Singapore Government Press Release
Media Division, Ministry of Information & The Arts, #36-00, PSA Building, 460 Alexandra Road, Singapore 119963, Tel: 3757794/5
SPEECH BY MR GOH CHEE WEE, MINISTER OF STATE
FOR TRADE & INDUSTRY AND COMMUNICATIONS,
AT THE 2ND EXCELLENT SERVICE AWARD
PRESENTATION CEREMONY ON TUESDAY, 22 OCTOBER 96
AT 10.00AM AT THE SINGAPORE CONFERENCE HALL
Good morning
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
WINNING THE SERVICE BATTLE
1. In the new service battleground, business is a lot like tennis. Those who don't serve well end up losing the game. This is because customers today are sophisticated and discerning and can differentiate between good and poor service.
2. To delight customers and win the service game, let me share with you five rules identified in the book by Ron Zemke and Kristin Anderson "Delivering Knock-Your-Socks-Off Service":
Rule #1 : Reliability - This means that service providers must be able to deliver what was promised, dependably and accurately.
Rule #2 : Responsiveness - Service staff must be willing to help customers promptly and to take the initiative to approach customers who may need assistance.
Rule #3 : Assurance - it talks about the knowledge and courtesy of service staff to customers and their ability to convey trust, competence and confidence.
Rule #4 : Empathy - Service staff need to add the human touch ... the care and individual attention they show to customers. To delight and dazzle customers, service staff will have to show personal care and commitment.
Rule #5 : Tangibles - this includes physical facilities and the appearance of staff. Anything that customers can see, hear, touch, taste or smell will affect their perception of this rule. Service Staff have to take time to make themselves and their work areas presentable.
3. To sum it up, Tom Peters once said "To win today, you have to delight and astound your customers - with products and services that far exceed their expectations".
1996 EXCELLENT SERVICE AWARD
4. The Excellent Service Award is two years old. Some new features have been added. Firstly, the award has been extended to airport, attraction and travel services sectors to allow more service providers to be recognised. Secondly, the organising committee has introduced two new categories of awards - the company and superstar awards. The former was introduced to recognise the important role companies play in making service excellence a reality. It is to recognise the company's belief in service quality, its commitment to training staff, empowering and motivating them to strive for service excellence. The superstar award aims to recognise the best service worker in each service sector among those nominated.
5. The dominant feature of Excellent Service Award is the emphasis placed on training. It incorporates the number of training hours as a precondition. In addition, all silver and gold award nominees have to go through a 7-hour Development Workshop for Service Skills. Star nominees are also required to undergo a 2-hour Star Profiling Programme.
6. The SDF records show that for the hotel, restaurant and retail sectors, over 92,000 training places were supported and $9.9 million in training grants were committed in FY 95. This represents some 20.7% of total grant commitment for the service sector. For the airport, attraction and travel services, the SDF supported some 54,000 training places and committed $5.8 million in training grants.
7. I am happy to note that 32 companies and 935 individuals will be receiving their Excellent Service Award today. Compared to last year's 377 individual winners, this award has certainly taken off.
8. The award winners have been selected because of their exemplary performance. Let me cite an example of a award winner who has gone beyond the call of duty and made extraordinary effort to help and astound customers.
9. Ms Violet Theseira, a passenger guest officer with SATS is one of the superstar winners. She went beyond the call of duty to help a passenger who was suffering from excruciating back pain and could not board the flight from Singapore to San Francisco. The passenger was in so much pain that all she could do was to lie down on the floor. Ms Theseira also tried unsuccessfully to book a hotel room for the passenger and ended up taking the passenger to her own home instead. The next day, she made sure that the passenger got on the stand-by flight to San Francisco. This is but one example of an Excellent Service Award winner. There are many more examples, I am sure. It goes to show that excellent service abounds in Singapore. We need to highlight these stories more often.
STRONG PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR EXSA
10 For any award to grow and flourish, support is required. The Excellence Service Award is no exception. I note that PSB has garnered strong support from the private and public sector to promote service quality in Singapore. The six administrators - Singapore Hotel Association, Singapore Retailers Association, Restaurant Association of Singapore, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, National Association of Travel Agents Singapore and Association of Singapore Attractions did an excellent job in marketing this Award to their members. The two unions - Singapore Manual & Mercantile Workers' Union, Food, Drinks & Allied Workers' Union and the STPB have also contributed valuable inputs. I understand that American Express International has donated $250,000 for the administration of the Award for a period of 3 years starting from this year. The SQ Centre has sponsored 62 star nominees for the star profiling. The industry associations have also rendered their supports by sponsoring prizes for the award winners.
11. It is with such strong involvement and commitment from both the public and private sectors that the Excellence Service Award committee is able to get such a good response this year.
12. I would like to thank all agencies and associations for participating in this national initiative. I would also like to thank all the companies for nominating their staff. Last but not least, my congratulations to all winners.
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