Post offices urged to develop more value-added services
The Hong Kong Direct Marketing Association is urging Hongkong Post and other postal authorities to add more value to their customer services, particularly when it comes to handling direct mail and bulk mail.
Godfrey Rooke, the association’s chairman, points out that there are many international mailers in Hong Kong and they want improved value-added services. “We believe customer service will be the key differential factor for postal services and demand in this area is going to get more acute,” he told this week’s World Mail and Express Asia conference in Hong Kong. In that context, he queried how many postmaster generals actually called on customers to talk about the services provided.
Rooke said members of the Hong Kong Direct Marketing Association needed business partners which could provide service reliability and certainty about delivery of their mail. He acknowledged that the present services provided by Hongkong Post were impeccable. Nevertheless, he said, that organisation could further improve its service offering by providing free track and trace facilities and automatic feedback on mail delivery.
He proposed that Hongkong Post consider appointing someone with a marketing background to the post of assistant post master general or equivalent to help improve service activities. Such a move, he said, would go a long way towards building up a valuable sector of business, adding that Hongkong Post was not currently sales or market oriented.
A spokesperson for Hongkong Post said the organisation had in fact been running a customer account management system since 1996 and last year implemented a postal re-engineering which had improved productivity by 7 per cent. “We hope to improve it even further this year,” he added.
The Hong Kong Direct Marketing Association has some 80 members, including large organisations like Cathay Pacific Airways and Hongkong Bank, as well as a range of smaller companies, all of which are large users of international mail services.
