PR1-9 AND MANAGEMENT APPROACH
Electrolux takes an active interest in consumer safety and quality assurance relating to all its products throughout their life cycle
Safety and quality are included in procedures for evaluating suppliers, designing products, selecting materials, testing finished appliances and monitoring product performance. A process is in place to ensure that these procedures are harmonized across the Group.
Electrolux products meet and exceed applicable legal requirements regarding consumer health and safety
In order to qualify for use, products and components sourced from external suppliers are subject to an assessment procedure including safety and quality elements.
Before a product designed by Electrolux goes into production, it undergoes a number of tests and quality assurance activities. It is tested throughout production to ensure that it complies with safety and quality criteria. Tests are based on international and national standards, on whose expert committees Electrolux is a regular participant, and on internal best practice guidelines.
The Group monitors information on safety-related incidents continuously, and analyzes early warning signals to identify root causes and effects. These investigations have provided the Group with an understanding of how accidents occur during product use. This expertise is integrated into product development.
In 2014 Electrolux made one recall of a cooker hood in the UK. A voluntary market intervention in Australia began in 2013 and was ongoing in 2014. There were no reported cases of serious incidents to consumers.
The responsibility for product safety rests with the respective sector. To ensure that all major issues are reported to Group management, each sector must have a Sector Product Safety Advisory Committee (SPSAC). All SPSACs must regularly report their sector’s product safety status to the Group Product Safety Advisory Committee (GPSAC).
Energy labels and energy efficiency limits are effective tools to boost uptake of resource-efficient products and weed out poor performers. Required by law in almost all major markets that Electrolux is active in and for all major appliances, labels influence consumer behavior by creating transparency around a product’s energy efficiency and energy consumption.
The European Union legislation requires energy labeling of all major appliances based on an A-G system, with A+++ as the most efficient.
From September 2014, the obligation to also provide an energy label for vacuum cleaners came into effect. This includes energy efficiency (A-G scale) and yearly energy consumption in KWh. In addition it will provide information on dust pick up, noise level and dust re-emission.
An updated energy label for ovens and a new label for cooker hoods apply from January 2015. The first step in minimum energy efficiency limits (eco-design) applying to ovens, hobs and hoods come into force in February 2015 and energy efficiency limits and energy labeling for water heaters apply from September 2015.
In the US, the government’s Energy Star program is a voluntary scheme designed to promote energy-efficient products in 60 product categories. New Energy Star requirements for refrigerators and freezers entered into force in 2014. Energy Star for clothes dryers will be introduced in US from 1st of January 2015.
In Australia and New Zealand, Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) and Energy Rating Labels (ERL) have compared electrical goods for 25 years. In 2014 a study commissioned by the Australian government concluded that the ERL continues to be an effective tool recognized and used by consumers.
Through user manuals, Electrolux provides customers with sustainability information and legally required information regarding safe use of products. These are produced in print (supplied with the product) and now online, via the Electrolux national organization websites.
Globally, Electrolux conducts approximately 150,000 systematic consumer interactions - large and small - every year to find out more about consumer preferences. Consumers’ product experience is also continually followed up through various means and knowledge gained is fed back into design and production processes.
The Group uses methods ranging from ethnographies and contextual observation to quantitative discrete choice surveys as well as analysis of after-sales service feedback.
Encompassing all sectors and all regions, the Global Customer Care Program improves how Electrolux looks after its consumers. A system to monitor the customer-care experience and measure improvements was developed and consumers in Europe are surveyed after a completed service experience using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) scale.
The Consumer Care strategy, to ‘Delight, Propose, Help and Love’ guides the Group’s interaction with consumers. The ‘Help’ element commits Electrolux to work with consumers needing support to resolve their concerns speedily and with empathy. The Group’s service quality standards documentation is updated regularly and is backed up by service quality management workshops at regional, national and corporate level.
Electrolux systematically identifies strategic growth opportunities through consumer and market analysis—enabling the Group to better understand how products are used and how to improve their functionality. Tools include consumer segmentation models, advanced market statistics analysis, a variety of consumer research methods and in-depth understanding of macro-trends. Leveraging these is key to the Electrolux way of creating consumer value and satisfaction.
Electrolux produces guidelines, shared across Business Sectors, on how the environmental attributes of appliances should be communicated. These guidelines are designed to ensure that environmental claims about Electrolux products are factual, balanced and substantiated and reflect laws and standards relevant to the business.
Electrolux uses locally managed CRM (customer relationship management) databases in several markets. In the majority of cases, Electrolux does not have a direct sales relationship with the end-user and CRM databases are primarily based on warranty card information. This is particularly the case in for Electrolux in North America.
Potential non-compliance, disputes or items that pose a material financial risk are reported to Group level in accordance with Group policy.