The Retail and Info-Communications sectors registered a significant increase in scores from the year before, where Retail scored 71.7 points (+1.7 points/ +2.4% year-on-year) and Info-Communications scored 68.5 points (+1.1 points/+1.6% year-on-year) on a 0 to 100 scale.
The rise in scores were bolstered by improvements in satisfaction levels for the Department Stores, Fashion Apparels, Jewellery sub-sectors, as well as the Broadband and Wireless@SG sub-sectors.
This is also the first time that the e-Commerce sub-sector within the Retail sector was introduced to account for changing consumption patterns within the retail landscape of Singapore. Another notable change is the inclusion of published scores from the Fashion Apparels and Furniture & Electronics sub-sectors.
The Retail sector measured eight sub-sectors including Department Stores, Fashion Apparels, e-Commerce, Supermarkets, Petrol Service Stations, Jewellery, Motor Vehicle Distributors and Furniture & Electronic stores. Within the Info-Communications sector, four sub-sectors including Mobile Telecom, Internet Service Providers, Pay TV and Wireless@SG were measured.
The latest results are based on a total of 9,489 face-to-face surveys of 8,584 locals and 905 tourist respondents conducted between January 2016 and April 2016.
Integrating the offline and online experience
Insights drawn from the CSISG results showed a trend toward greater online interaction between consumers and companies. For the Info-Communications sector, it was noted that more consumers were interacting with a company’s website compared to in-store or contact centre interactions. Similarly, the e-Commerce sub-sector was introduced for the first time in the CSISG study this year to account for changing consumption patterns within the retail landscape of Singapore. Thus, it is important to note the need to ensure a customer journey experience that can glide seamlessly from the offline to online space and vice versa.
Candy Chua, Vice President Consumer Operations of Singtel has observed a distinct shift in the way consumers transact today. “Different profiles require different things, so there is a need for the service experience to be integrated across various channels.”
Similarly, Bentley Williams, Chief of WOW! Academy, a customer service training consultancy, agreed the need to blend the online and offline environments in today’s retail industry. “A customer’s expectation of the shopping experience is now of a one-stop shop where stores have to become a place to stage their brand and personalise their approach.”
There is an opportunity for businesses to relook at the customer journey experience because the difference today is that a customer has already been to a store by way of a website or mobile app, before they have physically visited a store.
Leaders, not training, drive the service culture
Rachel Tan, General Manager at DFS Changi Airport noted the importance that senior management play in ensuring a strong service culture in an organisation. Leading by example encourages cohesiveness and empowers employees.
With 35 per cent of staff working at DFS for more than 10 years, DFS leverages on a fundamental learning culture. “A lot of our employees are long serving and stay because they love the family feel,” said Ms Tan.
DFS has an in-house Learning and Development training department known as DFS University where managers facilitate the training programs. This coaching concept is celebrated and supported by the senior management team.
Mr Williams agreed that although training is important, it is one part of the solution to building a strong service culture in an organisation. He suggested that bite-sized, modular training sessions were more effective than the traditional two or three-day workshops.
Let your customers guide a strategy
Complaints and constructive feedback from customers is unavoidable and inevitable, and may happen due to miscommunication or misalignment of expectations. However, this always presents a learning opportunity.
“A customer who gives a company feedback is a customer who cares about your brand. Use this as an opportunity to create an advocate of that customer,” said Ms Neeta Lachmandas, Executive Director from the Institute of Service Excellence at Singapore Management University.
At DFS, frontline staff are encouraged to share their experiences to develop new strategies to engage customers and constantly improve their service culture.
Ms Tan reiterated the importance of an organisation’s culture and how preemptiveness should be a part of it. “Whether it’s the marketing plan, communications or business strategy, we have to constantly put ourselves in the shoes of the consumer as we think of internal processes.”
“Service is very personal, it’s necessary to go back to the fundamentals of putting a customer at the core of everything we do.”
Mr Williams lives by a personal motto of letting customers, and not his competitors, be his compass. Stressing the need to follow a customer’s lead when it comes to a business strategy and service culture, he also shared that empowering staff by making them a part of the business would incentivise them to go that extra mile. “We need our employees to personalise their approach with customers, and they can only do this if the business is transparent.” He added that people always support what they help create, so it’s effective to share information and ensure employees feel that they are a part of the business.
Empower service staff to personalise their approach
The service workforce needs to evolve in order to stay relevant. Mr Williams observed that customer service staff can't just offer a cookie-cutter service anymore. Customers do their initial research online before stepping into a store, so it is necessary for any frontline employee to personalise their approach by providing advice and eventually making a sale. “Frontline staff now need a different set of skills because it’s more than just being nice to a customer,” he said.
Referring to DFS’ recent initiative of creating individualised, positive surprises for employees who have gone the extra mile in their job, Mr Williams suggested that this personalised approach is important as a form of role modelling. “People do what you do, not what you say, so when an organisation personalises their approach with an employee, it encourages employees to then personalise their approach with customers.” It is vital to make it a part of any organisation’s ecosystem.
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