Thursday, September 09, 2010

Customer centric culture

Getting managers involved.
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3 comments:

ron said...

Customer service is not in the nature of business in Singapore.

The purpose of business is to focus on the bottom line and earn profits. That is certainly true any where else.

The focus is extremely intense here.
The task is so important that all else is pushed aside.

I am certain that when business owners have meetings under the B2B umbrella, there is very good attitudes and very mindful customer service. However the spirit is seldom passed down to the frontline troops... at best its watered down to 3 step policy guidelines of greet,serve,collect payment.

Perhaps its the abundance of cheap labour here.
If a business is to survive over a long period,development of staff is an intergal & necessary part.

I suspect that business owners are reluctant to train their staff because of cost, time and uncertain returns. So they rely on the Gov, WDA to train people in generic skills and hope for the best.

Training is seldom seen as a strategy.. it is usually tucked under Human Resource and called upon as a last resort.. even then, its viewed as a money sucking dept that does not have any ROI.

So be it.

We may have wonderful infrastructures, but we are lacking in understanding what a customer is.
Our neighbours know how to deal with customers without appearing to be tasked with money worries.

Singapore is a task orientated economy and there it remains.

September 09, 2010 3:55 PM
Anonymous said...

Hi. I wanted to drop you a quick note to express my thanks. I've been following your blog for a month or so and have picked up a ton of good information as well as enjoyed the way you've structured your site. I am attempting to run my own blog but I think its too general and I want to focus more on smaller topics. Being all things to all people is not all that its cracked up to be.

September 09, 2010 5:02 PM
Ray said...

Broadly speaking, there are 2 generic strategies to make profit.

One is to increase sales, selling price, customer service, the Richard Branson/ Steve Jobs way. That's why people like Richard Branson usually employs a marketing person as GMs/CEOs.

The other is to cut costs, squeeze workers, and undercut competition on pricing. That's the strategy employed by many PRC and Indian companies. That's why you sometimes see these companies employ accountants as GMs/ CEOs.

Both works. Both strategy can make money.

September 09, 2010 6:50 PM

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