On 28 March 2018, the Institute of Service Excellence (ISE) announced the results of its Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) 2017 Full Year & Q4 study of the Finance & Insurance and Healthcare sectors at the quarterly ISE Industry Forum. Over 60 industry partners attended the Forum at Parkroyal on Pickering.
Customer satisfaction was at its highest level in a decade, at 72.9 points, up 1.1 points from 2016, driven by strong fourth quarter performances in the Finance & Insurance and Healthcare sectors.
The Finance & Insurance sector scored 73.4 points, a statistically significant increase of 1.05 points from the 2016 score of 72.4 points.
Among customers surveyed for Banks, those who used Internet Banking or Mobile Apps reported higher levels of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty compared to those who did not. The satisfaction and loyalty scores among those who used Internet Banking or Mobile App were more than 2 points or 3.1% higher than those who did not use these channels.
In addition, customers who used these digital channels also have on average a higher number of products held with the same bank. “There appears to be a positive relationship between usage of digital channels and higher scores across various customer metrics including satisfaction, loyalty, and number of products held with the bank. This is certainly an encouraging sign for banks that have been pushing for digital adoption,” observed Ms Neeta Lachmandas, ISE’s Executive Director.
The Healthcare sector scored 71.8 points, up 0.85 points from its 2016 score of 71.0 points. While waiting times before medical tests and seeing a doctor continued to receive low satisfaction ratings, year-on-year improvements were recorded in attributes including ‘ease of getting around’ and ‘waiting experience’.
Mr Chen Yongchang, ISE's Head of Research and Consulting, suggested that waiting rooms could be transformed into patient education centres that can teach patients how to improve their health outcomes instead of offering just a comfortable holding area.
At the same time it was also found that complaint handling can markedly swing a company’s customer satisfaction score. Among customers who said that they had made a complaint within the Healthcare sector, 79.6% said that the complaint was “handled poorly” while 20.4% said that it was “handled well”.
Although the proportion of complaints was small at 1.5% of all 3,540 Healthcare customers surveyed, the difference in customer satisfaction scores given by customers whose complaints were considered well-handled or poorly handled was pronounced. Customers whose complaints were deemed to be “handled well” scored 73.4 points in customer satisfaction compared to only 28.6 points among those whose complaints were assessed to be “handled poorly”.
“Based on insights from the Healthcare sector, complaints are an area that may not necessarily work against an organisation. When complaints are well handled, customers do tend to reward companies with high satisfaction ratings and the level of satisfaction may even be comparable to that of customers who did not have a reason to complain,” noted Ms Lachmandas.
The CSISG 2017 Q4 study was conducted between July and October 2017. A total of 9,585 respondents comprising 9,235 locals and 350 tourists were surveyed.
Keynote Presentation - Simplicity is the new black
As part of the Industry Forum, ISE also invited Ms Jin Kang Moller, VP, Group Customer Experience at OCBC to share her views on how the concept of simplicity can be used as part of the design thinking tool to innovate.
Drawing from her experience as a design practitioner at OCBC since 2010, Ms Kang Moller was tasked with driving business success of the private banking, retail banking, wealth management and insurance businesses through fostering customer-centric design process and organisational culture.
She has found that simplicity in the human-centered design process is a powerful tool that can foster innovation. Referring to examples such as reducing the number of web pages of an organisation’s website from 12,000 to 600 and saving $0.5 million a year, to redesigning branch spaces to include modular seats that manifested the bank’s intention of serving its customers, there are lessons to be learned from embracing simplicity. Simplicity does not happen naturally, it has to be made through design.
The 5 elements of a human-centred design process
- Empathy is key
By putting yourself in your customer’s shoes, you will be able to use empathy as a source of inspiration to discover customers’ behaviours and needs. At OCBC, key stakeholders observed the customer’s behaviour during a customer journey mapping exercise and it was found that each stakeholder identified different pain points. This process enabled the Customer Experience team to identify the main pain points and reframe the issues through empathy. - Speaking human
Rewriting content to sound more human is essential to connecting emotionally with your customers. At OCBC, it was found that using simple language saved resources and money. Testing a letter with a focus group, it was found that if complex language was used, a customer would have to contact the call centre to clarify the terms. Each call made costs the bank $7. So it proved that by rewriting forms using everyday language such as “use” instead of “utilise” and “opt” instead of “choose”, it not only enhances the customer experience, but saves the organisation resources and money. - Prototype and test
Ms Kang Moller found that complexity often got in the way of giving the best possible service, whether it was the process of filling in a form, or purchasing an investment product. Though the process of iteration and testing, complexity is stripped away, leaving just the essential information in a simple and easy-to-understand format for customers. As simplicity is based on common sense and human nature, the closer one can bridge the gap between a person’s mental model and the knowledge or skills they need to understand something, the simpler it will be for one to perceive things. - Focus
Ms Kang Moller’s tip for complex organisations is to develop a “clarity statement” to drive focus. By stating i) who the product/service is for, ii) what the product/service offers and iii) how it is differentiated, it enables organisations to stay on track of their end goal. - Visual design
“We have to move away from ignoring design because the look is the message,” says Ms Kang Moller, quoting a Gallup study. “Visual design matters because it engages people’s emotions and emotional satisfied customers are 100% more likely to spend.”
Lessons learned
By practising the 5 elements of the human-centred design process, simplicity can be achieved. By thinking and doing simple, it has shown to build clarity and confidence, save resources, change people’s behaviour, and drive innovation in an effective way. “It is everybody’s job to think about simplicity, and how processes or products can be made simpler using the 5 elements,” advocates Ms Kang Moller.
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