We are developing services to meet the needs of our customers
Service responsibility comes under the UN Sustainable Development Goal of peace, justice and strong institutions (16).
The PRH has set itself the following service responsibility objectives:- We create excellent customer value
- We produce better customer value by focusing on customer insight and experience and the promotion of digital services.
We are responsible for ensuring that our services meet customer needs and that they are easy to use, accessible, safe and reliable. We are also responsible for ensuring that the guidelines, instructions and communications that we provide to our customers are up to date and easy to understand.
We measure customer satisfaction at overall level, by service channel and by service. The different types of surveys carried out throughout the year provide us with important information on our performance.
Customer satisfaction was again at high level in 2023. The overall score given by our customers stood at 4.0 (on a scale of 1 to 5). Read more about customer satisfaction in our annual report.
Involving customers in the development of services
Our aim is to provide easy-to-use services that are accessible to everyone and we also involve our customers in this work. We use service design methods (such as in-depth interviews and workshops) in the building of customer insight.
One of our most important service design projects during 2023 involved the overhaul of the prh.fi and ytj.fi websites. The aim was to find out more about the needs of our customers.
In addition to active service development, we have also taken a look inwards and assessed the customer-centricity maturity of our own organisation. Several years’ work culminated in 2023 in the first PRH-internal customer-centricity maturity measurement. The analysis of its results will continue in 2024.
By examining the maturity of customer centricity, we want to highlight our internal development priorities so that we can build our activities in a more systematic manner. In the future, we will measure our maturity level on an annual basis and will use the results in the daily planning of our activities. Developing customer centricity is the only way to ensure excellent customer value.
In 2023, we commissioned accessibility audits on all our new and updated online services and websites and scheduled the necessary accessibility corrections.
Boosting digitalisation
Our key development measures are connected with the advancement of digitalisation. PRH’s aim is that as much as possible of its services are provided online and that the utilisation rate of the online services will increase and remain high.
Introduction of the new patent processing system, overhauled company and organisation search at ytj.fi and the new online start-up service for limited liability companies were the key development projects at the PRH in 2023.
The preparations of the new automated decision-making procedure for submitting notifications of changes regarding responsible persons to the Trade Register were also completed. The procedure was introduced at the start of 2024.
The PRH measures the progress of digitalisation using a digital maturity index and indicators describing the coverage of online services.
Digital maturity at PRH (scale 1–5)
Year |
Index |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 2.95 |
| 2022 | 3.14 |
| 2021 | 3.23 |
| 2020 | 3.15 |
In 2023, digital maturity at the PRH was reviewed as a self-assessment whereas in 2022, the work was carried out by an external evaluation team appointed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
In 2023, we remained slightly behind the target set for our digital maturity index. The weaker measurement result may be due to the fact that different assessment rounds have different evaluation teams that emphasise the criteria in slightly different ways.
Services, processes and customer orientation were seen as best-performing areas. The most significant development needs were seen in the steering and management of digitalisation and in information. Key challenges in the development of digital maturity include urgent changes which are required by legislative changes and other external factors, competencies needed to reform the systems, and the availability of funding.
We enhanced digital maturity by, for example, introducing a new ICT development model that covers the entire development life cycle of a digital solution. We also integrated an enterprise architecture development model and improved our ability to provide services on mobile platforms.
Percentage of matters managed online by our customers
Year |
Percentage |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 93.5% |
| 2022 | 92.3% |
| 2021 | 90.8% |
| 2020 | 89.6% |
Use of online services at the PRH has increased steadily in recent years. In 2023, our customers managed an average of 93.5% of their matters online.
Predictable and secure services
Predictability and security of our online services are essential so that we can ensure easy-to-use services for our customers and guarantee the reliability of our operations.
To ensure secure services, an external information security audit is always carried out for new and updated online services and information provision interface solutions before they are made available. Several information security audits were conducted during 2023.
The PRH maintains a situational picture of information security on a regular basis and information security matters are reported to the management four times a year on a report prepared in accordance with the information security management model. Critical incidents are reported immediately to the management.
No hacking or serious information security breaches were reported in 2023. A small number of major information security incidents were dealt with during the year. The most serious of them involved an extensive denial-of-service attack affecting the availability of the services provided by the PRH.
Assessing the functioning of the information security management model
In 2022, the PRH introduced the information security management model systematically throughout the organisation. The aim of the management model is to standardise the management of information security, to ensure that it is of uniform quality and to regularly evaluate concrete needs to enhance information security.
In 2023, we evaluated the activities covered by the management model, reviewed and updated the documents guiding information security and information security guidelines and gave our information security team permanent status.
Information security competence of our personnel
We prepared an online training package on information secure practices for the PRH personnel, and all staff members had to complete the training by the end of February 2023.
Nearly all staff members have completed the training. During the year, we also arranged a number of information security training courses for the personnel.
Preparing the data protection management model
During 2023, we prepared and carried out a number of measures to ensure better data protection management, such as the data protection policy overhaul, data protection management model, annual data protection clock, and several instructions and templates for data protection evaluations and declarations and for the processing of personal data and data protection incidents.
We also defined and described the processes for the implementation of data protection impact assessments (DPIA) and the consideration of data protection in the processing of personal data.
No serious data protection incidents were detected at the PRH in 2023. A total of 36 data protection incidents were dealt with during 2023.
Examples of customer work: Website workshops and customer community
According to the customer feedback on prh.fi and ytj.fi that we have received over the years, changes are needed in these two services: in the users’ view, the websites should be clearer and the information should be easier to find.
In a service design project launched in 2023, we reviewed each section of our activities. The aim of the project, which lasted for almost the whole year, was to find out by whom are our websites used, for what purposes are they used and how are they used. We invited PRH customer service employees, experts working in our agency and, of course, customers to join the project. During the year, we arranged 20 different attendance and remote workshops and interviews.
We also established the PRH customer community to support participation in the project. The community was open to all parties interested in the updating of our websites. A monthly newsletter containing information on project progress and upcoming workshops was sent to all members of the customer community. A total of 50 active customers joined the community and they were extremely helpful in the work to update the website concepts.
Proposals for acts of responsibility
The PRH staff members submitting the following proposals for acts of service responsibility received a small award:
- Clarifying the meaning of ‘value creation’