St1 powers up customer service and efficiency with Salesforce

30 million barrels of oil; 1,400 retail stations; 600,000 customer visits per day. St1➚ is a powerhouse in the Nordics energy market, helping to produce, sell, and develop economically viable, environmentally sustainable energy solutions. For example, the company’s oil refinery is currently being converted to a bio-refinery.

"The traditional fuel market is declining, energy providers that can't adapt will be left behind," said Erica Samuelsson, Head of Marketing at St1. "To keep investing in renewable energy, we need to keep making a profit, and that means delivering a great customer experience."

St1 Nordic focuses on fuel retail and marketing operations in Finland, Sweden and Norway, and an oil refining operation in Sweden. The company was also among the first in Finland and Sweden to offer Apple Pay to customers with its St1 Mastercard credit card. 

“Our strong performance in the traditional oil business enables us to invest in the future,” said Samuelsson. “Our goal is to increasingly replace fossil energy with domestic renewable options. We are already recycling waste for renewable fuel and using wind power to produce green electricity.”

The €5.5 billion company has expanded through a series of acquisitions, which have been assimilated into St1’s 10 business units. This growth has resulted in a geographically diverse workforce and fragmented IT systems.

“With people and processes working in such a fragmented way, we lacked visibility of the customer journey and risked giving people a disjointed experience,” said Customer Service Manager, Laura Lampola. "Customer service shouldn't be like piecing together a jigsaw. With Salesforce, we now have a single view of the big picture across sales, service, and marketing.”

St1 started its Salesforce journey in 2014, with the aim of implementing Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud across St1 Nordic by 2017. “Usage is growing every day,” said Katarina Viklund, CRM Solution Manager & Salesforce Product Owner at St1. “We’ve already seen a number of efficiency gains and there’s still a lot more that we can achieve.”

For example, the customer service team for St1 can now log all incoming calls and emails centrally using Service Cloud. “In the past, we had to look in multiple systems to answer a customer query, all while the clock was ticking,” said Lampola. “With Service Cloud, we can get to the right information more easily and more quickly, which improves the experience for both our consumer and B2B customers.”

Customer service agents also use Chatter to collaborate with colleagues in different teams. "Chatter's broken down the boundaries between departments and countries, it's great for getting people working together," added Lampola.

St1 Nordic has also achieved similar visibility and efficiency across its sales operation, which oversees the direct sales of a wide range of energy products and services to both private and corporate customers. "With Sales Cloud, we can see the status of every opportunity, and be more predictive about customer behaviour," said Anniken Heder, Sales Director B2B for St1 in Norway. "We have a saying that if it's not in Salesforce, it didn't happen."

As well as tracking opportunities, contracts, and contacts, Sales Cloud integrates with Outlook to help manage the allocation of incoming leads based on the resources available. The sales team also uses the Salesforce mobile app to access customer records on the go. "Responding to customers quickly and accurately is key to a good overall experience. And happy customers are more likely to be repeat customers," said Heder.

To improve customer satisfaction and engagement even further, St1 has started using Marketing Cloud to develop more compelling communications and streamline its processes. “With Marketing Cloud, we can develop the right content for the right audiences, which will help to strengthen our brand,” said Samuelsson.

The customer service team within St1 Nordic is also looking at new ways to connect with its customers, such as Salesforce SOS, which enables video chat. “We want to offer our customers the channel they prefer when connecting with us,” said Lampola. “With Salesforce, we can keep adding new functionality.”

St1 has already tapped into the wealth of resources available via the Salesforce AppExchange, deploying apps that help to identify incoming callers; simplify the configure, price, and quote process; and deduplicate data. "With the AppExchange, we can keep innovating without having to develop new functionality ourselves. This is a massive benefit for us," said Viklund.

The company has also rolled out a credit card processing app underpinned by Salesforce. When a transaction goes through the app, payment details are logged on the customer’s record while the system automatically does a credit check. If the transaction is approved, Salesforce puts it through to the accounting system for processing. All enquiries and support requests relating to the process are managed via Service Cloud, offering a truly seamless customer experience.

Rapid and ongoing innovation will support St1 as it continues to grow its business and its investment in renewable energy. “Energy companies are facing some of the biggest challenges in history right now,” said Heder. “With Salesforce, we can build a stronger business to tackle these challenges. We can enrich the customer experience. We can optimise our processes. And we can invest in a more sustainable future for generations to come.”

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