A handful of sub-sectors within the five sectors saw significant changes to their satisfaction scores, namely improvements were recorded for the Taxi Services, Public Buses, and Universities sub-sectors. Private Education Institutions was the only sub-sector that saw a significant drop in performance.
These latest results are based on a face-to-face survey of 6,439 resident and 2,700 tourist respondents, and online survey of 4,153 ITE and Private Education Institution students, conducted between April and June 2015. The Public Education sector saw an overall significant improvement as a result of the improvement in the Universities scores.
Shaping customers' expectations prior to customer interaction
The survey revealed that commuters’ perceptions of quality within Public Transport are influenced by how much they think the company is working in their best interests, as well as their satisfaction with the government’s intervention in the public transport space. On a similar note, perceptions of quality remain as the largest driver of satisfaction, more than perceptions of value.
Mr Lim Kell Jay, Regional Head of GrabCar, agreed that regulatory constraints do affect how businesses operate. As long as companies look to grow, especially globally, they have to continually engage and manage processes in relation to the changing regulatory landscape to enable the effective delivery of services and products.
Managing customers' perceptions across all experiences
During the presentation of the results, Dr Marcus Lee explained that the survey results showed that satisfaction with ground staff is the most important driver of passengers’ perceptions of quality for Airlines. This suggests that the customer’s experience starts even before he or she steps onto the plane for the core service of an Airline.
On the topic of provision of supplementary services, Mr Lim recognised that not all companies are equipped to manage the services that support the core service of any business and should engage partners. This allows companies to focus on their core service. He noted that with partners, there is then a need to manage the relationships with the partners and ensure that these support functions are scaleable with the growth of the company.
Mr Lai Chang Wen, Co-Founder and CEO of Ninja Logistics Pte Ltd, also noted that different customer profiles need to be managed differently while being consistent with the brand of the company. Companies should make a conscious decision based on their target segment and brand positioning to manage these expectations.
Using data to create choice
Mr Lim noted that the data they collect has been useful in influencing not just customer behaviour, but also the behaviour of their drivers. Through the thoughtful and timely communication of data-driven analytics insights, they are able to allow customers and drivers the opportunity to choose how they want their problems to be solved, be it the lack of supple of or demand for bookings.
Mr Lai concurred with the ideal of using data to create choice. With the right analysis of data, companies can plan pricing schedules to determine who they want to attract. This eliminates the need to turn customers down and instead, allow customers to then choose whether they want to engage a particular company’s services or purchase their products.
Differentiating yourself from your competitors
Mr Lim noted that competition is good because they provide learning points in terms of what not to do. He indicated that transparency and information asymmetry can be differentiating factors. Furthermore, the identification of who the “real” customers are helps companies set themselves apart. For example, Mr Lim said that GrabTaxi sees its drivers as its primary customers. Through managing the drivers and addressing their needs, they find themselves also better equipped to manage the needs of passengers.
Mr Lai continued on by saying that companies should identify customers not just by who they think they are serving, but also who they want to serve based on what the company can provide. This enables resource allocation within the businesses and the ability of companies to better understand challenges that their targeted customer segment face.
In conclusion
The panel explored how managing customer’s perceptions and engaging customers at all stages of the customer journey helps to raise customer satisfaction. They also discussed the methods of managing and engaging customers, including the use of data analytics and close working relationships with partners, to ensure that processes are scaleable to support the growth of a company.
Improvements in customer satisfaction eventually lead to increases in customer loyalty and propensity to say positive things about the service providers. These in turn would lead to the growth of the business. It is then imperative for companies to manage both their customers and their processes to engineer their businesses for growth.
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