How to Manage Customers to Stay Ahead of Competition—DHL Express

By Dipo Olowookere

According to the latest report by McKinsey & Company on customer experience, “Superior customer experience is increasingly being recognized as a competitive advantage for businesses, and it is becoming ever more important that a company differentiate itself by providing seamless customer experiences.”

Fatima Sullivan, Vice President of Customer Service for DHL Express, Sub Saharan Africa firmly supports this notion, adding, “With a multitude of options now available to consumers when it comes to products and services in every sector, businesses must realize that customer service is the most important touch point between companies and customers”.

“Listening to the voice of the customer is imperative when it comes to designing and optimizing the user experience. Customers want choice and convenience, and if a solution is pushed back on them, it may lead to frustration and dissatisfaction. For this reason, we place huge emphasis on the voice of the customer. DHL Express has a number of programs in place to capture immediate feedback from customers and we use them to perform root-cause analysis and not to merely resolving the problem. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to delight a customer; if a step is missed, it can derail your customer’s experience”.

“We have an insanely customer-centric culture at DHL Express. What this means is that the want and need to provide great service quality is in our employee’s DNA. Ensuring that the voice of the customer resonates throughout the organization is also essential to great service quality.  While you can measure the key performance indicators for good customer service daily, the most value is derived from direct customer feedback. Initiatives such as the use of the Net Promoter Approach (NPA) management tool are extremely useful in identifying areas for improvement and in enabling the company to make the necessary changes to enhance their offering and continually offer better ways to deliver excellence to customers”.

“At DHL Express, we take customer service very seriously and try to deliver great customer experiences that are full of surprising ‘wow’ moments. Proof of this lies in the fact that we have won over 27 external awards for customer service in SSA in 2017 so far”, concludes Sullivan.