We aim to add value to customers by offering innovative world-class services and a superior customer experience. Our success is built on providing high-quality and safe networks to our customers. In response to the general concern over the risk of privacy invasion related to the ICT industry, TeliaSonera works actively to be a safe and reliable choice. We continue to engage in privacy and network integrity issues and promote safe use of the internet.
Through our services, we are part of our customers’ daily lives, in business, education and pleasure. By leading innovation and pioneering technology, we continue to develop reliable and customer-friendly services that bring people closer to each other and make life easier.
We contribute to a world of better opportunities by improving our customers’ quality of life. Our services increase flexibility and save time, allowing for a better work-life balance and increasing productivity. Our services facilitate access to education, public services, health business applications and entertainment.
Tele and videoconferencing services are one example. These can help can reduce business travel and environmental impact, and save both time and cost. Our conferencing services are frequently used in the Nordic and Baltic countries to conduct daily business, and we are seeing a positive growth in demand also in Eurasia.
Another example is how mobile devices can be used to communicate with and control equipment in remote locations, providing an endless number of opportunities to save time, energy and even lives. This includes controlling lighting and temperatures at home or in the office from a distance or alerting a security company during burglaries, automated remote electricity readings, mobile banking transactions, payments to utility companies or mobile health projects, bringing medical assistance to remote areas.
Best-in-class networks to secure availability and reliability
Responding to the growing demand for bandwidth, one of our strategic focus areas is to provide best-in-class networks to our customers in each market. At the same time, we face shifting demands on the availability of networks from different stakeholders, for instance authorities, companies and end-users. To answer up to these expectations, we continue to perfect our power back-up systems, transmission redundancy and solutions for recovery and introduce increasingly higher quality into the mobility networks by securing availability and reliability. 24/7 supervision of networks enables instant, proactive and effective measures when problems are identified.
Responsible marketing
One of our priority areas in Corporate Responsibility is responsible marketing. This includes, for example, clarity of tariffs, clear customer bills, services to manage usage and responsible communication with minors. Our local marketing departments work closely with our legal departments to ensure national marketing regulation compliance, and we have launched a number of initiatives across our operations to improve clarity of our customer tariffs and prices.
The TeliaSonera group sponsorship strategy applies the ICC International Code on Sponsorship. In addition, special care has been taken in marketing towards minors, with a strict ban on direct marketing to children.
Towards world-class customer experience
We strive to offer a genuine world-class customer experience by continuously developing our customer service processes and offerings. We use The Extended Performance Satisfaction Index (EPSI) survey to compare our performance across the group and with industry peers, so far in nine countries. In 2010, the group average satisfaction score for all measured countries reached 70.2. Our ambition is to reach a score of 77 for the TeliaSonera group, as a proof of being regarded as a genuine service company and best in class in the service industry.
This high ambition level means that we must continue to focus on improving both processes in our customer support and the quality of our products and services, their functionality and usability, marketing, packaging, as well as our communication and brand reputation in each market.
Net neutrality and openness
Net neutrality and the open character of the internet are increasingly debated internationally. As a result of the rapid increase in the volume of traffic passing over the internet and the pace of technological changes taking place, we believe that the freedom and flexibility to effectively manage traffic is what incentivizes operators to constantly increase their efficiency and thereby to provide better services to customers.
However, this means that customers must have realistic possibilities to make informed decisions and compare different offerings. All content and application services should flow across networks, but all types of applications cannot be included in all price models. Therefore TeliaSonera has announced to implement a transparency declaration related to broadband in the Nordic and Baltic countries. According to the declaration our broadband customers will be appropriately informed of issues such as the realistic speed to be expected, limitations in traffic types, services or applications, amount of data included in the fair usage level and consequences for beyond the level, and any traffic management measures that are essential to the customer experience.
Customer privacy and network integrity
TeliaSonera encourages and wants to actively contribute to the public debate on matters regarding Security, Openness and Privacy.
Customers use our services to communicate and store personal and confidential information in their homes, on the move and in their workplaces. We are committed to protecting and safeguarding customer privacy, by striving to operate the most secure communication network in the world and taking actions to prevent unauthorized access to personal data. This is clearly stated in our Code of Ethics and Conduct.
We collaborate with the ICT industry, the UN, human rights NGOs, the EU and local governments and authorities to ensure consumer protection and privacy measures are considered in the drafting of new laws and regulations. In each market where we operate, we adhere to national regulations and supply authorities with information only when so required by courts and in response to formal requests from appropriate authorities.
Protecting young users and children
The protection and safety of vulnerable users is central in our Corporate Responsibility efforts and pay special attention to protecting children and young people from abuse within the scope of our services. Although the digital world is an essential part of socializing for new digital natives, they may not always realize when they are exposing themselves to risk. We recognize the increased risk of bullying, sexual harassment, exploitation, grooming and other abuse. We actively encourage children, teenagers, parents, teachers and other adults to reflect on and discuss what happens on the internet and where to draw the line between publicly available and personal information.
Taking a stand against child sexually abusive images online is another important area. We believe that a multi-stakeholder approach, including politicians, NGOs and the telecom industry is the only way to identify long-term solutions to tackle these complex issues. We collaborate with authorities, our business partners and well-reputed organizations on putting the protection of vulnerable children and teenagers on the public agenda, and to block websites that are found to contain child sexual abusive images. Acting at the forefront, TeliaSonera International Carrier provides a free Child Safeguard service to its operator customers around the world to prevent distribution of such images.
We are also involved in activities to raise awareness of how to use mobile phones with care and avoid mobile bullying, and provide customers with tools to limit the access of their children’s internet usage.
Read more about our customer relations in the Corporate Responsiblity report 2010