DPD delivers more parcels and collects more smiles with Salesforce

Real-time parcel updates. Smart lockers. Customer service chatbots. DPD isn’t just transforming the delivery experience; it’s transforming the entire industry. “We are constantly exploring new ways to enrich the delivery experience and advance our sustainability goals,” said Elaine Kerr, DPD’s UK CEO. “We want to be the greenest delivery company on the planet.”

DPD has already added more than 2,000 electric vehicles to its UK fleet, which means around 1.9 million parcels can be delivered emission-free every month. And these numbers are growing all the time: by the end of 2023, DPD plans to deliver to 30 major towns and cities using electric-only vehicles. The company has also announced initiatives to promote better air quality, reduce plastic waste, and harness renewable energy. “We want to contribute to the world’s net zero goals by providing businesses and consumers with easy access to clean, green deliveries,” said Kerr, who was recognised as the most innovative CEO in the UK’s logistics industry just a year into her role.

Innovation is key to DPD’s ongoing success – especially when it comes to technology. DPD has been using the Salesforce platform for more than a decade to enhance customer services, simplify sales operations, and strengthen marketing campaigns. “With Salesforce, we can empower our teams with the real-time insights and efficient processes they need to deliver a great experience to shippers and consumers. It helps to drive our business forward,” said Kerr.

And DPD is moving forward at record speed: in 2021 the company passed a new milestone when its UK turnover hit £2 billion. Read on to discover how Kerr and the trailblazing team at DPD are unlocking greater visibility, efficiency, and agility to drive future growth and enrich the delivery experience for millions of consumers.

DPD UK delivers around 260 million parcels a year on behalf of more than 6,500 brands. Every delivery is supported by a vast infrastructure, which encompasses more than 7,000 vehicles, around 13,000 colleagues, and 80+ sites, including a £100m superhub that can sort up to 72,000 parcels per hour.

Every investment and innovation made by DPD links back to the same aim: putting its customers first. “We want to provide a personalised and seamless experience,” said Kerr. “With Salesforce, we can achieve more first-time delivery successes and prompt more smiles on the doorstep.”

To provide personalised experiences on such a massive scale, DPD needs 360-degree visibility of not only every delivery but also every shipper and consumer. To unlock this end-to-end view, DPD has deployed Salesforce across 38 different departments – from finance and legal to HR and insurance. “With Salesforce, we have one version of the truth. It provides our teams with the visibility they need to make decisions and prioritise tasks,” said Kerr.

Delivering a great customer experience doesn’t just require smart technologies and efficient processes, it requires talented people. And DPD wants to ensure all its colleagues achieve their full potential. “Our people and our principles are what make DPD special,” said Kerr. “By fostering a diverse workforce and inclusive culture, we can build stronger connections with our customers.”

DPD’s ability to maintain its customer experience goals was put to the test by the COVID-19 pandemic when parcel volumes increased by as much as 60% during national lockdowns. As well as opening 15 new sites, recruiting 1,000+ additional drivers, and investing more than £200 million in expanding its next-day parcel capacity, DPD harnessed Salesforce’s cloud capabilities to enable its teams to quickly shift to working from home.

The company also had to adapt its customer service operations to deal with an increase in contacts from both shippers and consumers. The customer service team normally handle around 660,000 queries a month via email, telephone, and web chat – at the peak of the pandemic this rose by 32%.

To help the team operate effectively on such a massive scale, DPD migrated to Service Cloud in May 2020. “We want customer service to be a competitive differentiator,” said Dan Turner, Associate Director for Customer Service at DPD. “With Service Cloud, we can resolve more queries at first contact.”

DPD uses Service Cloud’s Omni-Channel Routing to ensure the right cases are transferred to the right advisors using AI-powered insights. This has already helped the company reduce every interaction with a customer advisor by around 40 seconds – nearly three times the original target. “Service Cloud makes it easier for advisors to access information,” said Adam Hooper, DPD’s Head of Salesforce. “It empowers advisors to focus on resolution quality rather than interaction quantity.”

Using Salesforce's highly customisable console, DPD has enabled 14 APIs within Service Cloud as well as an integration with Google Maps, which has cut the loading time for a customer’s location from 17 seconds to less than one second. It has also created 200 knowledge articles and 15 bespoke Lightning components, actions, and flows, including a process that makes it easier to locate missing packages.

DPD doesn’t just want to make things easier for its advisors; it wants to make things easier for its customers too. And that means offering a choice of engagement channels. For example, consumers can now contact DPD on WhatsApp, which supports both self-service through a chatbot and the automated creation of cases via Service Cloud Digital Engagement. The WhatsApp service has seen interaction volumes double year-on-year since it was introduced.

“We want to offer maximum choice and convenience,” said Turner. “With Service Cloud, we can keep improving our services and customer outcomes.” For example, since deploying Service Cloud, DPD has reduced the number of complaints by a third even though parcel volumes increased during the same period.

By integrating Service Cloud with its consumer app, DPD can capture feedback on the delivery experience. If a driver receives a negative rating in the DPD app, which has been downloaded six million times, a case is automatically raised in Service Cloud along with a follow-up action for an advisor.

Some issues, however, such as bad weather and traffic accidents, can’t be avoided. DPD uses Chatter to ensure advisors are informed in real time of any incidents that might impact delivery schedules. It is also conducting a proof of concept with Slack to enable real-time collaboration between advisors and depots to help provide a faster response to parcel queries.

The parcels industry has become increasingly competitive – especially following the rise in online shopping, consumer subscriptions, and home testing services during the COVID-19 pandemic. “There’s a lot of potential for growth especially within the healthcare sector,” said Jonathan Pratt, Director of Sales and CRM at DPD. “With Salesforce, we can open more doors that result in new business.”

DPD account managers and business development teams use Sales Cloud to track prospects, share leads, manage customer accounts, and simplify billing. “With Sales Cloud, our teams are more efficient and more engaged,” said Pratt.

To ensure customers can start sending parcels as quickly as possible, DPD’s Salesforce team has developed a range of automated workflows. For example, standard terms and conditions can now be adapted in as little as 30 minutes compared with 72 hours previously. “It used to take multiple steps and documents to approve the shipment of certain products,” explained Hannah Hodgkins, Salesforce Manager at DPD. “By integrating Sales Cloud with Conga and DocuSign from the Salesforce AppExchange, we’ve made the process more efficient and transparent.”

DPD’s sales team also has 360-degree visibility of service interactions across their customer accounts. For example, account managers can view data captured in Service Cloud to provide shippers with an insight into consumer engagement around deliveries. “With Salesforce, our teams can have more relevant conversations with customers,” added Pratt.

DPD’s sales teams also use Chatter to collaborate on customer accounts and the Salesforce Mobile App to make voice-based updates while working remotely.

To connect with B2B prospects and customers at key relationship milestones, DPD engages across a range of digital channels. For example, the marketing team use Marketing Cloud Account Engagement to send around 250,000 emails per month with an average open rate of 22%. DPD also uses the segmentation capabilities of Marketing Cloud to develop campaigns that target specific industries, such as healthcare. In the future, DPD plans to harness the integration between Marketing Cloud and Sales Cloud to automatically add leads from its website to the sales pipeline within a couple of minutes.

With parcel volumes up 40% on pre-pandemic figures, DPD needs to ensure it can accurately forecast and fulfil customer demand – especially during peak trading times. “We need to ensure we have sufficient resources to match delivery volumes, or it could impact our service levels,” said Pratt. “With Sales Cloud, we can automatically and accurately capture forecasts from hundreds of customers. It enables us to adapt to volume fluctuations and market changes more quickly and easily.”

Real-time data is fundamental to the success of DPD. And it wants everyone to be empowered with real-time insights. For example, every account manager has a personalised dashboard that enables them to track key metrics, such as parcel volumes, profit margins, and pipeline opportunities. “To support our customers better, we need to understand our customers better,” said Kerr. “With Salesforce, our people can make more informed decisions.”

In just seconds, DPD’s teams can pull data from 1.5 million different fields to generate reports – a process that could take several hours in the past. “Instant access to live data has transformed our business. I love that I have anytime anywhere access to data on our top opportunities and top customers,” added Kerr.

DPD also uses data captured in Sales Cloud to generate performance metrics for its account managers, which helps to identify people development priorities.

By adding more teams to its Salesforce ecosystem, DPD can unlock more opportunities for integration and automation. For example, by linking its credit management system with Service Cloud, DPD’s finance team can now access invoices and issue statements in one place. “With Service Cloud, we can identify overdue payments more efficiently. Thanks to smarter processes and richer insights, the finance team is now running a week ahead of schedule on debt collection,” said Hodgkins. “With Salesforce, we can make better use of people’s time and maximise our resources.”

DPD’s in-house team also designs and develops time-saving apps on the Salesforce platform. For example, it has built a commission calculation tool and an automated sales ledger linked to data from several external systems, which has just been shortlisted for an industry innovation award.

Smarter processes and apps have not only saved DPD time but also money. By transforming how it manages insurance claims using Service Cloud workflows, DPD has eliminated costs of around £120,000. And there’s still more innovation to come. For example, the company is looking at how it can simplify sales administration tasks by using MuleSoft to enable robotic process automation. “With Salesforce, we can dream bigger and deliver faster,” said Hooper. “The AppExchange enables us to tap into pre-built solutions that help accelerate the realisation of new ideas.”

And DPD has lots of new ideas – especially for its sales operation. In fact, it’s planning a full-scale transformation for 2023 that will further simplify customer onboarding, automate the quote to cash process, and consolidate pricing information. “Salesforce is integral to our business,” said Kerr. “The team collaborate with us on new ideas that help to enrich the customer experience.”

Enabling greater efficiency, visibility, and agility is a priority for every company and every CEO. But for Kerr and her team, these benefits must be achieved in parallel with greater sustainability. “Building a greener, cleaner world is important to us and our customers,” said Kerr. “By embracing cloud-based solutions and working with companies that share our net-zero values, we can achieve our delivery experience goals and minimise our environmental impact. With Salesforce, we can put customers and sustainability at the heart of our business while maximising the potential for growth.”