Of the four retail sub-sectors surveyed, only the Department Stores sub-sector showed significant 0.95-point improvement over the previous year at 71.2 points. The Fashion Apparel, Supermarket and E-commerce sub-sectors did not see any significant change in scores.
"The notable improvement in customer satisfaction with Department Stores stemmed largely from more satisfied locals. This increase could be related to the revamps of various stores and product offerings, as well as increased promotional activities targeted at boosting sales,” said Ms Neeta Lachmandas, ISE Executive Director.
Among department stores, DFS had the highest scoare of 73.6 while Metro was the only store who score had increased significantly.
While the Supermarkets sub-sector did not see any significant year-on-year changes in their CSISG scores, customers who had frequently used the ‘self-checkout’ counters expressed greater satisfaction levels compared to those who frequented the manned cashier counters.
“Offering retail customers more ways to shop, whether through online channels or selfcheckout counters, could enhance the customer experience, thereby positively impacting customer satisfaction and loyalty,” remarked Mr Chen Yongchang, ISE Head of Research and Consulting.
The survey also looked at customer satisfaction for the info-communications sector, which scored a record high of 69.6 points out of 100 (+1.6%).
Its constituent subsectors include Wireless@SG at 70.3 points (+0.73-points year-on-year), Mobile Telecom at 70.2 points (+1.08-point year-on-year), Broadband at 68.2 points (+1.14-points year-on-year), and PayTV at 67.4 points (+0.75-points year-on-year); these year-on-year movements were not considered statistically significant.
In particular, Mobile Telecom and Broadband customers were observed to exhibit measurably higher levels of customer loyalty the longer they stay subscribed to a particular telco. These were the customers who demonstrated higher likelihood to re-contract and greater tolerance to price increases.
Further analysis of these Info-Communications sub-sectors revealed that service attributes relating to responsiveness, assurance, and empathy were key drivers of loyalty, in addition to the usual product-related attributes such as suitable subscription plans and fast data speeds.
While competitive product features will continue to play a big part in keeping customers, it is notable that service-related considerations such as ‘Makes the effort to understand your needs’ and ‘Has your best interest at heart’ have also surfaced as important attributes to drive customer loyalty,” said Mr Chen.
The latest results are based on a total of 6,900 face-to-face surveys of 6,070 locals and 830 tourist respondents conducted between January 2017 and April 2017.
Keynote Presentation
As part of the Industry Forum, ISE also invited Mr Laurence Smith, Head of Asia Pacific, SmartUp.io to share his views on the digitisation. You can view his presentation here.
Creating Organisational Cultures
According to Mr Laurence Smith, in order to create an organisational culture that permeates from the leadership team through to the frontline staff, it’s essential to find a way to appeal to employees emotionally. “There’s a lot of processes, mechanisms and tools to do the work but the challenge will be unsolvable until you get people to intrinsically care from within,” said Smith.
Smith joined DBS in 2013, at a time where CEO Mr Piyush Gupta was dramatically changing the bank’s approach to customer service. Many initiatives were introduced; the team gave itself a decade up to 2020 to make DBS one of the best banks of the world.
It is easy to find a purpose for an organisation; however, the challenge is finding one that matters. So how does one get employees just as fanatical about customer service and customer journeys as you are? Everybody knew the purpose of the bank, however nobody knew what it meant for them, as individuals.
According to Singularity University, a Silicon Valley think tank that offers educational programmes, organisations that can identify its single most important factor of massive transformative purpose can succeed in building a positive work culture.
In DBS, Gupta has defined its purpose as “making banking joyful” – a marketing tagline that means so much more to employees. This was the transformative purpose that gave meaning to people, energised the organisation, and inspired them to have the courage to innovate and be decisive.
However, to make banking joyful, DBS had to ensure it made working joyful too. Every HR process and system was reviewed from hiring, to promotion to rewards systems, which were aligned back to the organisation’s values. By reworking systems through a human-centred design, providing dependable platforms and easy processes by removing the bureaucracy, DBS was able to provide their employees with better working hours, saving them 5 million life hours, according to Smith.
Employees started to see the positive changes that were being made and this motivated them to start to think about how to make the purpose come alive for them on a personal level.
“Purpose is key, if you get this right, everything else will fall into place,” said Smith.
An organisation needs to align its communications and PR with its stakeholders both externally and internally. Through making working joyful, DBS was able to create an organisational culture that focuses on the customer experience and customer journey.
A Digital Mindset enables Digital Transformation
“Digitalisation is all about mindset and behaviours and culture. Not just technology. It’s about identifying new ways of serving customers," said Smith.
Digital disruptors, of companies that have disrupted their industries, such as Uber and Airbnb have focused their efforts on ensuring the customer experience is the most important offering. These companies are successful because they understand the customer journey.
In a landscape where digital is changing and disrupting organisations, it’s also changing the way organisations need to interact with customers.
“In the next five to 10 years, staff may be replaced by automation and chatbots, where half your staff might be digital humans,” said Mr Smith.
Using the example of how taxi drivers in London and Paris first reacted to the arrival of Uber, Smith emphasised the importance of understanding the customer journey. In Paris, taxi drivers protested, blocking the streets to the Champs-Elysee. In London, the taxi company instead developed their own taxi app called Hailo, to rival Uber. What they were able to provide were better drivers with experience and knowledge of the streets, coupled with a service that was regulated.
Smith also used Amazon’s floating procurement warehouse patent as another example of how technology is disrupting traditional industries. “Floating at 45,000 feet, Amazon receives an order, 3D prints it, and a drone drops it to a delivery address. This will disrupt retail, logistics and distribution industries.”
“You can’t beat the technology. There’s a need to understand technology, as it’s not going away.”
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