10/28/2010 12:30 pm

DHL Express International ranks No 1 in Call Centre Service Study

DHL Express, the global market leader in the international cross-border express shipping business, achieved a staggering score of 93.94% for their e-mail communications in the UK’s biggest ever call centre benchmarking exercise, conducted by independent market research company GfK Mystery Shopping. The company outperformed the overall Top 50 e-mail average of 74% by nearly 20 %.

The study was commissioned by the UK’s Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service, a programme organised by Call Centre Focus magazine, to raise customer service standards in the call centre industry. The research consisted of 18,500 mystery shopping enquiries to over 50 of the UK’s leading call centres, across five sectors – retail & distribution, financial services & insurance, utilities, public services and entertainment, leisure & travel.

Each call centre was rated using over 50 criteria across five key areas of service - timeliness, ease of use, reliability, staff knowledge and personalised service – and awarded a Customer Service rating in percentage terms. The study found that DHL Express International call centre in the East Midlands is the best performing in the UK for e-mail communications.

The Top 50 programme sponsored by Genesys, Jabra & Noble Systems, shows that all Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service are continuing to improve on their e-mail communications. The proportion of emails which were fully responded to went up from 70% in 2009 to 81% this year, which in turn helped to push up the overall score from 64% in 2009 to 74% this year. There has also been an improvement in the proportion of organisations replying to e-mails within at least 10 working days which was 83% this year up from 77% in 2009.

Simon Thorpe, Programme Director, Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service, commented:

“Customer service is becoming more important than ever as consumers are more careful about where and how they spend their money. Companies are realising that in order to retain customers during difficult financial periods customer service has to be first class. This benchmarking programme highlights 50 of the UK’s top call centres who are prepared to put their reputations on the line in order to raise service standards for their customers. We would like to congratulate DHL Express International for their truly outstanding performance, and indeed all of the Top 50, for such high achievements. We hope this initiative will inspire other call centres to improve their levels of customer service to reach the standards set by our Top 50 members.”

“The results show that many organisations are already delivering a world-class service to their customers. However, there is still room for improvement, particularly in the area of personalised service. By investing in the frontline employees who provide call centre service, organisations have an opportunity to differentiate their performance and increase customer long-term loyalty.”

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