Excellent Service Award Presentation Ceremony

06 Nov 2003

By Dr Balaji Sadasivan

Venue: National University Of Singapore Cultural Centre

Mr Pakir Singh, Chairman

Excellent Service Award Committee

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

1 I am pleased to be here this morning to officiate at the Excellent Service Award presentation ceremony. Your presence signifies the continuing interest in service excellence.

Importance of Service

2 In today's competitive business environment, an organisation's ability to survive and profit ultimately depends on service. Service has become more crucial than ever, even as companies cut costs and search for new strategies to generate revenue and retain customers. How well an organisation manages its customer relationships can make or break it. The key to keeping and growing the customer base is the quality of service.

3 Service is not only for the services sector. Today, almost everyone is providing service in some way. This is regardless of whether they are in the manufacturing, commerce or services sectors. Increasingly, it is no longer just what is sold, but also how it is sold.

4 Relationships and touchpoints are becoming critical. Intense competition is driving organisations to change from offering mass products to differentiated personal service. Even manufacturers are emphasising service and marketing their products as a "unique experience" to their customers.

5 Given the growing demand for excellent service, the decline in Singapore's customer orientation ranking is a cause for concern. According to the Global Competitiveness Report, Singapore's ranking in the extent of close attention paid to customer satisfaction has declined from 8th position in 1998 to 15th last year. This is despite the fact that Singapore's score has remained relatively constant over these years. Clearly, other countries have improved and overtaken us.

New Paradigm in Service

6 Singapore needs to look for, and emulate, new models of service excellence. The new paradigm in service excellence is exceeding customer expectations, creating service experiences, and delighting customers. Let me elaborate.

From Meeting to Exceeding Customer Expectations

7 First, it is no longer sufficient to understand and meet customers' needs and expectations. Today, customers need to be wooed and wowed. We need to exceed their expectations. It is going beyond service quality.

From Service Transaction to Service Experience

8 Second, organisations are increasingly judged by the depth of their customer relationships. Relationships cannot be developed overnight. They are built on trust, and reinforced through consistently good experiences. This involves engaging the customer in a personal and memorable way. Organisations that provide customers with good experiences will be able to retain them.

From Serving Customers to Delighting Customers

9 Third, customers today need to be delighted. But delighting them is not just about better product performance. It is about providing customers with benefits beyond what they expect to receive. And the end result is greater customer loyalty.

10 However, customer delight is not a fixed benchmark. As competition intensifies, the benefits which differentiated the organisation will be erased. Hence, organisations need to continuously create more innovative value propositions to delight their customers.

11 Walt Disney World has long established a reputation for its ability to exceed customers' expectations and create a unique experience for them. Being a customer-driven organisation, customers are the central focus of Walt Disney World. It defines quality service as exceeding customer expectations and paying attention to details. The service theme: "We create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages, everywhere", underlines how everything is done, from managing the customer experience to the design of the resorts and attractions. To understand customers' expectations, Walt Disney World collects and analyses information on customer needs, stereotypes, emotions and wants. The information is used to offer consistent quality service and to keep up with changing customer perceptions. Clear goals are set to measure the effectiveness of actions taken to exceed customer expectations. Service standards are set to ensure consistent service delivery. These standards are communicated throughout the organisation. There is also a strong culture of continuous improvement in Walt Disney World. The process begins with listening and learning, primarily on the front lines of service. Continuous improvement ensures that customers will continue to be delighted with the magical and memorable Disney experience.

12 In Singapore, Changi Airport is recognised as world-class for its efficient and good service. However, even this is not enough to compete against other airports. To maintain its lead, the airport has created new experiences for passengers. It has introduced various facilities and services in the transit areas to enhance passengers' experiences at the airport. Passengers are given choices. They can relax in one of the thematic gardens such as Sunflower Garden, Fern Garden, and Orchid Garden, or have a massage amid lush greenery in the Rainforest Lounge. They can also e-mail family and friends in the e-Hub, go for a swim, or have a quick haircut at one of the four mini hair salons.

Service Excellence Vision

13 To provide world-class service, organisations need to transform themselves. SPRING, working with industry champions, has developed the Service Excellence 21 framework to speed up the transformation of organisations so that Singapore can become a leading provider of world-class service. The vision is to make Singapore a global service capital. The target is for Singapore to be among the top five in customer orientation by 2010.

14 In line with this, SPRING recently introduced the Singapore Service Class to help organisations boost their service capabilities. The programme provides an assessment tool for organisations to assess their strengths, and identify and address gaps. Organisations that achieve a commendable performance level will be recognised as a Singapore Service Class organisation. This programme aims to build up a pool of organisations that are committed to service excellence and to drive the transformation of service in Singapore.

Developing Service Champions

15 I am very pleased to note that there is increasing interest in service excellence. Since its launch eight years ago, the Excellent Service Award has received growing support. From 377 award recipients in 1995, the number has grown to 6,286 this year. This is the largest number to date. This year, we have two new industry groups taking part for the first time - healthcare (hospitals) and security (police and civil defence). I look forward to more industries participating in the Award.

16 The Excellent Service Award recognises people who have delivered outstanding service. It aims to develop service role models, create service champions on the shop floor and professionalise services. The SuperStar winners are exemplary. They have good product knowledge but they do not just sell or serve. Instead, they actively seek to understand customer's needs better and recommend the best way to meet their requirements. They pay attention to details and go the extra mile to delight their customers. All nine SuperStar winners this year certainly live up to these high standards. I have time to highlight only three of them here.

17 The first SuperStar is from the travel industry. He is always sensitive to the needs of tourists. He makes the effort to find out the preferences of tourists from different countries before introducing them to the different facets of Singapore. To enable his guests to sightsee without worries, he even doubles up as babysitter while the parents soak in the sights of Singapore. This is certainly exceeding customers' expectations and making their visit to Singapore a memorable one.

18 The second SuperStar is from the land transport industry. On one occasion, he went beyond the call of duty by carrying the heavy luggage of a passenger to her flat on the fourth floor of a building that has no lift. On another occasion, he took pains to drive carefully over road humps as his passenger had just been discharged from hospital with a newborn son. He even detoured to a supermarket for the passenger to buy milk powder for the baby.

19 The third SuperStar from the retail industry is held up as a role model by his colleagues. He displays tireless patience, commitment and enthusiasm at work, and sincerity in delivering service. He takes the initiative to improve work processes at the stores. He even initiated a service campaign in his department to inculcate customer service awareness! He personally coached and guided his staff on how to deliver delightful service experiences for customers.

20 From these examples, we can see that service stars are not born. They can be made, if service staff make the effort to exceed customers' expectations, provide them with a memorable experience and leave them delighted. On this note, I congratulate all winners and urge you to keep delighting your customers.

Thank you.