DHL Global Forwarding shows off upgraded customer portal

DHL Global Forwarding has presented its upgraded digital customer portal live from the transport logistic trade fair under way in Munich this week (of which air cargo Europe is a part), and demonstrated what the portal can offer its DHL customer users.

First launched in 2020, Deutsche Post DHL Group’s international freight shipping specialist has introduced new features and updates to the myDHLi portal, making it “even more convenient and efficient”.

Tim Scharwath, chief executive of DHL Global Forwarding, Freight, observed: “We are living in uncertain times, where our customers are facing different challenges in their transportation needs.

“Our role as a logistics provider is to manage these uncertainties and complexities and help our customers to maximise their performance, resilience and sustainability in logistics.

“Our logistics and digital expertise are bundled in myDHLi and help over 16,000 customers navigate also through uncertain times,” he pointed out.

Improving performance and productivity
Taking those three elements of performance, resilience and sustainability in turn, the myDHLi development team sought user feedback to explore ways to boost the performance and productivity of customers by way of the portal.

As a whole, myDHLi is designed as a one-stop-shop solution, meeting customers’ transport and logistics needs on a single digital platform.

Its Follow+Share function simplifies alignment processes and avoids time-consuming communications flows off-platform.

Shipment notifications are now not only configurable, but can also be received as a daily digest.

The feature provides a summary of individually selectable events that are most important to the user – including shipment and customs status and any irregularities that have arisen.

In addition, the new myDHLi book service allows customers with contracted rates to directly submit a booking via the myDHLi portal.

Without extraneous emails, phone calls or API integrations, a booking can be completed in six simple steps.

The functionalities of myDHLi Documents have also been expanded. Documents can now not only be attached to a booking, but uploaded at any time via a recently launched upload feature.

This ensures that documents are always attached to the correct shipment and can be found easily and quickly.

The myDHLi Reports service has also been enhanced. Originally only containing operational data, it was expanded in 2022 to include environmental data, such that it allows users to easily and quickly review sustainability performance.

Plus, invoice level data is available in myDHLi Reports and financial data can be seamlessly combined with operational and sustainability data in fully customisable, schedulable and sharable reports.

This facilitates more accurate and comprehensive reporting against performance indicators at operational, financial and sustainability levels, DHL said.

Building resilience
Second, myDHLi is designed to offer visibility and transparency across three dimensions – environmental impact, costs and lead times. myDHLi now offers a new order visibility option, which provides an overview of orders and order lines.

Furthermore, DHL customers will soon gain a new level of transparency from the overall order to the individual order lines via a seamless link to the related shipment.

In case of disruptions, immediate action can be taken, for instance by shifting the transport mode from ocean freight to airfreight using the Quote + Book functionality of myDHLi.

Enhancing sustainability
Third, sustainability represents an integral part of myDHLi. Customers can easily book the GoGreen Plus service via Quote + Book and reduce the carbon emissions of their shipments with the help of sustainable fuels.

To better compare and analyse sustainability efforts, myDHLi Reports also now offers an even greater level of detail. Users can combine operational data with green data, including relevant carbon footprints, but also other emissions of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur oxides (SOx).

Together with the GoGreen Dashboard in myDHLi Analytics, customers now have “comprehensive carbon intelligence at their fingertips”, allowing them to visualise their total footprint and efficiency by mode or even individual trade lanes, DHL said.