TNT Express Italy wins contract and upgrades customer service
TNT Express Italy has renewed a distribution contract with leading direct sales company Amway based around its growing B2C network and invested EUR 1.4 million to improve its customer service offer with an automated system for pick-ups and new help teams.
US-owned Amway, which markets mostly cosmetics, healthcare and home products to consumers via independent retailers, will use the nationwide network of 1,200 TNT Points to distribute products to its salesforce.
Goods will be transported by road from the Amway hub in the Netherlands to TNT’s branch at Rho, near Milan, and then distributed throughout Italy through the TNT Point network. Amway salespersons can pick up their parcels at a convenient TNT Point instead of having to await courier delivery.
The B2C retail network, using a “shop-in-shop” concept in cooperation with retailers such as newsagents, tobacconists and office supply shops, is due to grow from 1,200 outlets to 1,500 by September.
Alessandro Sabato, managing director of Amway Italia, said 22,000 persons were selling Amway products each day in Italy, and they would now have rapid and comfortable access to their sales products.
Meanwhile, TNT Express Italy said it had completed a €1.4 million investment to upgrade its customer service offering under a contract with BT Italia. Following a successful test phase, TNT Express Italy has fully implemented the self-service speech application known as “Victoria” to handle standard calls from customers requesting pick-ups.
The Interactive Voice Responder (IVR) system requires just 3 – 6 standard questions to book a pick-up. Such calls were previously a “significant” proportion of the 36,000 daily calls handled by 500 call centre staff, TNT pointed out. “Victoria” is indistinguishable from a real person, and if problems arise, the customer is immediately transferred to a human operator, the company added.
TNT Express Italy has renewed a distribution contract with leading direct sales company Amway based around its growing B2C network and invested EUR 1.4 million to improve its customer service offer with an automated system for pick-ups and new help teams.
US-owned Amway, which markets mostly cosmetics, healthcare and home products to consumers via independent retailers, will use the nationwide network of 1,200 TNT Points to distribute products to its salesforce.
Goods will be transported by road from the Amway hub in the Netherlands to TNT’s branch at Rho, near Milan, and then distributed throughout Italy through the TNT Point network. Amway salespersons can pick up their parcels at a convenient TNT Point instead of having to await courier delivery.
The B2C retail network, using a “shop-in-shop” concept in cooperation with retailers such as newsagents, tobacconists and office supply shops, is due to grow from 1,200 outlets to 1,500 by September.
Alessandro Sabato, managing director of Amway Italia, said 22,000 persons were selling Amway products each day in Italy, and they would now have rapid and comfortable access to their sales products.
Meanwhile, TNT Express Italy said it had completed a €1.4 million investment to upgrade its customer service offering under a contract with BT Italia. Following a successful test phase, TNT Express Italy has fully implemented the self-service speech application known as “Victoria” to handle standard calls from customers requesting pick-ups.
The Interactive Voice Responder (IVR) system requires just 3 – 6 standard questions to book a pick-up. Such calls were previously a “significant” proportion of the 36,000 daily calls handled by 500 call centre staff, TNT pointed out. “Victoria” is indistinguishable from a real person, and if problems arise, the customer is immediately transferred to a human operator, the company added.
“Victoria” is now handling calls from 18,000 customers involving about 4,000 daily pick-ups, and is expected to deal with a total of 900,000 pick-ups from 50,000 customers in 2008.
As a result, TNT Express has transferred 100 call centre staff into four new regional customer assistance teams. They now provide added-value customer service such as parcel tracking and complaint handling for customers in their respective region.
