The Triangle French Domestic Express Customer Survey shows evidence of price hardening in the domestic express market both over the last twelve months and in terms of customers’ expectations. The reasons for this are conjecture and might be explained by the carriers’ pricing strategy or a willingness to compensate stagnating volumes by a higher rate per kg. In addition, the market has witnessed the demise of France Acheminement and financial difficulties for TAT Express which is reflected in the survey by a high lapsed usage rate.

The report also shows that French express carriers need to become much more customer orientated as most carriers clearly need to improve their customers’ perceptions in all the important areas of customer service. Although the survey reports that there is a focus on quality of service, most carriers received lower ratings in terms of “Customer care” and basic customer service issues such as “Answering telephone promptly”.

The Triangle French Domestic Express Customer Survey shows that regular customers are particularly sophisticated in their decision-making process by also using more than one domestic express carrier basing their decision on multiple carriers upon factors such as price, “National coverage”, “Range of parcels weight” and the “Range of services offered”.

Awareness of express carriers amongst the sample is particularly high and certainly correlates with the degree of usage of the carriers, their sales and promotional activities. Television appears the favoured communication medium by the carriers and the most effective although not necessarily the most economical in terms of brand recognition. The survey shows that old television advertisements (for Geodis Calberson particularly) still have an impact on shippers in terms of media recall.

It is noticeable that usage of carriers’ Internet facilities remains lower in France than elsewhere. Just over two-thirds of respondents had access to the Internet at work. It would seem that regular shippers prefer to use the software or hardware facilities provided by their express carriers to handle their shipments.

Notes to Editor:

• This new Triangle report (The French Domestic Express Customer Survey) has been based on the long-established (17 years) UK Parcels Distribution Survey which is today the benchmark for the express parcels industry in the UK.  This unique report not only provides a customer satisfaction survey for a range of service providers but also benchmarks the survey results so that individual carriers can measure their performances against their direct competitors based on customers’ perception.

• Due to the segmentation of the French Messagerie market, the French Domestic Express Survey strictly focuses on time-definite and next day delivery services.

• The report is based on 300 in-depth telephone interviews with decision-makers within companies sending more than 100 parcels per month domestically. The fieldwork was undertaken during the summer of 2003. This report is available both in French and English for purchase at a cost of €17,500 + VAT.

• There are also plans to extend this form of customer satisfaction benchmark study to other European distribution markets such as the Republic of Ireland and Germany.