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For the second consecutive year, the 2004 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. Almost two-thirds of respondents
reported price increases and a similar proportion expected prices to rise
in the next 12 months.
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 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”.
The last year has seen the worldwide re-branding of Deutsche Post's DHL
Worldwide, Danzas and Ducros EuroExpress into the one company/brand of DHL
Express, Royal Mail's Extand to the Europe-wide brand of GLS (France) and
Hays DX in France and Belgium has become Ciblex.
Awareness of express carriers amongst the sample has generally increased
over last year's already high level and certainly correlates with the
degree of usage of the carriers and their sales and promotional
activities. Spontaneous awareness has increased particularly for DHL
Express and UPS as a result of integration and promotional activities on
television. Television appears the favoured communication medium by the
carriers and the most effective, followed by direct mail.
There was a dramatic rise in the sample's access to the Internet and usage
of carriers' Internet facilities also increased substantially with many
respondents using this facility to check on the delivery status of a
parcel and to obtain a POD signature.
Notes to editor:
This Triangle report (The French Domestic Express Customer Survey) is now
in its second year. This unique survey 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. Triangle has introduced a minimum
criterion of 75 interviews for the main domestic express carriers:
Chronopost International, France Express, GLS and TNT Express. The
fieldwork was undertaken in June 2004. This report is available both in
French and English for purchase at a cost of €17,500 + VAT.
Customer satisfaction benchmark studies using similar methodology also
include the UK Parcels Distribution Survey, the UK Pallets Distribution
Survey, the German Domestic Parcels & Express Survey and the UK
International Express Outbound Survey. These surveys are conducted
annually. |
