Customer satisfaction

Building strong and trusting relationships with our customers, considering their needs, and serving them effectively is essential for our business. This includes the range, performance, quality, and reliability of our products, as well as our approach to the environment, health and safety, and social responsibility.

Among the most important factors influencing customer satisfaction at ST are sustainability, product quality, and continuous dialog. 3-3

Unlocking value with sustainability

We value the voice of our stakeholders. In our materiality review in 2023, we focused on our customers and their priorities. Therefore, we prepared a short survey that helped us identify, evaluate, and prioritize the sustainability topics that best reflect our customers’ expectations.

Analysis showed that climate change is a high priority for our customers. In 2020, we announced our commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2027 on scope 1 and 2, and partially scope 3. We were the first semiconductor company to have near-term targets validated by the science-based targets initiative (SBTi). Our carbon neutrality roadmap gives us the oppor­tunity to actively contribute to our customers’ climate commitments and become the partner of choice on this important journey.

Other priorities identified include water, circular economy, and chemicals, where we have many established programs, as detailed in this report (see Water, Chemicals, and Waste).

We have also adopted a proactive approach with other important topics, such as safety, corporate governance, human rights, and supply chain management. We have been an active member of the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) since 2005. Our largest manufacturing sites are subject to RBA third-party audits (see Labor and human rights). We share the results of these questionnaires, audits, and corrective actions with our customers through the RBA platform or via our online support. In addition to this, we regularly complete an assessment from EcoVadis, an independent sustainability rating platform, and share the results with our customers. In 2023, we received a platinum medal, placing us in the top 1% of companies evaluated for sustainability performance.

To better align with our customers we have also joined the CSR Europe Drive+ initiative, a partnership of 16 leading automotive companies and their suppliers that have made a collective commitment to improve supply chain sustainability in the automotive industry.​ 

Sustainability is a collective responsibility. We prioritize traceability and openly communicate the environmental and social impacts of our products to our customers. This includes information on product compliance, material declaration, working conditions, environmental impact, and the sourcing of materials. Where relevant, we publish this information on our website at www.st.com or provide it through online support.

Jérome Roux

President, Sales and Marketing

At ST, our leadership in sustainability is integral to the value we offer. Our commitment to sustainability is a key pillar of our customer partnership, setting new industry requirements and standards in our search for continuous innovation and mutual success.

Customer satisfaction through quality

We are committed to delivering the highest-quality products and services that meet or exceed customer expectations. We are constantly looking for ways to improve and innovate in quality. This focus on quality helps us build strong, trusting relationships with our customers. By delivering the highest-quality products and services, we aim to ensure our customers are satisfied with their experience with ST. Our quality policy is available at www.st.com.

Our approach to quality

Our quality strategy sets out how we can be our customers’ most valued and trusted partner by focusing on excellent quality, reliability, and responsiveness. Our company-wide quality program, structure, and working model focus on meeting the needs of our global customers, bringing all our organizations and sites together to work as one unified team.

Our strategy is supported by our quality excellence culture, which we see as a competitive advantage and a differentiating factor for our Company and the products and solutions we provide. It is driven by our principles of strength, teamwork, resilience, innovation, value, and expertise.

This global approach has contributed to an improvement in our quality KPIs and customer perception. Our people, programs, and processes have helped us improve our quality performance and increase overall customer satisfaction and trust.

In 2023, we continued our journey to ensure our products meet the highest quality and reliability requirements of our customers, with a quality performance management model called ‘Strive for excellence’.

FOCUS

‘Strive for excellence’

Our quality management program, ‘Strive for excellence’, is designed to anticipate and proactively achieve excellence, rather than react to existing situations. It is implemented in three-year cycles, based on five strategic pillars:

• boost innovation
• digitalize solutions
• transform governance
• enhance leadership and culture
• excel in operation

We have established a project management office to define the program structure, choose and apply methodologies, and monitor objectives daily.

Between 2018 and 2023, we have seen significant improvements in quality indicators such as defect rate, leading to lower product returns, confirming the effectiveness of our approach. In 2023, we entered a new phase focused on consolidating our achievements and strengthening our assets, processes, programs, and working models, while remaining committed to our core pillars of design flow quality: prevention, detection, and innovation. We have also enhanced our network of experts and invested in digitalization and data analytics to drive our ambitions of excellence further.

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Nicolas Yackowlew

Executive Vice President,
Product Quality & Reliability

Embedding quality and reliability into the design of ST solutions is part of our eco-responsible approach. We integrate quality management into the development phase and continually assess reliability along the product lifecycle. This enables us to create sustainable value for our stakeholders and offer robust and durable solutions to the market.

Moving forward, we will continue to focus on quality prevention measures through R&D and new product development, investing in leadership and expertise, and digitally transforming our quality processes to improve prediction, prevention, and detection. By continually improving our quality processes and investing in our people, we believe we can better serve our customers and drive customer satisfaction.

Management systems

Our quality management system is the foundation of our quality approach. We have been certified to internationally recognized quality standards, such as ISO TS 16949, IATF 16949:2016, and ISO 9001:2015, which demonstrate our strong commitment to quality governance and compliance. Our company-wide certification has been renewed every three years since 2003, and ST has been certified IATF 16949:2016 and ISO 9001:2015 since 2018.

Quality performance

In 2023, our customer incidents increased slightly, due to exceptional circumstances associated with a specific product. Despite this, our general level of quality performance remained stable, and we continued to increase customer perception.

A continuous customer dialog

We maintain a continuous, wide-ranging dialog with customers at all levels to understand, assess, and address their needs and concerns.

Multiple channels for seamless customer support

The materiality assessment is one of many examples of how we gather feedback from our customers.

In addition, we offer our customers various channels to obtain information about our products or find answers to any questions they may have about our business.

• Our website (www.st.com) provides a wealth of information and insights into ST customer solutions, including product brochures and flyers, product datasheets, application solutions, and short videos on key products and how they can help in application designs. Customers can also purchase samples and tools online.
• Online communities for specific product families or applications enable people to share knowledge and post questions to other members of the community.
• Phone and online support are available for customer support requests. We regularly review customer feedback and use it to improve our customer support processes. In 2023, 84% of users were satisfied with our online support service.
• In-person and online seminars and training courses to help customers understand and use our products, either directly hosted by ST or in partnership with third parties.
• Regular newsletters to keep customers and partners up to date on new products and events, including seminars, conferences, webinars, and online courses.
• Social media channels, YouTube videos, and blog posts to reinforce communication and awareness.

Maintaining close relationships at all levels

To maintain an even closer relationship with our customers, in 2023, we created sustainability functions in Sales and Marketing to support our customers in achieving their sustainability strategies.

Working with teams from across ST, including representatives from Sales, Logistics, Technical Support, and Quality, enables us to develop a deeper understanding of our customers, their internal processes, and their preferences. It also helps to increase trust and satisfaction. We work to build close relationships between ST executives and key customer executives, further strengthening trust and satisfaction at the highest levels.

Relationships with smaller customers are managed by the ST distribution partner network. This comprises ST personnel and distribution partners from across the globe. Network personnel regularly visit customers to assess opportunities, present our product portfolio, and support them in their product design and development.

Collecting customer feedback on our performance

We collect feedback on our performance during our interactions with customers. Feedback may be communicated informally during meetings or phone calls, or it may be provided formally via a scorecard. Each customer scorecard is closely reviewed so the various components of the performance evaluation (such as technology, delivery, sustainability, and quality) can be analyzed and communicated to the appropriate functions within ST.

We make these scorecards and customer feedback available via our ‘Vivavoce’ internal portal, visible to all organizations within ST. This visibility provides each organization with customer feedback on its performance, helping to drive continuous improvement.