DHL Express Vietnam - Back-Office Customer Service Team of the Year

Company: DHL Express Vietnam
Company Description: With 77,000 employees, 4,000 facilities, over 40,000 service points, DHL Express serve 2.6 million customers and transport 294 million shipments in 2013 among more than 220 countries and territories, operate the most comprehensive global express network.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Back-Office Customer Service Team of the Year - All Other Industries

Nomination Title: BACK-OFFICE CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM OF THE YEAR

As our Backline team of DHL Express Vietnam Customer Service, our Customer Care team consists of high-skills staff who assist our external and internal customers by ensuring that every service breakdown (e.g. delay, loss, damage, undeliverable, etc.) is resolved effectively.

In 2020, the international situation is constantly changing by the impacts of global pandemic Covid-19. We experienced many challenges due to the activation of the contingency plan with 100% of staff working from home in March and August by the outbreak of Covid-19 in Vietnam. Moreover, in 2019, we faced a crisis from manpower shortage when headhunters targeted our skilled and experienced advisors to fill the thriving E-commerce local market (CS Turnover rate of 44.4% in 2019). As a result, by Oct 2020, our Customer Care team consisted of mostly newcomers with nearly 50% of those with less than 1-year seniority, thus struggled to adapt to the ever-demanding daily tasks of CS team while total Tasks for Customer Care team increased 2.8% vs. YTD19 for all nature.

With As-One and Can-Do spirit, our Customer Care team overcome obstacles and turn in excellent results in term of both SPEED and QUALITY:

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

-Straight to the Top’ (STTT) is providing customers with the opportunity to contact the Managing Director and CS Manager directly from our website. Our Management Team committed any feedback that is replied to within one business day. In reality, we get in touch with the customer within 2 working hours and keep updated on progress unless the issue is resolved

-When a shipment cannot be delivered to the receiver, the trace request (undeliverable trace) will be created and assigned to Backline CSA who initiate service recovery actions in collaboration with relevant functions locally and overseas to get the shipment delivered.

-Through Net Promoter Approach Program, we contact customers who have had an interaction with CS touch points on the previous day. From this, we use their critical feedback to make improvements, adjust processes, and drive customer loyalty.

Our CS program to enhance knowledge, skills and quality:

-NTP Day Program: enable staff deep dive into knowledge and reinforce compliance in following Global SOP Standard Network Trace Procedures for handling service recovery. All the tips and efficiency practicing in daily case handling are shared with the entire team that enhances the team skill level.

-Peer-for-progress: Program: create a big opportunity for staff to demonstrate and improve their skills in many situations, supervised and supported by Supervisors and Managers.

-Quality Leagues Campaign: This recognition program will trigger the pride of being a Backline CSA and as a result, they provide the best quality of support services.

Outline the team's achievements since July 1 2019 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):

Speed:
Trace resolution rate: 85.8% of all requests are resolved within 3 days vs. target 70%
Complaint resolution rate: 100% resolved within 5 days vs. target 75.0%
Claim resolution rate: 100% resolved within 10 days vs. target 80.0%
On-Time Customer Call Back: 98.1% vs. target 90%
On-Time Network response 99.8% vs. target 90%,
100% Customer Complaints raised to Top Management Team are replied to within 2 hours.

Quality:
In 2020 our Customer Care Team initiate many programs to enhance the knowledge (NTP Day Program), skill (Peer-for-progress), and quality (Quality Leagues Campaign) of our staffs which providing a consistent, high standard of response, improving customers’ perception of DHL. By this approach, we not only fix service breakdown at speed but also enhance quality to drive down the exception and escalation:

Trace Exception (percent of outstanding request more than 5 working days): 7.1% out of avg. 3251 requests/ month

Complaint Exception (percent of outstanding complaint more than 10 working days): 0.2% out of 66 complaints YTDSep20

1st Escalation (percent of any escalations that may arise as a result of not responding timely or sufficiently to DHL network) 0.6% out of 29,831network activities.

2nd Escalation: keep “Zero” defects continuously 10 months.

In July 2019, a project “Reduce traces of Undeliverable shipments” conducted by the Customer Care Team to reduce unnecessary requests and enhance productivity. The impressive outcome is the reduced volume of unnecessary requests (8%, H2.19 vs H1.19).

Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the team's past performance (up to 250 words):

Speed:
In a time of crisis, we keep delivering the fastest resolution of service incidents that aims at winning back the confidence of customers. We not only exceed the target, but we also improve performance against the same period and are top for Claim /Complaint resolution in comparison to APEC.

Trace resolution rate: 85.8% vs. SPLY 82.1%
Complaint resolution rate: 100% vs. 93.4% of APEC
Claim resolution rate: 100% vs. 96.9% of APEC

Our commitment to “Speed” in providing resolutions supports that prove by Net Promoter Approach (NPA) result, 71.7% customer rating satisfied with CS interactions for Service Recovery handled by Backline Team, increased 71.7% vs.2019 (71.7% vs. 41.8%).

Quality:
We focus quality in continuing our journey from Good to Great:

Trace Exception: improved 12.2% vs. LY (7.1% vs. 8.1%) vs. 9% of APEC
Complaint Exception: improved 42.8% vs. LY (0.2% vs. 0.3%) vs. 3.8% of APEC
1st Escalation: reduced 25.2% vs. LY (0.6% vs. 0.8%)vs. 2.2% of APEC
2nd Escalation: remains Zero vs. 8 of APEC

We conduct quarterly surveys tracking DHL customer-centricity against competitors. Q3.20 ICCC Tracker scores higher than our key competitor by 7 scores, widening the gap vs. SMLY (5 points). By ensuring compliance in service recovery actions, we contributed to DHL CS Vietnam is re-certified globally as Centre of Excellence in Oct19 (Planning & Leadership; Process and Tools; Performance Management & People were assessed).