Survey shows high customer loyalty to Latvijas Finieris and the Riga Wood brand
The changing business environment provides many challenges for both birch plywood manufacturers as well as the customers that use the plywood in various end use products. To discover current insights, Latvijas Finieris carried out a qualitative customer research study, which was finalised at the end of the first quarter of 2022.
The purpose of the research was to determine the strengths and weaknesses of Riga Wood’s performance: products, services, partnership, and communication. The respondents were comprised of customers from various geographic markets, representing heavy building, light building, road transport and wholesale distribution industries. Interviews were held in 2 stages – the 4th quarter of 2021 and in February–April 2022. The results from stage two were affected by the Russian war activities in Ukraine.
The cornerstones of Riga Wood performance
High quality products and services, an individual approach and tailored solutions, and loyalty and stability were among the key strongholds of the Riga Wood brand’s performance. Furthermore, a high appreciation was given for product assortment and solutions, especially to Riga ECOlogical green glue, which has secured a stable position among sustainable building materials. This goes hand in hand with Latvijas Finieris’ strategic development and the demand from the market.
Room for improvement
One of the significant shortcomings from Riga Wood is communication frequency. Apart from day-to-day communication, customers would like to receive news on product and business development projects, and various topics related to corporate culture and sustainable development. Another aspect scrutinised by respondents was the lead time. From one hand, customers would like to see the orders much sooner in their warehouses, but on the other hand the respondents showed understanding that the lead times and on-time deliveries were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, shortage of containers, and the war in Ukraine.
Tālivaldis Silenieks, head of marketing at Latvijas Finieris, comments: “Overall, the study results show that Riga Wood customers are willing to develop even closer ties and cooperation with the Riga Wood team to strengthen partnerships on various levels. We are pleased to learn that Latvijas Finieris and Riga Wood strategies are in line with customers’ perspective. Already, there are various actions in place to work on our deficiencies. In the past years we have built our brand equity though professional product development and sales teams, customer service and responsible actions. In the foreseeable future our objective is to support the above with engaging communication, strengthening customer support and new product development.”
High-quality products and service have always been among the priorities of Latvijas Finieris and Riga Wood. Therefore, active re-structuring is taking place by forming a new customer support team with a focusing on service quality to keep this promise.