The ‘success story’ of DHL Express-Syria

Khulud al-Halabi, a strong minded woman with charm and character, has been the Exclusive Agent and Country Manager for DHL Express-Syria, since 1992. After completing her MBA at EM Lyon in 1977, she worked for 15-years in Paris, irst at the Credit and Loan Department of Banque Libano-Française and later in the Middle East Division of BEFS Engineering. She also founded and managed a company named Logimed sarl, which does specialized market research in the Pharmaceutical Industry. In addition to her business ventures, she also serves on the board of directors for three separate business organizations: the Syrian-Malaysian Business Council, the Syrian-Lebanese Business Council and the Syrian Chapter of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). She is also a member of two steering committees formed by the Minister of Transport, one aimed at developing “Multimodal Transport” in Syria, and the second, in collaboration with the European Investment Bank, aimed at creating a pilot project for a “Network Logistics Platforms” in Mediterranean countries. In 2002, under the patronage of Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad, Khulud al-Halabi co-founded the irst Business Incubator in Syria, a non-governmental organization named MAWRED. In April 2006, FORBES ARABIA Magazine compiled a list of the top 50 most inluential businesswomen in the Middle East. Khulud al-Halabi was #30.
Her motto in business life is: “ It’s fun, enjoy it!” FW: met with Halabi right after one of the gala events hosted in Damascus by DHL Express-Syria. Halabi stressed, at the beginning of the interview, how important it was for her to remain in-touch with her customers. “Events like tonight are so important,” she said. “Besides allowing us to show our appreciation to our customers, they give us the opportunity to really talk with them—outside the office, in a more leisurely setting, and to understand their needs. They help us to keep sight of the fact that our customers are real people and not just statistics.”

At DHL Express-Syria, have you ever run into problems of late delivery?

If this happens, we fully reimburse the customer and ship their package once again, free-of-charge. We have not seen that happen, however, and I don’t expert that it will, barring some unforeseen strike in the destination country or something like that.

That actually brings up an interesting point; what happens if someone wants this service and they come to a DHL Express office on a Thursday evening say, or on the evening before a public holiday?

That’s fine. Our offices don’t close on weekends or public holidays, there is always skeleton staff on duty 7-days a week. However we need to bear in mind that our promises for delivery are for working days. In the 23-years that we have been running DHL Express here in Syria, we have only closed down for one day once. That was when Eid al-Adha and New Year’s coincided on the same day; we decided that it was only reasonable to close.

So, it’s essentially, uninterrupted service 365 days per year?

That’s right!

Recently, there was a DHL Rafle held in Damascus. Can you tell us about that?

This rafle was related to a specific service. We have what we call the Pre9 service and the Pre12 service. Each time a customer chooses to use one of these services, he or she gets a coupon to ill. All the countries participating in this raffle have to send their coupons to our regional office in Bahrain and that is where they do the monthly draw. For example, here in Syria we had a total of nine winners from coupons collected over a three-month period.

Are these raffles restricted to customers who have accounts with DHL?”

No, no… it’s open to all our customers, both the ones with accounts and ‘cash front customers’ as well.

You said there were nine winners for this draw. What were some of the prizes?

We gave away eight iPods and one grand prize… a complete home theatre system from Sony, including a Sony Plasma TV with a full surround sound system. We are working very hard on the principle of “giving something back to our customers.” We realize how important customer loyalty actually is.

What plans are in the immediate horizon for DHL Express-Syria?

In 2007, we have opened many branches and Point of Sale locations throughout Syria. That makes our local network a total of 37, with 8 new locations expected for 2008. We are planning to purchase more vehicles in addition to the 33 we currently have. This growth drives us towards an crease of staff. We continue hosting several promotions. For example, each ‘cash front customer’ who sends a parcel through DHL gets a gift with each shipment.