Yodel ‘to make operating profit this financial year’, company claims

UK parcel firm Yodel has confirmed that it expects to move into operating profit this financialyear after making significant progress in its financial turnaround and customer experience

The company, the UK’s largest independent parcel delivery business, said it had achieved anannualised improvement of more than £70 million (€87 million) in EBITDA terms for the full year to30 June 2014, and “expects to move into operating profit for the year 2014/15”. It said it had “made significant progress in its focus on financial turnaround, transformation of service qualityand, most importantly, customer experience”.

Having completed its restructure in 2012, following the acquisition of DHL Domestic by HomeDelivery Network in 2010, the carrier appointed an entirely new board and said it was “now growingstrongly, with parcel volume and revenue increasing by 11% and 12% respectively in the period 31December 2013 to 30 June 2014”. It said this strong like-for-like growth had continued for thefirst few weeks of Yodel’s current financial year, with volumes approximately up 14% on thecorresponding period last year.

It said this growth was the result of new client wins, often from referrals, strong clientretention, and increased parcel volumes from existing clients. “Base growth has been driven by newstreams of volume and returning consumer confidence,” it added. “Many of Yodel’s account wins havebeen returning clients; testament to the increased confidence in service.”

The company has also seen significant growth in online flower and wine accounts “on the back ofits market leading expertise in handling delicate items”, the firm claimed.

This spring saw the first of Yodel’s workforce graduate from what it calls “the industry’s onlycustomer-experience academy”, a year-long programme designed by Yodel to improve doorstepexperience, client and consumer contact.

Over the year, Yodel’s TrustPilot score – a measure of customer satisfaction –increased from 2.6to 6.0 and its Net Promoter Score improved from -10.45 to +47.27, the company said. “While themeasures are not yet where Yodel wishes them to be, at these levels they still place it as one ofthe UK’s leading parcel service providers for customer experience,” the company said.

Neil Lloyd, Yodel’s chief executive officer, commented: “As a new management team, we setourselves a number of tough targets twelve months ago and I am pleased to say that with the supportand hard work of the whole Yodel workforce, we have exceeded our goals. We are benefitting fromimprovements in consumer confidence and we are also taking market share, and, therefore, growing ata faster rate than the parcel volume in the market.”

He continued: “What is crucially important is that we continue to improve customer experience.Consumer opinion is increasingly determining retailers’ carrier selection and we have a number ofprogrammes and initiatives, such as our industry leading customer experience academy, which arehelping us to serve our clients’ customers better.”

Yodel’s executive chairman, Dick Stead, commented: “The UK parcel market remains a crowded andultra-competitive space. I am delighted that the range of services we offer through our vandelivery network, cost-effective local couriers, rapidly expanding joint venture CollectPlus andour developing international network are winning market share and placing Yodel as the parcelcarrier of choice for omni-channel retailers.

“Yodel’s management and its shareholders remain absolutely focused on developing a parcelbusiness with a profitable long-term future, offering outstanding customer experience.”