Well the tide seems to be turning

Well today i noticed for the first time that there seems to be a new pattern emerging of people publishing their success stories onto If vahinkovakuutus's wall. This has happenned a few times now but it seems to have increased in response to my actions.

Well this may mean that i have alienated my audience to the point where they themselves want to actively defend If vahinkovakuutus. Or if have been very clever and carried out their own counter campaign?

Why would the Finns turn agains me? I have not only been trying to overturn my claim decision but have also tried to get if to change their own terms and policies so as to protect other customers. It seems to me if anything they should be getting behind me.

Well i think again there are factors at play outside of my control. This is namely the Finnish culture. Finns are very patriotic and truely believe in all things Finnish and Finland. Finland is the golden land. BTW that is why when Finns leave for foreign jobs they often say they are never coming back ;-)

Anyway with the rise of  the True Finns political party and the increasing resistance to immigration of foreigners to Finland by the native population there has also been a clear switch of national attention to multiculturalism in Finland generally.

Well as a foreigner in Finland it may very well be that i have singled myself out as someone who goes against the tide, is not afraid to question and try something different. Also as a foreigner in Finland and with the sentiment to foreigners in this country i myself may have managed to portray myself actually as the bad guy in this story. Finns unite against the foreigner?

You may think this silly but it is probably true at least to some degree. I have encountered this so many times here almost to the point of stupidity.

In Finland there is a common dreaded word by all "putkiremontti". Basically it is when your appartment needs to be rennovated and have all the drains, water and often electricity replaced. This is usually carried out through all apparments simultaneously. Finland runs all its appartment buildings as independent companies that are run as democracies so when this happens there is a vote on the subject.

Well having been through this experience this is my story of Finns and Finland. At our housing company meeting we were presented with a proposal by the chairman's friend to do the work for an absolutely obsorbitant fee. I stood up and said that this was an absolute joke as the appartment building next door had paid half as much and that this was clearly a ploy to help the chairmans mate out. An old lady turned around and said to me "he does this work all the time, i am sure he knows what he is talking about, you should listen to him". The vote was passed and we paid double the price we should have.

Finns are very trusting, they do not like people who question, go against the tide, try something different or are of foreign origin. Unfortunately in this situation i am the entire wammy and as such perhaps have come in for a backlash from the Finns in spite of the rational argument that actually would benefit them if I am succesful.
However this would require a degree of empathy something that in my personal experience Finns are not good at.

If you are a Finn and are reading this you may not like what i am saying but consider this, what has happenned to me as a foreigner to actually make me think this way? We are formed by our experiences. We do not arrive with this impression of Finland it is programmed into us.

Adoption of Twitter in the Insurance Industry in Finland

As part of this story i first attempted to engage If vakuutus through Twitter. I discovered that If vahinkovakuutus had no twits and only a few followers and did not follow anyone except their Norwegian counterparts.

You can read more about If' Vahinkovakuutus's social media performance via the blog Post If Vahinkovakutus Social Marketing vs If Sweden Social Marketing.

In any case i decided to have a look at whether or not this pattern was reflected by other insurance companies in Finland.

So in short i took a look at the above. Finnish insurance company's presence on Twitter.

Good news, they were there!!! but..........

Pohjola

Well enough said a big company in Finland. There is no description, the default image, no following, only a few followers, not even a link to the website, no tweets. Well there was not any other. My Evaluation is POOR

Well enough said another large insurance provider in Finland. There is no description, the default image, no following, only a few followers, not even a link to the website, no tweets.  Well there was not any other. My Evaluation is POOR

I have never heard of this company but they seem to have at least added their website and a description but that is about it. Strategy seems simply to drive people to their site not to engage them via social media. Performance is also POOR

Maybe the largest insurance provider in Finland. Well just the same as the others sadly, no content, no following, no followers. Performance can only be described as POOR.

Well If vahinkovakuutus are the only insurance company i have heard of to have a link to their website at least. They also have the most followers but that is artificially high as i have drawn attention to thi sprofile through my actions. It was about 12 followers when i started. There are no twits and not even a description. They only follower their Norwegian colleagues. Performance is POOR.

 So what can be surmised from this. Well it is clear that Insurance companies in Finland have not understood Twitter. For the most part they see it as their own channel to drive traffic to their website which concidently is such a turn of the century strategy. They have not even tried to push out their own marketing content. BTW another prehistoric strategy. This indicates to me that they clearly and simply,

1. Insurance companies in Finland Do Not Get Twitter
2. Insurance companies in Finland do not have Twitter in any real social media strategy
3. Insurance companies have not attempted to engage customers through Twitter in Finland
4. Insurance companies in Finland are behind the rest of the world.

But Why?

Why would Insurance companies in Finland not be present actively here in this media?

Insurance companies in Finland do not value Twitter as a marketing and engagement channel.

But Why?

Well from my own experience during this experiment and when i consider my own twitter followers related to this experiement i see a trand.

Of the followers i have only around 5-10% of them are from Finland. This suggest that even though the content of this experiement was targeted at Finnish people in Finland, they did not follow me as often as people from other countries. Of course language may be a factor here but let's consider the average Twitter user.

The average Twitter user is under 40. In Finland pretty much everyone under this age can speak English despite what they may think themselves. Finns are pretty bashful when asked "can you speak English?" The usual answer is a little but then you proceed to have a fluent conversatipon.

In anycase we are left with the situation where perhaps the level of adoption of Twitter is low by both the companies and the population as a whole. In this case i will not enter into the "which came first the chicken or the egg" type conversation but will simply state that, perhaps Finlands reputation as an early adopter and innovator of new technologies is not justified based upon the populations behaviour regarding Twitter. Or perhaps it is just that Finns are not that "social" which is something that does fit the sterotype of a typical Finn.

Who knows why, but the pattern is clear and i believe is indicative of many Finnish companies performance regarding social media and Social CRM and in part explains If Vahinkovakuutus's slow and not very "customer orientated" response to my own Social Media Experiment.

A Bit of Fun: IF Vakuutus Finland vs IF Insurance Sweden

One thing about the Finns is their love hate relationship with Sweden. For a long period of it's history Finland was ruled by Sweden and of course this explains alot.

Like England and Germany's relationship this is usually most apparent on the sports field and being Scandanavia most importantly on the ice hockey rink. To summarise that relationship so far.

World Champiosnships                                                   Olympics (Gold, Silver Bronze, Total)

Finland 2,6,3,    Total Medals 11                                       0,2,3,     Total Medals 5
Sweden 8,17,15 Total Medals 40                                       2,2,4      Total Medals 8

The Finns wont like that at all but it is the truth. However nicely for the Finns in the world championship victories they did beat the Swedes which adds extra satisfaction!

Coincidently

Britain World Championships Ice Hockey 1,1,1, Total 3 Medals!! Amazing don't have a clue how that is possible.

In terms of love for the Swedes

This is most apparent in the amount of interest here in the Swedish royal family. Especially since the baby arrived.

Ok so the Match UP is IF Vakuutus Finland Online Marketing Vs IF Insurance Sweden Online Marketing

Finland and Sweden are countries of roughly the same size population (a couple of million difference) so the numbers can be interpretted in that way.

YouTube Performance

If Insurance have both a Swedish and Finnish advert. Both are identical except the language. See my Youtube channel for all the content described here.

The current one contains a girl getting out of the pool. Both of these adverts have approximately the same numebr of views and in fact Finland is slightly winning that competition. As such we need a tiebreaker.

Lets take a look at a slightly older advert. Their "Toy Shop advert" also on YouTube of course.

Swedish Advert views 3 756
Finnish Advert views just over 1 169

In this case there is a marked difference. Why?
The swedes applied a trick which worked amazingly well. They uploaded a video of the advert but also with info about how they made it. In the video the toy shop is destroyed and they explain how they did it.

Swedish: how the advert was made advert 73 576 views.

This is amazing they managed to get people to watch the whole advert first (nice one) and then they got to see how it was made. This undoubtedly is a big reason why the Swedes out performed the Finns. Why didn't Finland copy this? They usually do.

If Insurance Sweden win Youtube contest hands down

Twitter

Swedish Twitter 239 Tweets 135 Followers
Finnish Twitter 0 Tweets 27 followers including me (it was about 12 when i started)

Enough said If Vakuutus Finland have not adapted to twitter at all.

IF Insurance Sweden win Twitter competition hands down.

Facebook

In this one group membership is roughly equal.

Finland 5051 members 224 Talking about
Sweden 6504 members 169 Taling about

Finland win talking about, Sweden win membership (Did i affect this?)

Facebook Result Score Draw

LinkedIn

Well only IF Sweden have a profile that i could find so it can only go one way.

IF Insruance Sweden win the LinkedIn Competition.

Final Score

I Insurance Sweden Social Marketing 3 If Vakuutus Finland Social Marketing  0

Epilogue

When groupon came to Finland suddenly there were about 5 copies of the same business idea. That is once the Finns saw it worked.

The large volume of copies of foreign television shows and the lack of original Finnish made shows in Finland is testament to that also. Finns like to copy stuff that works generally and in terms of marketing especially original campaigns and marketing concepts are few and far between.

In my opinion Swedes are much more extravert and this generally leads to a more independent creative environment. Finns are a fairly homogenous population that strives to keep everyone the same. They are more introvert. Finns are not encouraged to be different and are actively encouraged to conform to the norm or to follow the rules i.e. expected norms of behaviour. In this way for professional fields that require creativity, independent thought and looking at and doing things in a different way that may be against the normal way of working, Finns are not culturally suited. This ultimately means they do not excel in fields that require alternative thinking or ways of working outside of the traditional or established means, roles and structures.

The Human and Cultural Aspect

Within this experiment there are other factors at play that have not yet been discussed. Namely the behaviour of the people involved in the experiement and in particular culture.

Within the experiement there are 3 main players whose culture can have an influence on the experiement.

Me and My Cultural Perceptions

I am English, i have lived in Finland for 8 years. I have studied here worked here for Finnish companies and I during this time i have had relationships with Finnish women.

Despite these experiences i am sure i still retain my English culture and still behave as such. However i do also have a unique view of Finnish culture and behaviour that Finns themselves (outside of academia) probably do not.

As an English person or at least as me. I question things, i am passionate, if i get it into my head i am right i do not back down even though the "rules" in place suggest otherwise. I am not passive i am proactive and am not afraid to question, learn and improve myself. I am certainly not afraid to try things that others would not.

In short i feel that these are not generally Finnish traits and i think that Finns and IF do not know how to deal with this as a Finn would not have done what i am doing. This is something new and i am not sure how the Finns will react inthis situation.

Social Media and the Social Community

Social media has helped globalise industries even though the companies themselves may be domestic. Finnish companies (with the exception of Nokia and the paper industry) generally have at least  80% of their business in Finland. People here ask why there has not been another Nokia "miracle". Is culture part of it? Is psyche part of it?

Finnish companies may be even unaware that with the invent of social media and even the internet they are not just visible to Finns alone they become global even though their sales do not necessarrily follow suit. As a marketing professional it is important to maintain their brand not only in their own country but abroad and to all people who may have an interest (customers and stakeholders alike). By doing what i have done i am clearly putting IF onto the global stage. As such in this blog and on IF's wall i am communicating deliberately in English so as to evoke a wider interest than just in Finland. Finland only has a 5 million population that i can target. The globe has 7 billion and growing.

In terms of the members of the social community who are participating in this endeavour their culture also pays a part. As we have had visitors from many countries it is difficult to apply cultural theory here.

However from the data i can see that for example on Twitter most of the followers are from outside of Finland. However if i look at the traffic to the blog 50% is coming from Finland and 50% from outside.

This says something about culture or at least the adoption of Twitter. Although Finns have visited the blog they have not subscribed or started to follow on Twitter. Instead they have chosen to remain anonymous and passive. Why? It could very well be that they totally disagree with what i am doing, a Finn would never do that ;-)

Others who are following on the blog are commenting and sharing on twitter, retweating and liking on Facebook. If this is indeed conducive with If's responses and expectations and hence behaviour this would say much about my increasing frustration with them as perceived from my English perspective.

Finns would not behave this way so they do not know how to respond effectively. They need to understand they are dealing with an Englishman who has different expectations from a Finn. I am their customer though and as such they should adapt to service my needs and expectations. Do they realise this?

Finns and Finland

As an English man i have much higher expectations for customer service than an average Finn.

Finland is not an hierarchical society and in my opinion this in itself  means that Finns do not naturally accept a master and subordinate relationship. People here are always equal and that is the way Finns like it. In my opinion this has a detrimental affect on the level of customer service you receive here. The average Finn working in customer service considers the customer their equal, they do not naturally accept that they are there as a subservant in that relationship. I have experienced many examples of totally unacceptable customer service here, of course as perceived from my English perspective.

It seems often to me here that the simple customer service principle "the customer is always right, even when they are wrong" has not been widely adopted in Finland. I think this is clearly demonstrated by this experiment and IF's responses. I should say here though that is not always that case, i have had excellent customer service in Finland. I will just briefly mention Iitalla who have given me excellent customer service in the past when they themselves have made mistakes with orders and faulty products.

As an Englishman I am more likely than a Finn to interpret rules and apply them based upon the situation. This is often in combination to what we often refer to as common sense. This is especially valued when the rules in place do not apply to a situation, the situation has not been planned for or the whole thing is in flux. A metaphor for this could be that of a football referee (soccer for the Americans).

The football referee has a clear set of rules that apply to the game. The rules are written to give clear black and white guidance that the referee is there to apply. Applying these rules word for word and perfectly will not make you a good referee.

The referee is there also to control the game, violence, anger, the fans the players the coaches and at the top levels the media. If the referee fully applied the rules to every situation the game would very quickly get out of control. Top referees understnad this. They use common sense to apply rules where appropriate.

For example:

If we consider penalties. Many times i have heard, "if that was outside the box, it would have been a foul". That is true, but why was it not given, because the referee wants to control the game, avoid controversy. If he gave the penalty he would potentially affect the game, come in for criticism himself and lose control of the players and fans, especially if he was wrong. In this case the referee interprets when it is best to apply the rules and only does so when he is sure.

When the foul is outside the box it means less in terms of effecting the outcome of the game so he is more likely to give a foul even when he is not sure that it is. This is especially true for example when there have been a series of strong tackles that have not technically been a foul. In this case the referee often blows to give a foul so as to regain control of the game and to calm the players down before a serious injury or bad foul does occur. In this case the rules are applied liberally.

Other examples for the game are, players not getting booked early on in the game for a foul that would get them booked later in the game. Contact with goalkeepers, referees protect them to avoid controversy.

As such a great referee knows when to interpret the rules and apply them to the situation and when it is appropriate to do so. In this way rules are interpretted, bent and applied to situations as appropriate. In this way at some level rules become guidelines and common sense is applied.

In my opinion, Finnish culture does not readily adapt to what English people refer to as common sense. Finns like things nice and black and white they need a rule to apply to a situation to be able to resolve it. As such when a new situation occurs that their are no rules for or when the rules are not suitable finns will often continue to revert to the rule book instead of questioning it and using common sense to resolve the situation. This often causes problems for me personally in other walks of life when compromise and conflict resolution skills are required between parties. It is true that sometimes the rules get changed after the situation occurs so as to avoid the situation next time but for most part the situation acts as precident and the rules will be applied again in the future as in the first case.

Through the media of this blog, i have communicated with IF, i have tried to describe their opportunities and risks early on in the experiment to them. They did not listen. I recognised this Finnish trait described above and i tried to influence them. I obviously failed. If are afraid of setting precident rather than measuring the risks and benefits in this unique situation that they probably do not have any specific guidelines or rules for.

At this moment I have had getting on to 1000 visitors to the blog (and growing daily) as well as what i feel is a valid argument for challenging the claim. In response to If i have clearly outlined what i expect from them and how i wish them to respond so that they can have a framework to work with. Let's see what happens. Next

Conclusion

Characteristically of Finns, in the eye of criticism or conflict they shut down, become defensive stop listening and stick to their guns no matter what.

I am sure that this post in itself will prompt at first a negative reaction from IF and the Finns reading this. If will want to stick to their guns.

I am writing this though as i feel it is valid for the experiment and should be written even though it will probably have a detrimental affect on the outcome from the point of view of changing IF's mind about overturning the claim.

This is after all an investigation into the effectivenss of social media to empower individual customers against organisations and as such it would be foulish to ignore this content as a variable.

However Finns have one more interesting characteristic they seem to be very interested in what people think of them and Finland. I hope that this characteristic will counter act any hostility that may be felt and people of all nationalities will read this and think and maybe change their own behaviour.

Culture is a major factor that affects all business everywhere and in my opinion is often neglected or underestimated.
You can get live updates of the conversation on the Facebook thread by liking it. http://t.co/JlbiA65M Liking will also show support. Comments of course also appreciated. Follow the conversation live also on Twitter @IFinsurance.