How to ensure date columns in BI Publisher Excel output use date filters instead of text filters?

Our customer wants to download online versions of reports in Excel format, next they will be applying filters on the table for deeper review and analysis. There are multiple date columns being used in these reports, and as per business rule, the date format has to be 'DD/MM/YYYY' strictly.
When they apply filters on these columns, the filters are coming as text type:

Instead of Excel's date type filter:

Currently the SQL query for the date columns are in this syntax:
SELECT
TO_CHAR(TBL.DATE_COL,'DD/MM/YYYY') AS DATE_COL
FROM TABLE_NAME TBL

Please help us achieve this customization as they have been asking for this repeatedly. We have tried formatting the date column to the 'Date' datatype, and display the dates by using a single inverted comma (') in the beginning of the XML tag, but even in that case, we are getting similar results, the filter is behaving like a text column filter.