The Institute of Service Excellence (ISE) at SMU released the 2019 second quarter (Q2) Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) results for the Air Transport and Land Transport sectors on 25 Sep. The Land Transport sector, comprising of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) System, Public Buses, Taxi Services, and Transport Booking Apps sub-sectors, saw its customer satisfaction score inch up from 2018. Leading the improvements were the MRT System and Public Buses sub-sectors. The Air Transport sector, which comprises of the Airport, Budget Airlines, and Full Service Airlines sub-sectors, saw an uptick in customer satisfaction from 2018.
For more details, please click here for the Results Overview.
Keynote Presentation
The transportation sector is an area close to the hearts of Singapore’s residents. The smooth running of key transport modes enhances the backbone of an efficient and productive nation as we go about our daily commute. Before announcing the CSISG Q2 results for the Air and Land Transport sectors, the Institute of Service Excellence had the privilege of having Dr. Marcus Lee open the forum with his keynote presentation titled “Humanising Business Transformations”.
Dr. Lee was Director, Customer Engagement and Strategy, at the Land Transport Authority of Singapore (LTA) from April 2016 to July 2019. Prior to his role at the LTA, Dr. Lee was the founding academic director of the Institute of Service Excellence at Singapore Management University (SMU), and was the primary person responsible for the design, execution, and evolution of the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore from 2007 to 2016. Dr. Lee specialises in the areas of customer satisfaction measurement, service experience design, data visualisation, and data-intensive analytics, and helps senior leaders interpret quantitative findings to identify and solve core issues with the service experience in their organisations. Dr. Lee also sits on the SingHealth Service Excellence Committee.
The keynote presentation covered several essential snippets towards organisations with a transformation roadmap. The following provides a summary of the topics and content from the presentation.
PRE-REQUISITES OF ORGANISATIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS
Organisational transformation occurs typically when business results reflect a downward trend, although the organisation has not changed anything. In order to stay relevant, embarking on research and market sensing initiatives can be adopted to assess what has shifted the ground or changed in customer expectations. As organisations are made up of a collective body of individuals, humanising these transformational aspects (e.g., introducing concepts like empathy) would be a key fundamental lever towards meeting these goals.
Citing Dr.Lee’s recent contribution in Challenge Magazine (a local government publication), organisational transformation requires three key aspects. Firstly, there has to be widespread transformation activity. If a proportion of the organisational still feels that change is not their responsibility, mental or hierarchical roadblocks will be detrimental to this cause. Secondly, members of the organisation have to be true believers in the mission and possess a sustained drive to see the change move forward. Thirdly, there must be empathy for users. If one has empathy for customers, stakeholders and partners, this makes widespread transformation much easier.
MOVING TOWARDS ORGANISATIONAL EXCELLENCE
Four aspects were covered to accelerate excellence with the customers in mind.
- Meaningful Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Whatever the management sets as a KPI, the people on the ground will do their level best to meet those performance indicators. Therefore, performance measures must be set carefully and sensibly so that the results are effective, realistic, and practical.
- Sustained Innovation efforts: Innovation is an expensive endeavour for organisations. There has to be commitment from the top management to innovate for the long term. Meaningful performance outcomes for innovation is not the success rate. Rather, it is the spirit of exploring and trying a diverse number of initiatives every year.
- Customer Centric Operations: The operations of the organisations should be imbedded with a culture of empathy and viewed with service-centric optics.
- A translation group responsible for operationalising promising innovation projects: Separate the teams so that the teams tasked to materialise these innovation initiatives can focus on the task at hand.
IMPROVING CUSTOMER LED EXPERIENCES
Customers do have control over their fate. The managers’ job in organisations is to empower them with enough information so that they make informed choices; for example, whether to show up, when to show up, how to show up and in what mode. It is entirely possible for customers to self-select, time shift, or mode shit for a better experience.
Taking the example of public transportation, if more information (on traffic or peak periods) was given to the customers, they will make better informed decisions when scheduling their travel times and choosing a mode of transport (public or private modes) which best suits them. If an organisation gives sufficient and reliable information to its customers, this will enable their customers to own their decisions.
Dr. Lee concluded this keynote presentation by touching on a values-driven approach to drive customer centricity and humanise organisations: From an academic viewpoint, we do the things we do because we believe they are important to us. Therefore, a possible technique to systemically predispose all staff to exhibit customer centric behaviour is to start encouraging our staff to get customers to believe in the things which are important to us instead of simply asking our staff to delight our customers.
For Dr. Marcus Lee’s presentation deck, please click here.
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