Parcels. People. And how we talk about the two.

DX

What DX believes

We are a logistics business and, before anything else, we are proud to be this.

We were a logistics business at the outset, and wherever we decide to go in the future, we will at heart remain a logistics business.

When our journey began, however, that word – logistics – with its connotations of efficiencies, optimisations, workflows and analytics, was still attached relatively infrequently to what businesses in our sector did. It was certainly was not attached to what we did. We started out by assuring legal firms, whose partners we knew personally and whose imperatives we understood, to trust us to collect documents from them when they asked us to, and to make certain they were transferred to counter-parties, to their clients, or to the Court system, swiftly, securely and accountably.

We knew the people we worked for, and we understood the ways in which their consignments were important.

Fast forward four decades and we are every bit a logistics business, in an industry in which it long since became vital to focus on systems. Leaner; faster; smarter; more secure, et al.

Our industry transformed itself through the clever deployment of each new generation of technology as it arrived.

Now our business, like those of our competitors, is dependent on these technologies to deliver dependability, accountability, security, performance, efficiency and just about everything else.

Only now, having these things is neither differentiator nor advantage: it is simply the entry price for being in the game at all.

Because of this, all businesses in our sector need to look again at what really marks them out.

For DX, this can mean only one thing.

Looking backwards to remind ourselves where we came from: that our hallmark used to be knowing the people we worked for and understanding the ways in which their consignments were important.

In today’s world, armed with all of our technological advantages, what matters more than ever is that we do remind ourselves that we cannot be people led by software.

Every customer we have – every person who commits a consignment to our care – has an agenda. It may be their own, or that of their employer. It may be a huge thing in their life, just one routine moment in their day, or somewhere inbetween.

In any case, at the moment of commitment, whether they were free to choose us or doing so without an option, they are trusting that we will; take their package, handle it carefully, listen to and act on anything they tell us (even if this does not fit simply into a data field), and deliver it in the expected timeframe, to the correct recipient, in perfect condition.

What matters now is that we remember that our business is one of listening, paying attention, showing pride in who we are, and understanding that only by each of us using our care, enterprise and intelligence to get the best from our systems can we differentiate ourselves in a way that strengthens our business.

Each person we employ was hired for a reason. We could have chosen someone else, but we instead chose them.

What we need now is for each of us to use those qualities and skills for which we were chosen to help DX ‘deliver’ for its customers in a way that brands us and ensures our future.

DX. Delivered. Exactly.

It would be easy to feel that our time-served strapline, ‘Delivered. Exactly.’ had run its course and should be replaced or, at the very least, de-emphasised.

This may, indeed, be the case.

However there is a way to think about this line, which requires that we consider what we mean by ‘Delivered’.

Do we mean “taken to the address, handed over and checked off on our app?” Or do we mean that we have “delivered” in a far more complete and all-encompassing way – in the way that is often described as having ‘over delivered’?

• Did we make a special effort to get to an early pickup on request, or go back to pick up one more item even though it wasn’t scheduled?
• Did we wait longer than we’d have liked while the person we were collecting from checked something with her boss?
• Did our driver follow a consignment through into the depot to ensure a specific request had been spotted on the system?
• Did we make a better-safe-than-sorry phone call?
• Did someone get in early? Stay late?
• When we delivered, did we cheerfully carry up more stairs than expected? Did we help the recipient for a minute even though it wasn’t our job to?
• Did we kindly take one for the team while someone moaned about our customer from whom she had purchased what we were delivering? Did we apologise on their behalf even though it wasn’t our fault?
• When we talked on the phone to an inexperienced despatch agent who works for our contract customer, did we treat him respectfully and help him out, even though we know that he has no say whatsoever in whether or not to use us?

If we did any of the above, then we “delivered” in a sense that is meaningful and relevant to where our business is today.

We delivered on human engagement, helpfulness, commitment, going the extra mile and so on.

“Delivered!” one of us confirms approvingly to a colleague, as she behaves in one of these ways.

“Exactly!” she retorts. As if to say, “Yes! Of course. That’s what we do!”

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/contd;