On an average workday, postman Shi Jun-hua (施俊華) rides his motorcycle about 60 kilometers through the winding roads of sprawling Heping District in central Taiwan’s Taichung City to deliver an average of 250 to 300 letters and parcels to some 70 households. Yet despite his hectic schedule, he also finds time to offer assistance to local residents, especially elderly people who live alone or have mobility problems. Cognizant of the challenges that seniors face living in the mountainous area, the 33-year-old frequently volunteers to pick up their groceries and prescriptions.
“Many of my co-workers have been doing this for decades, so I’ve simply followed suit. I’ve found that a number of elderly people on my route really need my help,” Shi says. “Though it takes me some time to do these chores, seeing their smiling faces when I drop off the items makes it all worthwhile.” The postman adds that locals are quick to return his kindness, offering assistance whenever his motorcycle gets a flat tire or experiences mechanical problems.
Shi is among the approximately 9,000 mail carriers employed by Taiwan’s national postal service, Chunghwa Post Co. “As a state-owned company, we put a greater emphasis on serving the needs of society than on making a profit,” says its chairman, Philip Ong (翁文祺). “For example, a lot of our postal workers have taken the initiative to provide additional services to the senior citizens on their routes, like delivering meals or helping them purchase daily necessities, even though they don’t receive any remuneration for doing so. This reflects the customer-focused culture of our organization.”
Many of Chunghwa Post’s mail carriers provide assistance to the senior citizens living along their delivery routes. (Photo courtesy of Chunghwa Post Co.)
Chunghwa Post operates more than 1,300 post offices throughout Taiwan proper and its offshore islands, and offers a wide range of goods and services beyond mail and parcel delivery, including banking, remittance processing, life insurance policies and philatelic products. “We have an obligation to ensure that postal and banking services are reasonably accessible to everyone in Taiwan, regardless of where they live or work,” Ong says.
Over the past several decades, Taiwan’s national postal service, like its counterparts across the industrialized world, has faced significant challenges due to the rapid evolution of information and communications technology and rising competition from private couriers. In particular, the company has seen a drastic decline in its core business of delivering physical mail as people increasingly opt to use the Internet and mobile devices for communication.
In 2003, the Republic of China government transformed the national postal agency, the Directorate General of Posts under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, into a state-owned corporation, Chunghwa Post, in order to boost its capability to respond to changes in economic and social conditions. The company has since enjoyed greater operational flexibility with regard to service scope, manpower recruitment and investment activities.
Ong says Chunghwa Post is embracing new technologies in an effort to expand its trusted brand to the digital realm. Accordingly, it has established e-commerce websites, and now makes extensive use of online platforms such as social networking site Facebook and social messaging application Line to promote its products and connect with current and potential customers. Since launching a Line account in April 2014, the firm has attracted about 7.4 million followers, equivalent to almost half of Taiwan’s roughly 15 million smartphone users.
These marketing strategies, the chairman says, have enabled Chunghwa Post to become more responsive to customers’ needs and quickly capitalize on promotional opportunities. Take, for example, an incident that occurred on Aug. 8 last year. Two of the company’s mailboxes in Taipei became a popular tourist attraction overnight after they were knocked into slanted positions, said to resemble two people leaning beside one another, by a falling sign during Typhoon Soudelor.
A customer orders products from Chunghwa Post’s e-commerce websites using a computer kiosk at a post office in Taipei. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)
To make the most of the widespread interest in the tilted mailboxes, the postal company decided not only to produce memorabilia, such as postcards and stickers, but to encourage the public to submit potential designs. People were then invited to vote for their favorites from a shortlist of 30. More than 3,000 people cast their ballots via Line during a designated one-hour voting period. Afterward, the company donated its earnings of NT$200,000 (US$6,155) from the sale of the winning items to the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China for relief assistance to typhoon victims.
“Our intention [in producing the postcards] was not to make money, but to use event marketing to enhance our image and raise our profile,” Ong explains. “Plus, we were able to use the voting activity to measure the impact of our social media campaigns.”
As part of its efforts to create new sources of revenue, the company has sought to establish a foothold in the e-commerce space in Taiwan. In 2010, it established Post Mall, an online sales platform for local entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises. Chunghwa Post earns commissions on products sold through the site. Currently, about 2,000 vendors offering a total of nearly 300,000 items operate on Post Mall, while the number of registered customers on the site has surpassed 200,000.
In January last year, Chunghwa Post launched another website, Post Shop, to convert its consignment business into an e-commerce operation. The company previously operated sales centers in the lobbies of many post offices to sell four categories of merchandise on consignment—beauty and skincare products, commemorative gold and silver coins, everyday households goods, and food items. With the launch of the website, the firm decided to remove these sales outlets and instead install computer kiosks at 188 branches that allow customers to browse and order products from the new website. “By shifting our consignment business into the e-commerce realm, we hope to make our services more convenient for customers while freeing up space in our post offices,” says Lee Kan-hsiang (李甘祥), director of the postal firm’s Department of Mail Business and Operations.
Lee stresses that companies must meet strict requirements before Chunghwa Post will agree to sell their goods on consignment. For instance, potential suppliers are obliged to obtain quality certifications issued by relevant government agencies, have capital of no less than NT$20 million (US$615,385) and submit their products for periodic testing. Some 130 items supplied by 20-odd manufacturers are now available on Post Shop.
According to Lee, Chunghwa Post’s competitive advantage lies in the high level of trust it enjoys among customers. This is reflected in the popularity of its banking services. While Taiwan has a population of around 23.5 million people, about 27.5 million postal savings accounts have been opened, with total deposits amounting to NT$5.8 trillion (US$178.2 billion), outperforming all other financial institutions in the country.
In recent years, Chunghwa Post has also sought to boost interest in stamp collecting by introducing a variety of new philatelic products. It now releases 20 to 22 stamp sets annually in addition to stamp booklets, folios, pictorials, as well as souvenir sheets, which are small groups of postage stamps attached to the sheet on which they were printed. The firm has also produced goods like cups, plates, stickers, tape and toy figurines to accompany these products.
The company has released a wide variety of philatelic products, such as souvenir sheets featuring stamps with images of traditional Chinese embroidery works and famed ancient artwork Jadeite Cabbage with Insects. (Photos by Huang Chung-hsin)
Stamps issued by Chunghwa Post, which have featured depictions of everything from Taiwan’s flora and fauna to cartoon characters like Hello Kitty, have become highly prized by philatelists. To encourage stamp collecting, especially among young people, the postal company has organized a range of activities including competitions, exhibitions, summer camps and teacher training programs, as well as sales promotions and publicity campaigns. It also operates a museum in Taipei that offers visitors a wealth of information about the history and evolution of postal services in Taiwan.
Last year, Chunghwa Post collaborated with the Chinese Taipei Philatelic Federation (CTPF) to organize the 30th Asian International Stamp Exhibition from April 24-28 at the Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC). Held under the patronage of the Singapore-based Federation of Inter-Asian Philately, the event attracted about 230,000 philately enthusiasts from 24 countries and territories.
Chunghwa Post, which is celebrating the 120th anniversary of its establishment this year, will cooperate with the CTPF again to host the 2016 World Stamp Championship Exhibition from Oct. 21-26 at the TWTC. Representatives from 72 countries and territories are expected to participate in the event, which will feature about 2,000 frames for competitive and non-competitive displays. “Holding an international exhibition can promote stamp collecting and facilitate exchanges between members of Taiwan’s philatelic community and their foreign counterparts,” says Sophia Chien (簡良璘), director of Chunghwa Post’s Philately Department. “It can also boost the nation’s visibility on the world stage.”
Due in part to its wide-ranging efforts to diversify its operations, Chunghwa Post saw its revenue grow from NT$305 billion (US$9.4 billion) in 2010 to NT$394 billion (US$12.1 billion) in 2014, while its contribution to the national coffers rose from NT$5.7 billion (US$175.4 million) to NT$6.9 billion (US$212.3 million) over the same period.
“Like national postal services in many other countries, we face a lot of challenges. Still, we don’t feel concerned about the future because we’ve chosen to be different,” Ong says. “For us, nothing is more valuable than trust. We want to make sure our customers understand that we’re committed to offering high-quality products and outstanding services.”
Write to Kelly Her at kher@mofa.gov.tw