Mr Lee Yi Shyan at the Services Symposium

OPENING ADDRESS BY MR LEE YI SHYAN, SENIOR MINISTER OF STATE FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AT THE SERVICES SYMPOSIUM, 22 JULY 2015, 9.00AM AT JASMINE JUNIOR, MARINA BAY SANDS SINGAPORE

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good Morning.

Introduction

It is a pleasure to join all of you today. This symposium brings together business leaders from a wide range of service industries: F&B, retail, hospitality, healthcare, travel, transport, banking and other professional services. Each of these sectors is distinct and has its own competitive and operating dynamics. Beyond their distinctiveness, one common goal for all of them would be the question of improving profitability. The question is how?

Common goal: Creating values, reducing costs

I am aware that today’s symposium will dedicate much of its time towards the discussion of service excellence. This is a topic of great importance because to give customers the right type of experience at every touch point all the time requires strong understanding of customer needs, robust processes, suitable use of technology and a well trained workforce. Service excellence does not happen by chance. Nor does it depend on a few enthusiastic frontline workers. It requires a deliberate system built with discipline for high-quality service delivery.

Let me propose to discuss 3 areas which in my view are fundamental to building service excellence.

All answers can be found in Customers

First, companies must get to know their customers. Successful service firms know if their customers are happy with their service, they will return for more. Hence repeat business is a key yardstick to measure a firm’s service offering’s attractiveness vis-à-vis competition. But yet many firms invest very little to understand their customers, for instance what customers like or dislike about their services.

In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the proliferation of new customer data capturing tools is widening the gap of those who embrace it and those who don’t.

Realizing this, SPRING in partnership with Singtel has developed a prototype customer sentiment analysis tool named the Customer Review Dashboard.

The Customer Review Dashboard works by providing a platform to integrate and analyse consumer sentiments from social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and HungryGoWhere etc. The dashboard shows a picture of how customers perceive different aspects of a service and product quality. It provides an efficient way to track service standards, especially for companies operating several outlets. It reduces the need for paper feedback forms or looking through the numerous online review sites. It alerts the company of common complaints to carry out service recovery promptly.

More than 70 F&B establishments are taking part in the pilot phase of the Dashboard. SPRING will further enhance the Dashboard to incorporate additional features to enable restaurant owners to benchmark their service levels against competitors located in the same area or by cuisine type. More details of the enhanced Dashboard will be announced in the coming months.

Capabilities drive competition

The second area I would like to discuss is about capability building. Different services firms require different capabilities. But one thing for sure, market leaders are always investing in new capabilities to deliver better services. Let us consider the examples of two companies, Sheng Siong Supermarket and Mothercare.

Many service firms, especially retailers, are faced with labour shortage. Experience elsewhere shows that well-implemented self-service concepts can be a reliable way to provide good service experience while reducing labour input. For instance, Sheng Siong Supermarket piloted a new type of self-checkout kiosk in May and found to their pleasant surprise that it helps to greatly reduce queuing time by 30%. While such kiosks are not new, it was the first supermarket in Singapore to introduce a Cash Recycling Machine which can handle cash and dispense change automatically.

Mothercare specialises in products for expectant mothers and general merchandise for children. Through the Customer Centric Initiative championed by SPRING, the company invested in customer-focused training, developed its service roadmap, and came up with a set of service language for its staff. It formulated distinct customer-centric values to cater to the local market. As a result, customer satisfaction improved by 16%. Customer service response time was reduced significantly, from 48 hours to 2 hours with the implementation of a Customer Service Call Centre. Staff could perform other higher value-added functions like interacting with in-store customers to build rapport and customer loyalty.

Beyond helping individual companies, the Government has also embarked on industry-wide initiatives that can raise service quality and productivity. For example, we are facilitating the adoption of off-site centralised dishwashing services for F&B outlets. We are also encouraging consumers to embrace self-service in retail shops, supermarkets, restaurants and even Changi Airport. Consumers and service providers will need to change their habits to enable quicker adoption of new technology and service delivery.

People drive service excellence

The third area is the very important area of human resource development. With all the changes service firms want to introduce in business processes, service offerings, standard language for customer interactions, the ability of existing and new staff to digest and internalise the changes become critical for successful change and sustained improvements. This is why systematic and continuous training is so crucial for service firm to maintain a consistently high level of service.

The Government provides extensive support for training. The Singapore Workforce Skills Qualifications (WSQ) framework for Service Excellence is a key pillar of this. More than 230 companies have used the framework since its inception, to train more than 200,000 workers in areas such as customer engagement for the rank and file, coaching for service performance for the PMEs, and transforming service through strategic innovation for the C-suites.

Our support will be further enhanced under SkillsFuture Initiative. Apart from the more traditional off-site training, we will place greater emphasis on company-based training under SkillsFuture. One of the ways we are doing this is with the SkillsFuture Earn and Learn Programme, which provides structured on-the-job training for fresh polytechnic and ITE graduates. As they go through the work-study programme, they can also pursue industry-recognised qualifications. The intention is build up groups of highly skilled craft-persons who are proud of their trades and respected for their professionalism in well-paying jobs.

Announcing the new Grounds-Up Initiative with EXSA

Given that Services Industry accounts for 71% of employment, there is no lack of outstanding individuals who personify service excellence in their own areas of work. The Excellent Service Award (EXSA) which started in 1994, has been recognising some 15,000 service staff each year. I am pleased to announce that SPRING will be collaborating with EXSA on a series of campaigns to recognise and engage the superstars amongst them as service champions. They will share winning stories, and raise awareness on how service staff and consumers can co-create positive and productive customer experiences. The EXSA awards will demonstrate that service excellence is highly do-able at the personal level for all our 2.6 million service workers.

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just discussed 3 areas fundamental to achieving service excellence. Yes, we know that there is urgency in what we ought to do because competition comes fast and furious. Inaction may just lead us to extinction.

For many of our services sectors, competition is global. It is also immediate if the competition presents itself online. Brick and mortar business model cannot ignore the exponential growth of e-commerce and mobile sales. Online Apps are diminishing the roles of intermediaries in finance, insurance, trading, transportation, hotel accommodation, retail and more. In the larger Chinese cities, one can already hire a tutor for children’s enrichment online. You could also hire waitress to do barbeque for you and your guests, or a cleaner to clean up your place after the barbeque all at a price of 25 yuan per hour.

Without unique value propositions, our services firms will face competitive disruptions and upheavals in the near future. There is therefore the urgency to change, innovate and re-invent ourselves.

I hope today’s symposium will help us pick up new ideas to stay ahead. On this note, I wish everyone a fruitful day ahead. Thank you.