Customer Communication Policy

1. Purpose

This policy establishes Swedwise AB's commitment to clear, timely, and professional communication with customers. It ensures consistent communication practices that build trust, manage expectations, and fulfill our obligations under ISO 9001 quality management and customer service agreements.

2. Scope

This policy applies to:

• All customer-facing communication across the customer lifecycle:
  • Pre-sales and proposal development
  • Contract negotiation and onboarding
  • Service delivery and support
  • Service changes and maintenance
  • Incident communication and resolution
  • Feedback and complaint handling
  • Contract renewal and off-boarding
• All Swedwise staff who interact with customers
• All communication channels (email, phone, portal, meetings, documentation)
• All customer types:
  • Consulting clients
  • SaaS service customers (Swedwise Communications)
  • Partners and resellers
  • Prospects and leads

3. Communication Objectives

Swedwise commits to:

1. Transparency: Provide clear, honest, and timely information to customers
2. Responsiveness: Acknowledge and respond to customer communications promptly
3. Proactivity: Inform customers of matters affecting their service before they are impacted
4. Consistency: Deliver unified messaging across teams and channels
5. Professionalism: Maintain courteous, respectful, and helpful communication
6. Customer Focus: Understand and address customer needs and concerns
7. Continuous Improvement: Learn from customer feedback to enhance service quality

Communication Targets

Communication Type	Response Target	Responsibility
Critical Incident Notification	Within 15 minutes	Support Team
Support Request (Critical)	Acknowledge within 1 hour	Support Team
Support Request (High)	Acknowledge within 4 hours	Support Team
Support Request (Normal)	Acknowledge within 1 business day	Support Team
General Inquiry	Respond within 2 business days	Relevant team
Complaint	Acknowledge within 1 business day	[TBD - Customer Success/Management]
Scheduled Maintenance Notice	Minimum [TBD - e.g., 5 business days] advance notice	Service Operations

Note: Customer-specific SLAs may define more stringent response times.

4. Management Commitment

Swedwise management commits to:

• Foster a culture of open and transparent customer communication
• Provide adequate resources and tools for effective customer communication
• Empower staff to communicate and resolve customer issues
• Lead by example in responsive and professional customer interactions
• Review customer communication performance in management reviews
• Act on customer feedback to improve services and processes

5. Policy Statements

5.1 Communication Principles

All customer communication must be:

Clear and Understandable

• Use plain language appropriate to the audience
• Avoid jargon or explain technical terms when necessary
• Structure information logically with key points highlighted
• Provide context and actionable information

Accurate and Honest

• Ensure information is factually correct before communicating
• Admit when information is not yet available rather than speculate
• Correct errors or misinformation promptly
• Set realistic expectations about timelines and outcomes

Timely and Responsive

• Respond within defined timeframes
• Acknowledge receipt even if full response takes longer
• Provide regular updates on ongoing issues
• Communicate proactively when delays occur

Professional and Respectful

• Maintain courteous tone even in difficult situations
• Show empathy and understanding of customer concerns
• Avoid defensive or dismissive language
• Thank customers for feedback and patience

Consistent

• Align messaging across teams and channels
• Use approved templates and messaging for standard communications
• Coordinate with colleagues before communicating on complex issues
• Escalate when consistency is uncertain

5.2 Communication Channels

Swedwise provides multiple communication channels:

Primary Channels

Email:

• General: [TBD - info@swedwise.com or similar]
• Support: [TBD - support@swedwise.com or similar]
• Sales: [TBD - sales@swedwise.com or similar]
• Standard for non-urgent communication and documentation

Customer Portal:

• [TBD - if available] for SaaS customers
• Support ticket submission and tracking
• Service status and announcements
• Knowledge base and documentation

Phone:

• Support line: [TBD - phone number and hours]
• Sales line: [TBD - phone number and hours]
• Used for urgent issues and initial customer contact

Meetings:

• In-person or virtual meetings for complex discussions
• Regular service review meetings with key customers
• Onboarding and kick-off meetings for new customers

Secondary Channels

Microsoft Teams / Chat:

• For established customer relationships with agreed usage
• Real-time collaboration during projects
• Not for initial issue reporting (use ticketing system)

Social Media:

• [TBD - if applicable, e.g., LinkedIn]
• General company updates and thought leadership
• Not for customer support or sensitive communication

5.3 Proactive Customer Communication

Swedwise communicates proactively in the following situations:

Service Status Communication

Planned Maintenance:

• Advance notice: Minimum [TBD - e.g., 5 business days] for maintenance affecting service
• Communication includes:
  • Maintenance window (date, start time, duration)
  • Affected services and expected impact
  • Reason for maintenance (optional: improvements/fixes)
  • Contact for questions or concerns
• Reminder notification: [TBD - e.g., 24 hours] before maintenance window
• Completion notification: Confirm service restoration

Emergency Maintenance:

• Notification as soon as decision is made
• Explain urgency and expected impact
• Provide estimated restoration time
• Update if timeline changes

Service Disruptions:

• Notify customers immediately if disruption affects their service
• Provide initial impact assessment within [TBD - e.g., 30 minutes]
• Regular updates at minimum [TBD - e.g., every 2 hours] until resolution
• Post-incident summary within [TBD - e.g., 48 hours] of resolution

Service Changes

New Features or Enhancements:

• Announce new functionality before or upon release
• Provide documentation or guidance for new features
• Offer training or demos for significant enhancements

Service Modifications:

• Communicate changes affecting customer workflows or integrations
• Provide adequate transition time
• Offer migration assistance if needed

Deprecations or End-of-Life:

• Communicate minimum [TBD - e.g., 6 months] before deprecation
• Explain rationale and provide alternative solutions
• Support migration to replacement service or platform

Account and Commercial Communication

Contract Renewal:

• Initial contact [TBD - e.g., 90 days] before contract expiration
• Allow adequate time for renewal negotiations

Service Reviews:

• Periodic service review meetings with key customers
• Frequency: [TBD - e.g., quarterly for SaaS customers, semi-annually for consulting clients]
• Agenda: Service performance, feedback, upcoming initiatives

Invoicing and Billing:

• Clear, itemized invoices
• Advance notice of price changes per contractual terms
• Prompt response to billing inquiries

5.4 Responsive Customer Communication

Swedwise responds promptly to customer-initiated communication:

Support Requests and Incidents

Communication managed through [TBD - ticketing system, e.g., Zendesk, ServiceNow]:

Acknowledgment:

• Automated or manual acknowledgment within SLA timeframe
• Confirmation of issue receipt, ticket number, and expected response time

Investigation:

• Regular updates on investigation progress
• If resolution takes longer than initial estimate, provide updated timeline
• Explain what is being done to resolve the issue

Resolution:

• Notify customer of resolution
• Confirm resolution meets customer satisfaction
• Provide root cause and preventive actions (for significant incidents)

Escalation:

• Customer can request escalation if dissatisfied with progress
• Escalation path: [TBD - e.g., Support → Team Lead → Customer Success Manager → Management]

General Inquiries

• Sales inquiries: [TBD - sales team] responds within 2 business days
• Technical questions: Appropriate team responds within 2 business days
• Commercial/contract questions: [TBD - account manager/customer success] responds within 2 business days

Meeting Requests

• Respond to meeting requests within 1 business day
• Provide agenda and preparation materials in advance
• Confirm attendance and send meeting invites

5.5 Complaint Management

Swedwise takes customer complaints seriously and handles them systematically:

Complaint Definition

A complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction with:

• Quality of service delivery
• Behavior or professionalism of staff
• Failure to meet contractual commitments
• Product functionality or performance
• Communication or responsiveness

Complaint Handling Process

Receipt and Acknowledgment:

• All complaints are logged (even if received informally)
• Acknowledge receipt within 1 business day
• Assign complaint owner: [TBD - Customer Success Manager, Quality Lead, or Management]

Investigation:

• Gather facts from customer and involved staff
• Review relevant records, logs, and documentation
• Identify root cause of complaint
• Determine appropriate resolution

Resolution:

• Communicate resolution plan to customer within [TBD - e.g., 5 business days]
• Implement corrective actions
• Follow up with customer to confirm satisfaction
• Document complaint and resolution in [TBD - complaint register/CRM]

Closure:

• Obtain customer confirmation that complaint is resolved
• Thank customer for bringing issue to attention
• Implement preventive actions to avoid recurrence

Escalation:

• If resolution is not acceptable to customer, escalate to management
• Management involvement ensures fair and appropriate resolution
• Ultimate escalation: CEO

Learning from Complaints

• Complaints reviewed in management reviews
• Trends analyzed to identify systemic issues
• Corrective and preventive actions implemented
• Staff trained on lessons learned
• Process improvements implemented

5.6 Customer Feedback Management

Swedwise actively seeks and acts on customer feedback:

Feedback Collection

Periodic Surveys:

• Customer satisfaction surveys: [TBD - e.g., annually or semi-annually]
• Post-project surveys for consulting engagements
• Service-specific feedback for SaaS customers (e.g., NPS, CSAT)

Ongoing Feedback:

• Feedback encouraged during service review meetings
• Post-incident feedback on resolution quality
• Open channels for suggestions and improvement ideas

Structured Feedback:

• [TBD - if customer advisory board, user groups, or beta programs exist]

Feedback Analysis and Action

• Feedback consolidated and analyzed by [TBD - Quality Lead, Customer Success]
• Results reviewed in management reviews
• Action plans developed for improvement areas
• Communicate actions taken in response to feedback
• Track improvement trends over time

Closing the Loop

• Thank customers for providing feedback
• Communicate what actions are being taken based on feedback
• Share improvements and enhancements resulting from customer input

5.7 Incident Communication

Specific protocols for communicating service incidents:

Incident Severity Levels

Severity	Description	Initial Notification	Updates
Critical	Total service outage, critical functionality unavailable	Within 15 minutes	Every 30 minutes
High	Significant degradation, multiple users affected	Within 1 hour	Every 2 hours
Medium	Limited impact, workaround available	Within 4 hours	Daily
Low	Minimal impact, single user or cosmetic issue	Within 1 business day	As needed

Incident Communication Content

Initial Notification:

• Incident description and affected services
• Impact assessment (who/what is affected)
• Current status of investigation
• Estimated time to resolution (if known) or next update
• Contact for questions

Progress Updates:

• What has been done since last update
• Current status of investigation or remediation
• Revised estimate to resolution
• Interim workarounds if available

Resolution Notification:

• Confirmation that service is restored
• Brief explanation of root cause (detailed RCA to follow if significant)
• Actions taken to prevent recurrence
• Apology for inconvenience
• Contact for any ongoing concerns

Post-Incident Report (for Critical/High incidents):

• Detailed timeline of incident
• Root cause analysis
• Impact summary
• Actions taken to resolve
• Preventive measures implemented
• Lessons learned

Provided within [TBD - e.g., 48-72 hours] of resolution to affected customers.

5.8 Communication Templates and Standards

Swedwise maintains standard templates for common communications:

Email Signatures:

• Standard company signature with contact information
• Include "Make Time For The Good" tagline

Email Templates:

• [TBD - Planned maintenance notification]
• [TBD - Incident notification]
• [TBD - Support ticket acknowledgment]
• [TBD - Complaint acknowledgment]
• [TBD - Meeting confirmation]

Templates ensure consistency while allowing personalization for specific situations.

Documentation Standards:

• User guides and documentation written in clear, customer-friendly language
• Regular review and update of customer-facing documentation
• Version control and change tracking

5.9 Internal Coordination

Effective customer communication requires internal coordination:

Cross-Functional Alignment:

• Consult with relevant teams before communicating on complex issues
• Coordinate messaging for service changes affecting multiple customers
• Escalate to management when communication involves commitments or significant impact

Information Sharing:

• Update internal systems (CRM, ticketing, knowledge base) with customer communications
• Brief relevant colleagues on significant customer communications
• Share customer feedback with delivery teams

Communication Ownership:

• Primary contact (account manager, customer success manager) coordinates customer communication
• Subject matter experts provide input, primary contact delivers message
• Management involved in sensitive communications (complaints, escalations, contract issues)

5.10 Confidentiality and Data Protection

Customer communication must respect confidentiality and data protection:

• Do not disclose customer information to third parties without authorization
• Use secure channels for sensitive information
• Follow data protection policy (SW-ISMS-POL-XXX) requirements
• Do not include confidential customer data in examples or case studies without permission
• Respect customer preferences for communication channels and frequency

5.11 Language and Localization

Primary Language:

• Customer communication in Swedish or English based on customer preference
• Default to Swedish for Nordic customers unless English is requested
• Ensure staff have language capability for assigned customer accounts

Translation and Localization:

• Critical communications (SLAs, contracts, incident notifications) available in customer's preferred language
• Use professional translation services for legal or contractual documents
• Localize examples and references to customer context

6. Roles and Responsibilities

Customer Success Lead

Assigned to: [TBD]

Responsibilities:

• Overall accountability for customer communication practices
• Develop and maintain communication templates and standards
• Coordinate customer communication for SaaS services
• Handle escalated complaints and communication issues
• Monitor customer communication performance metrics
• Report on customer satisfaction and feedback in management reviews

Account Managers / Customer Success Managers

Assigned to: [TBD - per customer or customer segment]

Responsibilities:

• Primary communication point for assigned customers
• Coordinate service review meetings and relationship management
• Proactively communicate service changes, maintenance, incidents
• Gather and act on customer feedback
• Escalate issues requiring management involvement
• Maintain customer communication records in CRM

Support Team / Service Desk

Assigned to: [TBD - internal or outsourced]

Responsibilities:

• Acknowledge and respond to support requests per SLA
• Provide regular updates on incident investigations
• Communicate resolutions and confirm customer satisfaction
• Escalate when SLA or customer satisfaction at risk
• Maintain accurate ticket documentation

Sales Team

Responsibilities:

• Communicate clearly and honestly during sales process
• Set realistic expectations about capabilities and timelines
• Ensure smooth handover to delivery team
• Document customer commitments and requirements

Delivery Teams / Consultants

Responsibilities:

• Communicate project status, risks, and issues to customers
• Provide technical updates and explanations as needed
• Coordinate with account manager for significant communications
• Follow professional communication standards
• Report customer feedback to account manager

Management Team

Responsibilities:

• Support and model effective customer communication
• Engage in communication for strategic customers or escalated issues
• Review customer communication performance in management reviews
• Approve communication for significant service changes or incidents
• Ensure adequate resources and tools for customer communication

All Staff

Responsibilities:

• Communicate professionally and respectfully in all customer interactions
• Follow communication standards and use approved templates
• Respond promptly within defined timeframes
• Escalate when uncertain or when issue exceeds authority
• Protect customer confidentiality and data

7. Communication Performance Monitoring

Customer communication effectiveness is monitored through:

Metrics:

• Response time compliance (% of communications meeting SLA)
• Customer satisfaction scores (CSAT, NPS)
• Complaint volume and resolution time
• Escalation rates
• Communication-related incidents (missed notifications, unclear messaging)

Reviews:

• Monthly metrics reviewed by [TBD - Customer Success Lead, Quality Lead]
• Quarterly review in management meetings
• Annual customer satisfaction survey results
• Feedback from service review meetings

Improvement:

• Action plans for communication gaps or failures
• Training for staff based on communication performance
• Template and process improvements based on feedback
• Recognition of excellent customer communication

8. Training and Awareness

Staff are prepared for effective customer communication through:

• Onboarding: Customer communication expectations and tools
• Role-Specific Training: Account managers, support staff, consultants trained on communication skills and processes
• Template and Tool Training: How to use communication systems, templates, and CRM
• Scenario Training: Handling difficult conversations, complaints, incidents
• Ongoing Development: Communication skills development and feedback
• Cultural Awareness: Nordic business culture, customer expectations

9. Review and Update

This policy is:

• Reviewed at least annually by [TBD - Customer Success Lead, Quality Lead]
• Updated when significant changes occur in:
  • Customer base or service offerings
  • Communication channels or tools
  • Regulatory or contractual requirements
  • Customer feedback indicating communication gaps
  • Organizational structure or roles
• Approved by [TBD - CEO/Management Team]
• Communicated to all staff following updates

10. Related Documents

Policies:

• SW-IMS-POL-001: Integrated Management System Policy
• SW-ISMS-POL-001: Information Security Policy
• SW-IMS-POL-006: Service Continuity Policy
• [TBD - SW-ISMS-POL-XXX: Data Protection and Privacy Policy]

Procedures:

• [TBD - SW-QMS-PRO-XXX: Complaint Handling Procedure]
• [TBD - SW-QMS-PRO-XXX: Customer Feedback Management Procedure]
• [TBD - SW-ISMS-PRO-XXX: Incident Management Procedure]
• [TBD - SW-QMS-PRO-XXX: Service Level Management Procedure]

Templates:

• [TBD - Customer Communication Templates Library]
• [TBD - Incident Notification Template]
• [TBD - Planned Maintenance Notification Template]
• [TBD - Complaint Response Template]

Supporting Documents:

• [TBD - Customer Communication Performance Dashboard]
• [TBD - Customer Satisfaction Survey Results]
• [TBD - Complaint Register]
• [TBD - Service Level Agreements]

11. Document Control

Version	Date	Author	Changes	Approved By
1.0	[TBD]	[TBD - Customer Success Lead name]	Initial policy creation	[TBD - CEO name]

Next Review Date: [TBD - typically 12 months from effective date]

Document Classification: Internal

Document Owner: Customer Success Lead

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This policy is approved by Swedwise AB management and is effective from the date specified above. All staff are required to read, understand, and comply with this policy.

Swedwise AB | Make Time For The Good