GO-THE-EXTRA-MILE FOR SERVICE (GEMS) MOVEMENT

GO-THE-EXTRA-MILE FOR SERVICE (GEMS) MOVEMENT: 12.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what plans are in place to encourage Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) to go beyond the Go-the-Extra-Mile for Service (GEMS) movement; (b) how can CEOs be cajoled to improve Singapore's service culture; and (c) to date, how would the Ministry assess the success of the GEMS movement.

The Minister of State for Manpower (Mr Gan Kim Yong) (for the Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, the Go-the-Extra-Mile for Service (GEMS) movement was launched in October 2005 to raise

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service standards. Various initiatives were rolled out by the three supporting agencies - STB, SPRING and WDA - to address four key areas: service leadership, service capabilities, service mindset, and raising service standards in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Mdm Ho correctly pointed out that it is important to reach out to CEOs in the next phase of the GEMS movement as they play a crucial role in recognising the importance of service quality and driving initiatives to raise service standards within their organisations.

Therefore, several concurrent efforts are being made by the various agencies to address this. First, WDA has partnered with the Singapore Management University (SMU) to establish the Institute of Service Excellence@SMU (ISES) to conduct research in the area of service excellence, engage CEOs and business leaders via the new service strategies conceptualised from this research, measure customer satisfaction levels over time for different sectors and benchmark to other countries.

Second, WDA will be launching another GEMS campaign - a series of TV commercials - to promote service excellence next year. The messages will be targeted at business leaders to encourage them to set good examples and put in place the right systems to promote service excellence.

Third, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has been actively engaging business leaders through the Leadership Seminar Series. Seven seminars have been held since they began in November 2005 with attendances from over 800 business leaders in total. STB will continue to engage business leaders through this platform.

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Fourth, STB is also working towards instituting a quality accreditation scheme to be launched in early 2008. This scheme will recognise and promote businesses that deliver good service and encourage consistency in the service performance of business outlets.

Together, these initiatives will further bring us closer to a service standard which will provide a key competitive advantage for our workforce and economy.

Mdm Ho Geok Choo: I would like to ask the MOS a few supplementary questions. Given the importance of service standards in Singapore's economic growth, what plans are there for companies to institute customer service tracking systems so as to monitor customer service performance and close the gaps along the way? I would also like to check whether there is a programme to identify service champions amongst CEOs and companies in Singapore so as to provide a model of sorts for others to follow. Thirdly, in time to come, will we work towards establishing a customer service index in Singapore in view of the fact that the service industry is increasingly to be the pillar of growth for Singapore?

Mr Gan Kim Yong: Sir, our strategy is to develop service excellence as part of the business culture in our enterprises so that enterprises will develop their own service tracking system to ensure high quality of service standards to be delivered to their customers. This will become part of the business strategy of companies that have embraced this service excellence strategy. Mdm Ho asked whether we recognise champions. Yes, indeed, we do. We have service excellence awards which were launched in 2006. These give accolades to organisations for service excellence. We also have excellence service awards which are given to individuals who have delivered outstanding service in the

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course of their work. So we do give recognition to leaders in the service excellence movement. Mdm Ho also asked about introducing some kind of indicator. I am pleased to let Mdm Ho know that we will indeed be looking at customer satisfaction index for Singapore and this will be released sometime early 2008. This will help us track the service satisfaction level from our customers. This survey will be conducted and released in the early part of 2008.