My experiences with

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I ordered a Moi subscription. I set the activation date to when my fixed-term contract with Elisa expires.

I was planning to keep an open mind and see what counter-offers Elisa might come up with. However, it’s easy to say that this kind of customer communication does not appeal to me at all as a reason to stay with the company:

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I find this communication almost outrageous, especially considering that the transfer date is set for after the fixed-term contract ends. Some people might panic and call that number, perhaps doubting if they messed up the transfer date, only to end up listening to the persuasion tactics of marketing clowns.

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How strange.

I didn’t have a fixed-term contract, but I received a message saying: “Please note, if your subscription has a fixed-term agreement, the remaining monthly fees will be charged according to the contract, even if the subscription is transferred away from Elisa…”

In other words, if there is a fixed-term contract that is ending on time, they certainly know how to warn you about it. Only when there is no fixed-term commitment to actually warn about do they use “what-if” scenarios regarding the possibility that it might, in fact, be fixed-term.

I’d say this is contemptuous towards the customer.

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I submitted a “tip” to the Consumer Ombudsman via their website regarding Elisa’s inappropriate and misleading communication, also referring to the content of the message you received. That was only the second time ever that I’ve used that service, so I don’t just type those out for fun every day.

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Now that I got a special permit to go on a solo grocery run, I grabbed a bag of dried sugar mango for the lady of the house, related to Denelia Group. I figured I might as well test for myself what all the hype is about, and my spouse, who gave birth this week, makes for an excellent additional test subject. I was surprisingly excited as I put the bag in the basket. It felt almost like a communal act in some way.

The taste was interesting, and the wife wondered the same. However, I notice the bag is still there, so maybe the experiment left a bit of a “meh” impression after all. At least it wasn’t the strongest heroin out there. :smiley:

But I do notice how that bias (biatch) always kicks in depending on whether you’ve invested in the company or not. For a moment, Oatly was the best stuff ever (switched to Raisio’s equivalent, which is often even more expensive), and Lohilo was great for a while too (protein bubblegum ice cream didn’t do the stomach any favors in the long run).

The value-add of this message to the company thread is exactly zero, and it doesn’t take a stand on whether Denelia is a permanent phenomenon on its way to the top or if it will sink into oblivion like Oatly and Lohilo. Though Oatly and Lohilo are still trying to make a comeback. The days of peak pricing are just a fading memory, however.

Still, I sincerely hope Denelia succeeds, and I’m following the thread for learning purposes. Not all objects of enthusiasm can go wrong, right? After all, we aren’t just shooting blindly here; there’s some thought involved. Finland’s finest are here wondering about it, after all. Sometimes you just have to hit the mark.

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I sold my Tesla to Kamux recently, thinking that high fuel prices would support the sales of electric vehicles. The car was about 5 years old, all-wheel drive, featured a tow bar, had 125k km on the odometer, and was the refreshed model. I assumed they knew exactly what they were buying. After nearly a month, the car is still on the sales listings, the price remains the same, and it has only been moved to a different location in Ostrobothnia. This is based on a very small sample size, but my understanding is that the car belongs to the most desirable category, yet for some reason, they haven’t been able to move it. With a turnover rate of 53 days, they are still below the average, but it seems they are currently optimizing for price at the expense of inventory turnover speed.

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How much does a pack of coffee cost at Puuilo, and which coffee brand is it?

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This is just an individual case, but a few weeks ago I was hunting for ankle-high indoor sports shoes at several sports stores, and Intersport was the first one that had them in stock. XXL and Stadium, which I visited first, were sold out (sold “non-existent”).

The price was around a hundred euros without any discounts, which I don’t consider impossibly expensive as a base price, knowing that my previous roughly similar shoes lasted over 15 years. My own perception, however, has been that Intersport is typically more expensive than its competitors.

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I’ve eaten at restaurants every now and then, but the experiences have been neutral enough that I haven’t felt the need to write in this thread.

Now, we visited Restaurant Rauhala in Oulu to try their summer menu, and everything worked out brilliantly.

The flavor profiles worked, the presentation was good, and the food was truly diverse. Service was exactly what it should be: professional, pleasant, and appropriate for the occasion.

A special request to move the start of the meal (30 minutes earlier) was accepted. And even I, as someone who devoutly shies away from upselling, thought there could have been more of it.

The restaurant is located in an old wooden house, and the ambiance is, to my taste, the coziest in the city. The buffet table was set up in a decorative space in front of the bar counter, crowned by a bay-style window wall behind the bar.

If I recall correctly, they serve lunch there in the summer from Wednesday to Friday and otherwise by reservation, so it’s worth stopping by for a lunch or organizing a get-together with friends or colleagues over a meal.

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Bought some Dellia dried mango and pineapple slices strictly for Lynch-style due diligence (lyncheilymielessä). Expectations were quite high thanks to the forum, but according to my own analysis—worth about one and a half shirt buttons—they weren’t exactly earth-shattering.

The first bite is tasty, of course, due to the delicate sugar coating, but at least this flavor experience won’t be causing changes to my shopping basket, which hasn’t included dried fruit besides raisins. As a disclaimer, I’m not a huge mango fan anyway—mango iced tea is okay—whereas pineapple definitely belongs on my pizza. A balancing factor was a slight hunger, which makes everything taste a bit better than usual. My spouse’s evaluation was “pretty okay”; she happens to like mango more. She says she can imagine snacking through the bags at work. Both of us feel that fresh fruit is still the clear number one. And as for dried fruit, I think Pirkka raisins are clearly the best in terms of both price and taste!

Based on the tasting experience, however, I won’t start questioning whether they might be the best in their category for dried mangos and pineapples. I’m sure these products have their own customer base. The true final result of the evaluation will be seen once my spouse has finished the bags and it becomes clear if another set gets picked up on a grocery run :smiley: I’ll put out a mega-alert if that happens. They are a better alternative to candy, though.

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The prices on Intersport price tags are high, but at least in my experience, it operates like a more traditional service-oriented sports store where the salesperson assists, advises, and finds suitable models, and at the end of the transaction, you can still negotiate the tag price or get a club discount. It has even happened that I’ve received a significantly lower price without a K-Plussa card.

I had a rather interesting situation when my offspring got a summer job with a summer voucher. The employment contract had to be signed electronically, so we had to go get online banking credentials. Well, initially there was a problem because OP (Osuuspankki) had discontinued the physical key code lists, so the credentials couldn’t be activated on a new device. Starting from 9:00 AM, I looked for branch appointments, which were all booked until July, and the contract signing was due before Midsummer. So, I started asking the OP chat robot about it. It directed the matter to a customer service agent. I waited an hour at home for an agent until the connection dropped. Then I called the customer service number directly, and after a little selection marathon and waiting, I got through and was told the matter could be handled at the branch info desk. (The website advises booking an appointment.) So, my spouse, son, and I set off around 11:00 AM during lunch hour. We got to the branch and went to the counter via the Info queue. “No, you can’t get credentials here. You have to go to the adjacent office/space.” We had wondered a bit when arriving why there was a queue out the door there. Having learned our lesson, we gave up on the credentials at the ticket machine. Got a number and started waiting. At 2:30 PM, the junior finally got his credentials. While waiting, there was time to chat with other customers.

An older lady told us how, in the past, you always got coffee and a bun when visiting the bank. Now you just have to wait, and she had apparently mentioned this to the branch staff earlier, and they had taken great offense. An older gentleman, on the other hand, said he only uses S-Bank (S-Pankki) because there is no waiting there, but he was there for one reason or another on his wife’s business. His neighbor then shared similar experiences about S-Bank—that you can get in, you can go in the evening, and you can no longer get OP service from the nearby Citymarket, where it was easy to do business. While waiting, the thought of moving our services to S-Bank crossed my mind strongly, and I browsed the possibilities at the Nordea across the street. Well, there’s no entering Nordea without an appointment. In the investment scene, one would say S-Bank is quite strong in banking services. If problems arise—you lose your phone or something similar—it is quite laborious to get credentials back. Few people likely have time to wait 3 weeks for cards, banking services, and such, and not many want to sit in a bank’s overcrowded small office for a day. I would say S-Bank is quite strong in acquiring new young online banking customers. Nordea requires the parents to have Nordea online banking credentials; at OP, it doesn’t even work with those, but you have to go through a customer “shakedown” process. You are bounced from one counter to another, and the job barely gets done anywhere. At the adjacent counter, an elderly lady couldn’t get her mobile bank working despite her visit. She just kept getting a service maintenance notification. She waited 2-3 hours and the situation didn’t change at all. She was told to come back tomorrow if there wasn’t maintenance then.

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Yeah, this is what market competition leads to. People vote with their feet and their wallets, except for some who don’t realize that a particular product isn’t right for them. Personally, I have almost all my banking services and investments abroad. Nordea and OP seem to be trying desperately to compete with these players. Ålandsbanken, S-Pankki, and the Savings Banks (Säästöpankit) then presumably try to serve those who want more traditional banking services.

I guess the biggest problem is that the number of customers who actually need in-person banking services has shrunk so drastically that it’s only sensible to provide them if the customer really has deep pockets.

And honestly, this isn’t intended as a dig at you, but rather at those who keep trekking to the bank branch a couple of times a month without realizing they should switch banks. That’s where the congestion comes from.

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My post was quite long, and perhaps the core message wasn’t concise enough. I was somewhat confused by Nordea as an example. The person above has banking services abroad, and I doubt that was achieved without visiting a branch. Now, if you want Nordea’s services, you can’t get them without visiting a branch (unless your parents have Nordea banking credentials). You can’t even get into a branch without an appointment. In practice, this makes it difficult for every 15–17-year-old to get a debit card or banking credentials, and for 20–30-year-olds who aren’t already Nordea customers to apply for a loan—though it might be simpler for the one-third whose parents are Nordea customers. Essentially, being a Nordea customer rules out easy management for two-thirds of the population, and I am reasonably sure that the “easy” portion will shrink over time. In practice, for the vast majority, it is easier to walk past the Prisma checkout directly into an S-Bank branch when there is no queue visible. I am fairly certain they’ll get things sorted before a competitor’s appointment, booked 3–4 weeks away, even comes up. Acquiring new customers and even retaining these high-potential loan applicants is difficult.

It is equally interesting how those who don’t want to constantly visit a branch would end up as Nordea customers when a) you can’t get into the branch without an appointment and b) setting up digital services requires a branch visit. No wonder there is congestion at the branch when digital services don’t work, yet you can’t access them except through the branch. (Coincidentally, I found out during the same trip that Nordea had been having digital issues for days. An elderly gentleman was trying to withdraw cash from OP because a transfer from his own savings account to his current account wasn’t working at Nordea.)

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It’s equally interesting how those who don’t want to keep running to a branch would end up as Nordea customers.

They don’t “end up” there, they just don’t switch banks. Still, this shift has happened quite extensively over the last 10-15 years.

Well now, if you want Nordea’s services, you can’t get them without visiting a branch.

You can, if you have banking credentials from another bank. But if you don’t have strong authentication, you can’t—and you won’t get them anywhere else either.

I haven’t visited a Nordea branch in Finland for many years. But abroad, it was by far the easiest to get a Nordea account compared to other banks in the country. Granted, I didn’t run through all of them, but I tried maybe three banks; through Nordea, it took 2-4 weeks, but everything got handled in one go.

And at least for my part, I don’t really understand the freezing rush to get a bank account if you plan ahead a little, but we’ll see. I can at least say that Nordea has had that situation of yours for over 5 years :smiley:

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Consider a simple situation where you lose your mobile device or it gets stolen. You have to cancel your cards, and you cannot access your online banking unless you have a backup device. Usually, you have to deactivate your SIM card to prevent misuse, and generally, opening or acquiring a new subscription requires authentication. And who needs the internet, a bank card, mobile banking, or mobile payments anyway for three weeks in this day and age? You just wait patiently for 3-4 weeks, provided you manage to make an appointment at Nordea through some channel.

I would say that a 15-17 year old is in no hurry to get online banking credentials. They don’t really have much use for them. The need arises suddenly for health services, other administrative services, or, for example, to sign an employment contract or some other agreement. When you are sick and waiting for 3-4 weeks, a solution has usually already been found, and people can’t be bothered to go and queue at a branch office.

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In my opinion, the matter becomes relevant by the age of 17 at the latest, so that one is able to manage their affairs when life begins at 18. At that point, “mommy” and “daddy” no longer have any access to the child’s affairs. Furthermore, even a 16-year-old student often deals with services such as Kela (Social Insurance Institution) and with landlords.

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Yes, exactly. But when you get that summer job in another city, for example, you aren’t going to wait 3–4 weeks to get into an office just to get the employment contract and lease signed.

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I relatively agree on the problems; my point is perhaps more that if you want service, you either have to suffer from a poor online bank or expensive prices and miserable products / product selections.

I just find it hard to believe that this hurts business significantly compared to the cost of having x amount of people on-site and y amount of additional branches. At least for me, customer service / service at a branch has never been the reason for choosing Nordea—quite the opposite, it’s the fact that I haven’t had to use said services. Serving customers on-site simply isn’t Nordea’s strategy, but that was also reflected in the strong growth of Ålandsbanken and OmaSP.

As I stated, Nordea has been in this situation for over 5 years (especially during summers). To my eye, it seems like it hasn’t disrupted business much yet.

Revolut and other Neobanks (neopankit) keep growing because the majority specifically don’t want to visit a physical location. They want to handle things themselves. You can compare Revolut’s market value to Nordea’s and simultaneously compare the number of employees :smiley:

Well, take a simple situation where you lose your mobile device or it gets stolen.

And even here, one should be a bit proactive. For someone like me, who has almost everything in digital services and spread a bit around the world, you just have to have several different cards, a couple of different banks, and at least two phones :smiley:

You do get quite good service from Nordea as a corporate client and a private client (i.e., the actually profitable customers). And as I mentioned, in Nordea’s other market, Nordea was the only relatively positive experience compared to the other large players in that market.

To me as an owner and a customer, this is exactly the right strategy. As little service as possible for the average “Joe Bloggs” (Matti Meikäläinen) (= functional self-service), then paying customers can be served. I believe the share of customers who are willing to pay either outrageous monthly fees or invest in overpriced funds will be increasingly smaller in the future; instead, those are the ones who then pay for private banking.

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Well, the average Finn aged 25–40 has an average of 100,000 euros in loans. The age group I am writing about will be entering that rat race fairly soon. I still suspect that mortgages will account for a very significant portion of Nordea’s earnings. On the other hand, the average Finn has just over €5,000 in investment assets. With a 2.0% high-cost fund, that amount generates €100 in annual income. If a €100,000 mortgage is financed by 5 average Finns who passively keep €20,000 in their accounts, the cost of money could be 0.3%. From that, with current margins, at least a 4% interest income is generated. To simplify slightly and estimate an interest rate of 4.3%, minus the 0.3% account interest cost, an average €100,000 loan yields €4,000 a year. But if there are no customers leaving their money idle in accounts—and they have instead marched from the Prisma checkout to S-Bank—then it becomes a matter of the difference between market funding and one’s own margin. The margin itself also tends to be lower for those who aren’t already bank customers and had to be won over with lower costs. The yield on the loan can drop to tenths of a percent.

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What kind of prices have you been getting recently for new phone plan contracts, e.g., for a 4G Huoleton 200/20M plan with unlimited calls and messages?

My current 12-month contract is €17.99/month and it needs to be renewed/changed this month. So, what kind of deals have you been getting lately?

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A month ago, a week and a half before my fixed-term contract was set to expire, I went to Power. They initiated a transfer from DNA to Elisa at a price of €23.99/month, with a €70 gift card to be provided once the transfer was completed. The day before the transfer was supposed to take place, I received a message from DNA saying that if I stayed with them, the monthly price would be €18.99/month, plus a €100 S-Group gift card. I ended up taking that offer.

And the subscription is indeed 5G 200M with unlimited calls and text messages.

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