Urbanization has reduced the population in rural areas while the urban population has increased in Sweden. As a consequence, also the number of distance forest owners increases continuously and today they own one third of Sweden's privately-owned forests. The purpose of this study was to describe the forest owner cooperative Norrskog’s distance forest owners, their perception of Norrskog's current services and their demand for services in the future. Data was collected through a web-based and a postal questionnaire. The results showed that the average age of Norrskog's distance forest owners was 63 years, a large proportion lived in metropolitan areas and a majority had more than 500 km to their forest property. Most of them owned their forest property together with relatives, 67 % were quite or very satisfied with their forest management, although most of them thought they had little knowledge of forest management. According to forest ownership, management of the family's land was valued the highest along with the feeling of ownership. Maximum yield and growth were valued the lowest. It was found that the forest owners in general were satisfied with the services offered by Norrskog. Thinning and precommercial cleaning got the highest average rating values and forest management plan and property valuation got the lowest. Among services for the future, - documentation of implemented silvicultural measures in the forestry plan was the most popular. Among Norrskog's distance forest owners many generational changes will likely occur soon. The new owners may be more interested in new ways of communication and services and therefore Norrskog should broaden its service portfolio to ease distance forest ownership.

The development of technology and the mechanization in the Swedish forestry has during the last 60 years resulted in depopulation of the country side and due to that the amount of distance forest owners has increased. Therefore the forest companies need to make some adjustments in order to keep the distance forest owners as customers and to attract new ones. The purpose of this essay was to examine and analyze the distance forest owners satisfaction with Södras service offering and quality of service and further develop some proposals for action. A web-based survey was sent out to 634 distance forests owners in Stockholm, Sweden, all members of Södra. 269 respondents participated in the survey and of them, 27 did also participate in a follow-up telephone interview. The results show that the members generally was satisfied with the service offering and the quality of service. Suggestions for improvement regarding the service offering is all about implementing forest management courses in Stockholm and including providing financial and generational counseling, also on location in Stockholm. The quality of service can be improved if the inspector changes the way of working towards an even more customer adapted way and also improve the dialogue with the entrepreneurs. Further suggestions for improvement is to a greater extent welcome complaints and to give some compensation and/or apologize when it is motivated.