Art of service : Made-in-S'pore training system a hit abroad

The Straits Times
Marcel Lee Pereira
May 23, 2006

A multi-million-dollar training industry has sprung up since the Government threw its weight behind improving Singapore's service quality. Marcel Lee Pereira takes a look.

CREATING A BUZZ : Service consultant Ron Kaufman has exported his programme to places such as Finland, China, Dubai and Australia. Above: Mr Kaufman conducting a workshop as part of the Up Your Service College training programme. The service training market here has come to be worth $50 million.

IN FARAWAY northern Europe, a made-in-Singapore training programme is helping Finnish sales assistants bone up on the fine art of providing better service. It is an ironic development, considering that Singapore's service standards came in for criticism last year.

The training programme, devised by Singapore-based service consultant Ron Kaufman, has also found clients in companies in China, Thailand and India; businesses in Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia and Dubai will pick it up next year. Called the Up Your Service College, the programme covers areas such as understanding customers, increasing customer commitment and managing their expectations.

It is just one of the many service-training programmes that have popped up in a market that some industry players say has come to be worth $50 million since 'service' became a buzzword. The person who made it a buzzword was Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who, at the National Day Rally last year, decried the standards of service in Singapore and urged companies to adopt service-friendly policies, service staff to take pride in their work and customers to show appreciation for good service.

Subsequently, initiatives like the Go the Extra Mile for Service (Gems) movement were launched. Riding on increased awareness of Singapore's shortfall in this area, companies, polytechnics and private schools are now vying for a slice of the training pie. Private schools, such as the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS), offer courses such as Exceptional Customer Service, which train staff in telephone etiquette and how to manage difficult customers.

Over at Neutonlab Education Centre, call-centre staff go through a five-day programme and even take an examination, during which their calls are recorded and sent to Britain to be graded. The polytechnics are also training service staff using a system developed by the Singapore Workforce Development Agency. Subjects covered include the finer points of personal presentation and interacting with customers.

To encourage companies to polish their employees' delivery of service to customers, the Government is offering grants that will help offset the cost of training. It has already committed $4.4 million to the training of front-end staff in the shopping belts, as well as public transport workers - mostly taxi drivers - to prepare them for receiving delegates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank meetings in September.

But is this just a passing fad?

Mr Peter Cheng, director of Pace Learning and Consultancy, one of many training providers here, said he believed so. The boom in training has been fuelled by government funding, without which companies might not be quite so gung-ho is pursuing their training programmes, he said. This was especially the case in the retail and hospitality sectors, where firms find it hard to release staff for training, he added.

Dr Michael Chiam, manager of the Service Training and Research Link Centre at Ngee Ann Polytechnic's School of Business and Accountancy, added that, for small shops in the heartland, just keeping their heads above water, 'service is far down the road'.

Copyright, Ron Kaufman. All rights reserved.
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