Why it is so hard to get Service Delivery right?

In a recent Business Times article dated 19 March 2012, titled "Service is just one part of the satisfaction equation", the author highlighted survey results from the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) conducted by Institute of Service Excellence at SMU (ISES), which indicates that consumers are getting savvier in discerning and differentiating service quality and satisfaction of the service organization in general.


The author gave the example of the Retail's service quality which fell from a score of 72 to 70.9 in 2011. But satisfaction with retailers rose from 68.2 in 2010 to 70.6, indicating that customers were happier with department stores, supermarkets, and retailers of fashion apparel, watches and jewellery.

The CSISG,whose methodological foundations are those of the American Customer Satisfaction Index, the de facto standardized measure of customer satisfaction in the US since 1994, has three key drivers: expectations, value and quality.


I remembered posting way back on June 11, 2008 about the challenges that service organizations face in developing, marketing and maintaining the level of delivery in their services. I also highlighted that service has 4 unique characteristics; intangible, inseparable, heterogeneous and perishable; core fundamentals which every service organizations need to understand to be able to design holistic end-to-end delivery systems.


And as Ms. Caroline Lim, Director of ISES rightly noted, while service quality; one half of the last driver which also involves product quality; is important, the other drivers are equally important. Thus the need for service organizations to look into the dimension of service quality and a good framework that service organizations should use is the Gaps Model of Service Quality developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry in 1985.

source: The Marketing Association of Australia and New Zealand

To reduce Customer Gap, service organizations should also seek to understand the 10 determinants of service quality that helps service organizations focus on removing non value-adding processes or 'muda' from their delivery system.

source:The Marketing Association of Australia and New Zealand

However, for service organizations that truly wishes to be world-class, it is recommended that they adopted a Business Excellence framework which is a systems-thinking approach to building and sustaining organizational excellence. A Business Excellence framework typically cover categories that include Leadership, Planning, Information, People, Processes, Customers and Results.

A much cited testament of one such international service organization that is widely recognized as best-in-class is The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company; proud recipient of The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award from the United States Department of Commerce twice in 1992 and 1999; The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore won the Singapore Quality Award from SPRING Singapore in 2001.

There are other management tools and techniques such as the 7Ps of service marketing, Lean and one that is much cited in recent times, Design Thinking. I will discuss a little more about Design Thinking in my next post, so keep a look-out for it.

Management often flounders with the myriad options available for improvements and the key to this is to sit down and conduct a "stock-take" of its current operations. An option would be to conduct a self-assessment using BEACON by SPRING Singapore, distill the results, and determine 3 key areas for improvement in the work year. As Steve Jobs once said, "Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do".

Mis-guided Pursuit of Personal Excellence?

The New Paper on Sunday (4 March 2012) carried a report (Parents, why so kiasu?) about the state of Singapore parents 'not wanting to be left behind', with an example of a parent spending up to S$5,800 a month in tuition for a straight 'As' student in a top Singapore school. And this is on top of regular supplementary lessons that the student gets from the school.

One parent hires a private tutor to prepare her 5 year-old son and 6 year-old daughter for primary school and says, "Some of my friends have called me crazy but I don't care. When my children make it to a better school and do well, I'll be the one having the last and best laugh."

In another article"Parents, why hire tutors to do your kids' assignments?", a civil servant parent pays tutors to do her two daughters' homework from an elite tuition centre and cited the reasons behind this were one, due to the "mounting school assignments plus extra homework (from the elite tuition centre)"; and two, "It took my daughters nearly a year before they were given a place in the tuition centre. After all that effort, it'd be such a terrible waste if they had to give up their spots for others on the waiting list just because they cannot finish the work".

The cause of this civil servant parent's dilemma, her younger daughter is in a Gifted Education Programme primary school while her older daughter is in an Independent School. Both daughters takes English, Mathematics and Science at the elite tuition centre and also goes for ballet, piano and art classes. The younger daughter also gets tuition for Higher Chinese. The husband is also a civil servant.

One other parent even go on to say, "It's nothing illegal. At most, you can only argue whether it's morally right or wrong". Is it then any wonder that the students in Singapore have lost their moral compass when parents condone such actions. Imagine when these kids grow up to pursue post-graduate certifications and pays for Master and PhD thesis to be written on their behalf and blames it on their parents for setting a 'good' example. What would the society think of them then?

I suppose then it is no also surprise that we are seeing an eroding of values in a small number of civil servants entangled in a number of high profile cases that involved educators, senior managers and senior management leaders of  government agencies.

The Education Ministry have stressed the importance to look beyond academic excellence in the development of our children and most recently at the Singapore Conference in Washington D.C., USA, on Wednesday, 8 February 2012, Mr. Heng Swee Kiat, Singapore's Education Minister commented: 

"education is fundamentally about developing the unique individual, helping him to discover and develop his interests, talents and strengths, so as to fulfil his potential and aspirations. It is about developing the whole person, enabling him to lead a full, creative, and meaningful life."

".....to prepare our students for the future, it is critical for us to have some notions of the variety and demands of the jobs of the future. The education system can then tailor the right skillsets for each individual. Not all the jobs will require academic degrees. Indeed, in many areas, practical, hands-on skills are valued."

Please go to http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/speeches/2012/02/08/speech-by-mr-heng-swee-keat-at-the-singapore-conference-washington-dc-usa.php for the full speech.

During his opening address at the Ministry of Education (MOE) Work Plan Seminar, on Thursday, 22 September 2011 at Ngee Ann Polytechnic Convention Centre, Mr. Heng also commented about the importance of "Values-driven Education" and he said:

"We must put values and character development at the core of our education system. We need personal values to enable each of us to have the confidence and self awareness, and the grit and determination to succeed. We need moral values, such as respect, responsibility, care and appreciation towards others, to guide each of us to be a socially responsible person. In particular, for our multi-racial, multi-cultural society, a sense of shared values and respect allows us to appreciate and celebrate our diversity, so that we stay cohesive and harmonious.

If values provide the philosophical underpinning, character development makes these values come alive. Character development is about developing social emotional competencies, and the habits and inner disposition based on sound values to act in a consistent way. Personal values such as grit, determination and resilience enable the individual to realise his or her potential, and develop ‘performance character’. Moral values enable the individuals to develop ‘moral character’. These values are intertwined, and are critical to the success of the individual and the society. Hence, values and character development must form the core of our student-centric, holistic education."

Please go to http://www.moe.gov.sg/media/speeches/2011/09/22/work-plan-seminar-2011.php for the full speech.

I certainly do not condone what these parents are doing and in my own personal experience of having to work and study at the same time, it taught me about time management, self-learning and builds my character in a better way. 

Integrity is something that is highly valued professionally and socially. Something that cannot be traded in one's pursuit of excellence. The lack of which created the downfall of many individuals and organizations such as Mohamed bin Hammam, Raj Rajaratnam, T. T. Durai, Olympus Corp, Enron, Siemens AG and many others.

While there will be more cases that goes unreported, I hope that we can only get better with each new day.