Enhanced customer focus in internal services

At Global Business Services, the priority in the year under review was on further enhancing customer focus in internal services. This is closely linked with the First Choice initiative. We surveyed customers and business partners within the Group to find out how satisfied they are with our services, and their responses have led to numerous improvements. Marked gains have already been achieved on a number of quality indicators such as response times and IT system availability. We will be repeating the customer satisfaction survey yearly from now on.

Local retail outlets as nationwide sales platform

Our “non-mobile” sales network of more than 13,500 retail outlets is one of the most extensive in Germany. Every day, these outlets welcome two to three million customers who come there to use postal services and, in many cases, to take care of their banking needs. We are also currently testing around 900 new Postpoint format outlets, which are located, as are our partner outlets, in different kinds of shops, to ensure proximity to customers and high accessibility.

We have been co-operating successfully with the retail trade for fifteen years. Currently, more than 8,000 outlets are operated by partners offering postal services and in most cases banking services in addition to their own main product range. As this sales model benefits everyone concerned we plan to expand it: Customers profit from short distances; partners benefit from growth in customer numbers and income; and Deutsche Post demonstrates its proximity to the customer whilst improving efficiency. The postal services provided under the Deutsche Post and DHL brands are also available in the 855 finance centres of Postbank.