Customer Satisfaction Best Marketing Tool of All

By Jim Davis

Natalia Bochkova, who became DHL’s country manager in Ukraine a few months ago after almost two decades with DHL in Russia, believes that the best marketing tool in the world is customer satisfaction.

Bochkova’s career has in many ways paralleled post-Soviet development in the Commonwealth of Independent States. She joined DHL in 1992 as a customer service representative while she was still pursuing her education in economics and accounting at the Moscow University of Management.

Since that time, her experience and career development have grown as she assumed positions of increasing responsibility with DHL in Russia, the Baltics and now in Ukraine.

During her career, she has seen the world become a much smaller place, at least from the standpoint of customer demands and efforts to meet customer expectations. “What used to take days now must be accomplished in a matter of hours if we are to maintain our high level of customer satisfaction. When I came onboard with DHL, our business was all about transporting documents, which meant fewer problems with customs clearance and related matters. Today, in those countries with package pre-clearance, we can implode our delivery times, which make for more efficient operations and happier customers. Ukraine still needs to develop this practice,” Bochkova said.

“It has always been our policy to lead in the market and our investments have made it possible to fulfill that policy. By making the investments that we have in facilities, we are able to work more efficiently and win customer respect. DHL’s investment in a 12-ton capacity aircraft that is dedicated to serving this market exclusively has made a great difference in our ability to serve expanding customer needs. Even with some slowdown in traffic during the current economic crisis, this dedicated aircraft has proven to be a great investment.”

Previously, DHL personnel had indicated that Ukraine express traffic suffered from a very high percentage of returns to the sender because of problems with customs and recipient unwillingness to pay what they thought were unacceptable customs charges. “The number of returned shipments from Ukraine has always been a big concern for the company. On one side it creates the additional workload and costs and on the other side it generates customer dissatisfaction,” Bochkova said. However it should be noted that the Ukrainian parliament has recently adopted the legislation that stipulates a 200 Euro minimum threshold for non-dutiable shipments for private individuals. The new legislation is in place as of September 1. Although the customs procedures for clearance of these shipments remain rather time consuming - it is a big step toward the internationally >>  >> accepted standards,” Bochkova added.

An important part of Bochkova’s job is to change the way potential investors think about DHL. “As a company, we are constantly searching for new ways to encourage foreign direct investment by making it possible for business to develop in a seamless fashion. We want people to think of us not just as an express company, but as a provider of what we refer to as soft infrastructure, in effect providing many of the warehousing, distribution and other functions that we as a company with very broad logistics experience can provide more cost effectively than the customer might be able to do in-house,” Bochkova added.

Bochkova pointed out that DHL has already made substantial investments for Ukraine’s growth and attraction of foreign direct investment. “EURO 2012 is just one of the rich opportunities for which we have invested in infrastructure and also trained our professional staff. I am proud to be a part of an organization that is helping to make Ukraine a better place to live and a better place to invest,” Bochkova concluded.

Bochkova is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Express Carriers and a representative of the European Association of Express Carriers. She now makes her home in Kyiv along with her teenage son.