DHL plans new parcel products in Germany
DHL is responding to customer wishes in Germany by testing new parcel services and plans to simplify its portfolio by re-branding products from next January, a senior manager said.
One innovative new service was parcel deliveries in the evening, Uwe Brinks, managing director DHL Parcel Germany, told last week’s KEP Kongress in Bergisch Gladbach, near Cologne. The parcels company, with revenue of EUR 2.6 billion in 2007, is the German parcel market leader.
Research among 1,500 existing and potential B2B and B2C customers had shown that top priorities included high reliability, low damage, understandable products and good customer service based on “convenience”, Brinks said.
At the same time, competition was intensifying as more parcels operators broadened their portfolios towards a “universal” range of B2B, B2C and C2X products, he pointed out. All parcel operators were also affected by rising costs, he added.
In response to the changing environment, DHL Parcel Germany had adopted the slogan of “ Simple, Always, Everywhere”. In January 2009, it would simplify its complex product branding to “ DHL Paket” for deliveries within Germany, with various add-on options, and to “DHL Europaket/Weltpaket” for international parcels, Brinks said.
Availability was being enhanced with services such as 24/7 self-service parcel drop-off and collection points (Packstations, Paketbox), and parcel tracking by mobile phone.
DHL was currently testing a free evening delivery service in the cities of Bonn and Offenbach for second delivery attempts where the first attempt had failed during the day. This had improved the second attempt quality by 90 pct and DHL planned to roll this innovation out in more cities, Brinks commented. But it needed to ensure that it kept the additional operational costs under control, he added.
The KEP Kongress, the 14th annual conference event for the postal, parcels and express sector, was organized by Hamburg-based Deutscher Verkehrs-Verlag.
