DHL has been awarded the Japan Institute of Information Technology’s (JIIT) highest award – ‘BestCustomer Support of The Year 2007’ – in recognition of its contact centre initiatives that enable
the customer service unit to achieve productivity and quality targets, while strengthening its roleas a profit centre.DHL Japan’s contact centres are part of its Customer Service division. Some 100 staff membersdivided between two centres in Tokyo and Osaka provide toll-free service nationwide, handlingrequests for pickup and cargo tracking, as well as service-related inquiries.
The company has in place strict Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each of its contactcentres. These KPIs include answering at least 90% of all calls within 10 seconds, and maintaininga hang up rate – the percentage of all incoming calls abandoned by the caller before communicationwith an agent is established – of no greater than 0.1% of all incoming calls that ring for morethan 15 seconds.
DHL Japan said it has successfully positioned its contact centres as highly-profitable unitswithin the company. For example, sales of Time Definite Delivery (TDD) value-added servicesderiving from requests for pickup have risen significantly, with profit doubling in fiscal 2005 andnearly quadrupling in fiscal 2006, both relative to fiscal 2004, when contact centre initiativeshad yet to be implemented.
“In addition to responding to requests for pickup and cargo tracking, DHL Japan’s contactcentres propose services that meet customer needs,” said Mariko Kimura, Customer Services Directorfor DHL Japan. “We’re delighted to be recognized for cultivating an improved environment thatencourages developing the marketing capabilities of contact centre staff.”
DHL Japan said it will endeavour to further enhance its contact centre service in order toensure that it continues to exceed customer expectations.
