Traficom introduces Suomi.fi Messages for vehicle tax, increasing e-invoice usage by more than 10 percentage points – "Communications play a key role in success"

The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom introduced Suomi.fi Messages as one of the ways to deliver vehicle tax bills in November 2023. After one year of use, the benefits have been considerable: as many as 70,000 Finns receive a vehicle tax bill electronically through Suomi.fi Messages every month. The secret to success was good communication well in advance of the introduction. 

Traficom has used Suomi.fi Messages in its various services for years. Finns have been able to receive additional tax bills and various receipts and decisions through Suomi.fi Messages. On 1 November 2023, Traficom introduced the service as an additional method for delivering vehicle tax bills, enabling a large number of the agency’s customers to receive payments electronically. 

The benefits of activating Suomi.fi Messages have been significant. Previously, vehicle tax bills could be received as electronic mail through OmaPosti or as an e-invoice, in addition to a paper letter, but now vehicle tax bills can also sent through Suomi.fi Messages. With the activation of Messages, the number of electronically delivered vehicle tax bills increased by more than ten percentage points. 

The number of citizens that use Suomi.fi Messages has increased steadily over the year, which is also reflected in the number of messages sent by Traficom. To date, Traficom has sent a total of 800,000 different tax bills via Suomi.fi Messages. 

Traficom estimates that the use of Suomi.fi Messages already saves €850,000 per year compared to tickets mailed bills, with current user numbers.

“These are truly significant benefits and a great monetary saving that we have been able to achieve with Messages. Suomi.fi Messages is seeing constant user growth, which is an indication of major benefits in the future as well,” says Antti Mört, Senior Specialist at Traficom. 

“In addition to cost savings, Suomi.fi Messages cuts down a huge amount of paper, as we send significantly fewer letters. I also see this as a positive development in terms of information security, as the documents are directly sent to the channel indicated by the customer in electronic form,” Mört continues. 

Communication – the key to success

At Traficom, the activation of Suomi.fi Messages has gone extremely well, despite the large number of users. There was a risk that people would not notice the tax bills sent to Suomi.fi Messages, resulting in an increase in unpaid vehicle taxes. Fortunately, this was not the case. Taking communication into account at the outset of the project proved to be the key to success. 

“We started communicating and informing our customers well in advance of the activation of the Messages service. We carried out extensive communications and marketing in various channels, such as social media, organic campaigns, our own service channel, and as direct customer communications, so that news of this new delivery method reached as many Suomi.fi Messages users as possible,” says Milla Juntunen, Senior Communications Specialist at Traficom. 

Communications were carried out in cooperation with the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, and the topic also featured prominently in the media. 

“Our sharing of information was very successful, and this reflects on the smooth activation. Naturally, we hope that communications and marketing related to Suomi.fi Messages will continue to ensure that as many Finns as possible use the service. This way, every organisation can gain the greatest benefit from using Messages,” finishes Juntunen.