News

TNT Express Services, winner of the Customer Care category at the Motor Transport Awards, operates in a highly competitive market and believes that any initiative in this area has to be carefully planned and executed, closely monitored and supported by staff throughout the business. The company created a customer care strategy based on four principles that would be readily accepted by people in all parts of the company, whether they are delivery drivers or office workers.

These were to:  ask customers what they want to ask TNT staff what they need to do the job to create enthusiasm and success and to strive to beat the company's previous best performance. Chris Atkinson, the company's director of customer experience, says: "In transport you get all sorts of people working for you and it was important that the whole company understood what we were doing. We believe that if you manage people in the right way ultimately you will end up getting the right response from your customers."

Interaction

TNT used an independent survey from MORI which identified 14 key areas of customer/supplier interaction that dictate repurchase behaviour. Six of these relate to customer care issues and account for 55% of the reasons why customers decide to buy a product or service - all six have been addressed by TNT. The most important is how staff treat a customer, accounting for 17% of purchases, followed by how staff handle an enquiry or complaint (12%)  and staff enthusiasm for products and services (8%). Also important were after-sales service (7%), staff knowledge of products and services (6%) and how staff represent their company (5%).

Rather than bringing in initiatives and hoping they have a beneficial impact, TNT measures performance in minute detail. Twice a year the company conducts a Customer Loyalty Survey and, from this, each of the 70 depots in the network receives a loyalty report. This is based on 39 customer satisfaction attributes and compares the depot's performance against previous results and against the company as a whole. "Depots are benchmarked against each other within the UK and the UK is then measured against other countries to see how we're performing. If we're happy with the results from a depot we can congratulate them but if we're not we can isolate the weak areas and assist the depot to improve," Atkinson explains.

Satisfaction

Local depots select a customer satisfaction steering group comprising a driver, loading bank operative, salesperson, administration clerk and traffic office operator. The group is chaired by a supervisor or manager and prepares an action plan to improve the worst five attributes reported in the survey. Regional directors then review the progress of the action plan in monthly meetings. In order to test performance further TNT has come up with a concept it calls the Perfect Transaction. This measures all the elements of a delivery such as whether the consignment was collected on time, what condition it arrived in, whether the proof-of-delivery was correctly provided and whether an accurate invoice was produced. "We take 10% of consignments and measure them at random. We believe that this gives us a good view of what is going on in the business," Atkinson says.

TNT Express Services employs more than 10,000 people in the UK and has 3,500 vehicles which deliver 50 million items a year. Major customers are the responsibility of local depot managers but Atkinson says its aim is to provide a good experience whatever the size of the customer. "We believe it is important to offer the same level of service for someone sending 50,000 items as someone who gets on the phone from the Yellow Pages and sends one," he comments. The company has a customer care charter it gives to customers which states that they will be contacted on a regular basis. This involves a telephone call and a visit at least once every eight weeks, with the frequency determined by the customer's trading patterns. The process identifies customer needs but is also useful in detecting potential areas of customer dissatisfaction at an early stage.

In addition, customers are encouraged to contact their local TNT manager if they have any query or complaint. No calls to managers are screened and customers are put through without being asked their name or the reason for the call. TNT has also acted on research by customer service survey company TARP which found that loyalty levels are even higher among those who have had a query or problem successfully resolved than those who have not had them in the first place. "I would never say nothing will go wrong with delivering a parcel but what is important is how you react to a situation," Atkinson says. 

Automated

The company runs three national contact centres to deal with customer enquiries. The most recent of these opened in Gateshead last year to support existing facilities in Atherstone and Lount, Leicestershire. Callers are answered within three rings and go straight through to a customer service agent rather than being processed by an automated system. They are then either dealt with by a response team which takes simple collection requests and provides proof-of-delivery information or by a support function, responsible for in-depth queries. TNT believes that its customer care policies have played a key part in its recent performance. Its average number of trading customers has grown in each of the past five years to more than 48,000 and its revenue and profit have also increased, to £727m and £69m respectively in 2005.

Over the past three years it has achieved a customer retention rate of 97% among its top 100 daily trading customers. Atkinson believes that small companies as well as those the size of TNT can benefit from good customer service. "The basic principle is to take care of your people who will take care of your customers. If that happens everything else falls into place," he says. But it is something that needs constant work and TNT is planning further customer care improvements next year. "We are setting the bar higher and higher all the time," Atkinson explains.

Staff

Training, staff motivation and internal communications have played a key part in improving TNT's customer service performance. Enthusiasm, friendliness, commitment and an ability to work with people are taken into account when taking on new staff, alongside academic record and previous experience. Once in place, all employees are given customer care training as part of their induction, with refresher courses every 12-18 months. In addition, Atkinson believes that the overall level of training - which helped the company win this year's Training category at the MT Awards - boosts morale and creates pride in the TNT brand.

The company recognises customer care achievements through personal congratulatory letters and a national newsletter. Employees can also receive £100 worth of vouchers under a scheme known as Delivering More. Employees are encouraged to take part in quizzes, known as the X-Press Factor, covering products, competitors and general market information. Local depots enter a team of six which plays a minimum of three rounds, followed by quarter and semi-finals and a grand final where the winning team wins £3,000 in cash and a silver trophy.

TNT believes the effectiveness of these policies has helped create enthusiasm among the workforce and is shown in good feedback in the People Survey it conducts among staff each year. The results of the survey are made known to staff through a special bulletin. "There has to be a culture of customer care which is generated throughout the company. If you haven't got the right attitude you'll never get the job done successfully," Atkinson says.