The French Heppner Group regularly conducts surveys to determine the satisfaction of its suppliers and customers. It consistently achieves top marks. A look behind the intention and concept.
October 2025 – For Cédric Frachet, COO of the French Heppner Group and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of System Alliance Europe, surveys are part of the recipe for successful collaboration. The results also have an impact and add value for SAE partners.
What insights do you gain from the regular satisfaction analysis of your suppliers?
Cédric Frachet: Our prime objective is to make sure that we work with the best partners in the market. Satisfaction analyses are a key factor to retain them by making sure they feel satisfied about our collaboration. These surveys are also a driver to attract new partners, who would like to join a network in which members’ opinions are listened and valued.
In your opinion, what are the most important measures for achieving high satisfaction levels in customer and supplier relationships?
For Heppner, Satisfaction can be achieved through three main measures:
Do these measures also have an impact on you as an SAE member or in your cooperation with SAE partners?
Satisfaction surveys do have a major impact on our business, as they drive most of the initiatives that are undertaken across the group. All the feedbacks that we contribute to improving ourselves. They help us designing action plans that are monitored and shared with the relevant SAE partners. Otherwise, there would be no point in conducting this kind of exercize each year.
“We grow thanks to our partners, but we also contribute to their development.”
A culture of trust and closeness that you maintain with your suppliers and partners is also fundamentally important in a cooperation such as SAE. How do you ensure proximity and exchange with other SAE members?
A structured framework with recurring meetings such as Performance Reviews is requested of course. But Trust is not just a matter of figures and strategy. The connexion between people is also crucial. That is why we encourage our teams to build strong relationships with their European conterparts at all levels of the business.
What do you consider to be the most important success factors for smooth cooperation between members, partners and third-party partners in the SAE?
The receipe for a smooth cooperation consists in sharing the same vision, in communicating transparently as well as in respecting commitments. These are the three main ingredients that have made the SAE cooperation successful over the past 20 years.
How do you as the Heppner Group benefit from dialog with SAE members?
Relationships with SAE members relies in a balanced dialog, both as a supplier for French deliveries and as a customer for European flows. We grow thanks to our fellow partners but we also contribute to their own development. This mutual benefit is the reason why Heppner first founded the SAE network twenty years ago. And it still applies today.
