SPEECH BY MR LEE YI SHYAN, MINISTER OF STATE, MINISTRY OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AT THE CUSTOMER-CENTRIC INITIATIVE SYMPOSIUM AND EXHIBITION, 9 AM, MONDAY, 11 JULY 2011, RAFFLES CONVENTION CENTRE, PADANG & COLLYER ROOMS

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning. It is a great pleasure to join you today to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the GEMS movement and the Customer-Centric Initiative (CCI).

When the CCI programme was launched in October 2005, we started modestly with 20 retailers forming the pioneer batch of companies, to embark on a journey of service excellence. Over the past five years, the CCI movement has gone far and wide. To date, 250 companies from six service sectors including retail, F&B, healthcare, transport, leisure and travel have come on board with CCI. Many of the CCI companies are present in this auditorium. Through their 7,800 outlets and 183,000 workers, the 250 CCI champions are leading the key service sectors in raising service excellence. They are making waves in their industry sectors.

This, in fact, is the desired outcome of the CCI programme. We would like to create the environment for like-minded companies to pursue the goals of CCI, to put customers at the center of their business. In a way, the CCI movement is a change process at the industry or even at the national level. We need to have buy-in from stakeholders. We need to share a sense of urgency for change. We need to get together to map out the action plan.

Obviously, we wanted CCI to succeed, and we had ambitious goals for the programme. However, we also knew that it would be an enormous challenge to reach out to the tens of thousands of companies in the service sector. But we were not daunted by the challenge. Instead, we mobilized all the resources we could find from the tripartite partners, to give CCI the best chance of success.

We were fortunate to have the support of our key partners in the CCI programme: Industry associations (e.g. RAS, SRA), union organizations (e.g. e2i, NTUC, SNEF) and Government agencies (e.g. SPRING, WDA, STB).They came together to share their resources and expertise, to drive customer-centricity as a national initiative. Our efforts have paid off. The video you just saw captured some of the exciting transformations the participating companies have made possible. Still, I believe the best is yet to be.

A number of indicators point to improved customer service levels. For instance, the latest SMU survey on “The Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore” revealed that the perceived service quality, one of the key drivers of customer satisfaction, has improved from 70.4 points in 2007 to 71.3 points in 2010. Other indicators of service quality, such as Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) own survey to assess companies for its Singapore Service Star Award, also showed improvements in many areas of customer service.

Besides rolling out CCI programmes to six industry sectors, we have also challenged four “service champions”, namely Changi Airport Group, Ion Orchard, Sentosa Development Corp and Wing Tai Retail, to raise their level of overall customer satisfaction. These Service Excellence Icons know the importance and urgency for them to stay ahead of the competition, by providing unparalleled customer experience. I am glad to say that they embraced CCI very well. They worked very hard to unify their tenants’ or respective brands’ varied offerings into one consistently high level of customer service and experience. They have shown that when a system is in place, the different tenants, landlords and brands can work together to create a seamless and pleasant experience for their shoppers like in Ion Orchard and Wing Tai Retail, or for travellers in the case of Changi Airport, and visitors in the case of Sentosa.

However, our competition does not stand still. While we are making efforts to improve, we must be aware that in terms of customer orientation, some survey already suggests that cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong and Taipei are head of us. Other surveys on productivity also suggest that Singapore’s service sector productivity is only about half to two-third of some advanced economies. To me, these findings show that there is still much room for innovation and improvement.

We should therefore redouble our efforts in learning the best practices from companies in Singapore and overseas, on innovative business model, process design and service delivery. Business owners need to be bold in adopting new technology and unconventional ideas. Supervisors and workers need to be diligent in acquiring new skills, learning new product knowledge and understanding customers’ needs and expectations. We want many incremental improvements, but also welcome new breakthroughs from time to time.

On this note, let me wish you great learning ahead. Have a productive conference.

Thank you.