Focus on customers and consumers
Important competitive advantages for Essity are our understanding, knowledge and insight into the needs and purchasing behavior of customers and consumers, global expertise, strong customer relations and knowledge of local and regional market conditions. To understand their needs and expectations, we engage in a continuous dialogue with our customers and consumers.
Essity’s products and solutions help to simplify everyday life for many people. To succeed, we have to understand the needs of our customers and consumers and how we can best satisfy them. Customer understanding and consumer insight determine the innovations we develop and how we deliver finished products and solutions to the market. We want to contribute to improving the quality of life and well-being among our target groups.
We study the world around us and identify trends and new needs. We learn a lot from our sales representatives and we conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys. We engage in a dialogue with consumers through focus groups and in-depth interviews. We observe consumer and customer behavior, for example, through home visits. We also gain insight into the needs of consumers and their perceptions of our products by following the discussions on our websites, such as www.libero.com, www.libresse.com and www.tena.com, and on social media.
In 2017, Essity’s efforts to contribute to increased quality of life and well-being included challenging the taboo that exists about menstruation in sports and fitness in order to improve the opportunities of girls to work out and compete. We also, for example, eased the workload of personnel at Gekås in Ullared, Sweden, and further developed our LymphCare online platform for improving life for people suffering from lymphedema.
© FC Rosengård
The Period Challenge
The aim of the Period Challenge is to improve the prerequisites for girls to train and compete by opening for a culture in sports clubs and teams that enables girls to talk openly about how menstruation affects the body and how they feel. Unfortunately, preconceptions that training during menstruation is harmful and impedes performance are not uncommon. Many girls are also worried that others will find out that they are menstruating. The Period Challenge urges girls to talk about how menstruation and the menstrual cycle affect the body’s potential in connection with training. No one should have to suffer silently by not talking about menstruation.
The art of managing to refill paper hand towels for five million visitors
Gekås Ullared is a low-price department store in Sweden with nearly five million visitors annually. Each customer spends an average of four hours and 43 minutes in the store, which results in many visits to the 115 washrooms and considerable demands on the janitors for cleaning and refilling. During 2017, the latest paper hand towel innovation Tork PeakServe® facilitated cleaning for staff at Gekås and improved the customer experience.
Tork PeakServe® is specifically designed for high-traffic areas. With the highest capacity in the market, it can serve 250% more visitors between refills compared with a traditional paper hand towel dispenser. This results in fewer complaints about empty paper hand towel dispensers. The time cleaning staff save by less frequent refilling can be spent on other tasks to enhance the visitor’s washroom experience. The system is easy to load, generates less waste and gives a more hygienic and pleasant washroom. Furthermore, the paper hand towels are compressed by 50%, which results in smaller pack sizes and thus reduced storage space requirements.
After a test of Tork PeakServe® at Gekås, the new system received the highest approval rating. And Gekås has chosen to install Tork PeakServe® in almost all washrooms in the department store. Ulrika Kerttu, site manager at Sodexo, the company that accounts for all cleaning at Gekås, says: “This system hasn’t come a day too soon. We now have Tork PeakServe® throughout the store. It makes our job easier.”
Talking about lymphedema and sharing experiences
Amy Santiago from Florida, USA, lived with undiagnosed lymphedema for 18 years. “I first noticed something wrong as a teenager, when my legs started swelling. It was only years later that I even heard the word lymphedema,” says Amy. It was only when she was due to go into surgery that a doctor diagnosed her with primary lymphedema.
Our LymphCare program is designed to help people like Amy to manage their lives with lymphedema. It is a virtual tool that connects and engages patients and therapists. Read more about the LymphCare program at www.lymphcareusa.com/patient.html. It contains information on the latest product innovations and treatment options, and provides a supportive community environment in which they can talk about the disease. Patients can log into the website and collect such information as medical prescriptions, doctors’ appointments and journal notations.
Since her diagnosis, Amy has taken part in a number of pageants to give a voice to lymphedema. She feels that sharing experiences is the first step to recovery. In fact, Amy volunteered to model garments for the JOBST® photo shoot in spring 2017. Amy wore the products that she currently uses, the JOBST® Elvarex daytime garment and the JOBST® Relax night-time garment.
“It’s such an incredible feeling to see the growth and movement in talking about lymphedema. It has helped me to overcome mountains. It gives a voice to my story and shows that you don’t have to suffer in silence”, Amy says.
About lymphedema:
Lymphedema is a lasting swelling that can affect all parts of the body but usually arises in arms or legs. The swelling results from an impaired flow of lymphatic fluid through the lymphatic system. The predominant treatment for lymphedema is compression. Essity is the number one global provider of compression therapy products, offering medical compression garments such as stockings, bandages and dressings under the JOBST® brand.