue to emphasise one thing in particular:
“Although we discuss development needs within the company, the feedback and development ideas we receive from customers are extremely important. We welcome criticism as much as praise.”