We never rest on our laurels and we always keep on innovating: 2019 winner DPD reflects on an unprecedented fourth award

DPD UK was already familiar with the benefits of winning at the Lloyds Bank National Business Awards—before its triumph in the Virgin Atlantic Customer Experience & Loyalty Award this year, it had already taken home three awards in the last decade. We asked DPD what keeps them coming back.

What was your motivation for entering the Lloyds Bank National Business Awards?

Two main motivations:
1. It’s good to benchmark ourselves against the very best and that means looking beyond our own sector and into other areas of excellence within UK plc.
2. Because the Lloyds Bank National Business Awards is widely seen as the ‘Oscars’ of British industry—credible awards that give us extra clout when promoting DPD in a competitive market. 

As a previous winner, what did it feel like to take home another award?

It was a massive buzz, of course! We have the best record of anyone in the ‘customer-facing’ categories of these awards (after topping the Customer Focus category in 2009, 2013 and 2016), so it was a real achievement to beat off stiff competition from nine other finalists and win our fourth NBA trophy in ten years. It shows that our success is sustainable, because we never rest on our laurels and we always keep on innovating. And of course it’s a testament to the talent and commitment of the thousands of people from Team DPD who make it happen on the doorstep every day, for shippers and shoppers alike. Being the only parcel company of the 150 finalists on the night was also a real honour. So it’s definitely good for morale and that in turn helps us attract and retain top talent. 

What is it like to attend the awards ceremony?

It has always been a high-quality and professional event, with a great host and guest speakers—2019 was up there at the usual high standards. 

How do you plan to build on your success this year?

We’re driven by a constant desire to stay ahead of the pack by being hungry, dynamic, disruptive and agile. Also, we effectively have two customers—we collect from a sender and we deliver to their customers, so our job is to make people smile at both ends of the chain! 

In 2020, we’re on a mission to become the UK’s most sustainable carrier, with 10% of our fleet emission-free by the end of the year and radical innovations in the way we operate in city centres. ‘Green’ is now a central pillar of our overall business strategy and many of our retail customers are as passionate as we are about making deliveries cleaner and greener.

We’re also continuing to create new and innovative services via our in-app ‘Design Space’ facility, where we have 40,000 engaged users suggesting and voting on new ideas. 

With entries open for 2020, what advice would you offer anyone thinking about entering?

Go for it! It’s highly competitive—the entry form and judging process are really searching and rigorous but setting yourself that challenge is in itself worth the effort. Because whether you win or not, it makes you think really hard about what success looks like and what you could be doing differently to put customers at the heart of everything you do and stay ahead of your competitors.