Thirty-eight countries received performance awards for the quality of their EMS service in 2009 during the EMS Cooperative’s annual general meeting at UPU headquarters last week.
That's the largest number of awards given out since they were created in 2005, and more than double the number handed out in 2008. Awards are given based on how well countries perform on various key indicators such as on-time transmission and on-time delivery of items.
Winners include: (Gold) Australia, Azerbaijan, Hong Kong, China, Macao, China, El Salvador, Great Britain, Ireland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland; (Silver) Belgium, Cayman Islands, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay, Viet Nam; (Bronze) Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Malta, Mongolia, Slovakia, Thailand, United States of America, Ukraine.
Service improving
According to Wendy Eitan, chair of the EMS Cooperative, the increased number of awards is a signal that service is improving. “These results demonstrate our members’ commitment to the EMS business plan. EMS has been identified as a growth area and operators are working to keep their customer base and increase it.”
In 2009, 90% of EMS items worldwide were delivered on time, compared to 60% ten years ago. Julia Bazukina, who oversees the standards and measurement programme at the EMS Unit, the cooperative’s secretariat, added: “There’s been a lot of hard work by countries, and we have held many improvement activities with our members.”
Russia, Hungary and Singapore also received customer care awards. These are given by EMS Cooperative members based on the quality of replies countries provide to enquiries processed through an Internet-based system.
Elections
In related news, four new members were elected to the EMS management board. Brian Hutchins, from the United States, Kazou Kamishiro, from Japan, Patrick Richon, from France, and Ms Yu Zhou, from China, were elected to the seven-member EMS board for a two-year term.
EMS is Posts’ fastest postal service. Almost 200 operators offer the service worldwide.