The 2020 Customer Satisfaction Survey shows: DHL Freight has become even better! Despite the pandemic, survey results reveal how important personal contact still is and what we need to work on to become provider of choice for even more customers worldwide.
Satisfied customers likely to recommend us
In the fall of 2020, we asked nearly 40,000 customers in 30 countries to participate in our annual Customer Satisfaction Survey. Around 5,000 took part. The result? Our customers are even more satisfied with us than in the previous year - and that despite the challenging pandemic situation! The average overall satisfaction score was 77 out of a possible 100 points, two points higher than in 2019. In 18 countries, 75 points or more were achieved. Customers’ willingness to recommend DHL Freight also increased further, by a full 10 points compared to the previous year.
Incentive for improvement
"The increase in satisfaction is certainly partly due to the fact that we are offensively implementing the future trends of digitalization and globalization. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, which were new for all of us last year, it was particularly important for us to listen closely to our customers to understand the problems they are facing and how we can help," says Uwe Brinks, CEO DHL Freight. "So after each survey, we launch a variety of follow-up measures to make DHL Freight even better and customers even more satisfied." The 2019 survey results alone triggered 211 improvement measures. By the fall of 2020, when the survey for the current study began, 60 percent of these measures had already been fully implemented.
Punctuality counts for customer satisfaction in particular
The 2020 study identifies which criteria most strongly influence satisfaction with a logistics service provider.
These are:
- punctual and fast delivery
- transport safety
- transparency within the supply chain
- individual solutions
- environmentally friendly transport.
Personal contact and advice are also important. As confirmed in previous years, customers who have a personal contact person rated us significantly higher than customers without a direct contact. Even with customer meetings in 2020 only taking place via telephone or video conference, DHL Freight often came out ahead of the competition. Customers were significantly more satisfied with DHL Freight than with other logistics providers, including our IT solutions for shipment tracking.
Particularly good status in Central and Northern Europe
Customers in eastern and northern European countries, such as Northern Macedonia, Romania and Finland, as well as in Central Europe, such as Belgium, were very positive about DHL Freight's performance and service. But, there were also requests for improvement, for example from Turkey, the Czech Republic and some southern European countries. "We take these voices - like all feedback - very seriously. We use it as an incentive to continuously improve," says Uwe Brinks.
Sustainability and customer satisfaction: one tree per answer
By the way, those who answered the questionnaire also did something for the environment: As part of the Sustainability strategy GoGreen DHL Freight is planting trees as in previous years. 4.966 will be planted this time.