The Strait Times carries a piece of news today titled “$100 m boost for service”. It says:

A $100 million push to bring Singapore service to the next level has been launched.

The money will go towards funding training and other programmes for staff and supervisors in the retail, food and beverage, health and transport sectors.

It will also be used to pay for research on service, and to monitor customer satisfaction levels.

Also part of the plan: Promoting, publicising and recognising good service.

While this is a well-intended initiative, I hope there is sufficient focus on “incentivization” of good service. As I noted in my earlier post on the “built-in” service charges in Singapore restaurants, the practice doesn’t adequately encourage great customer service, because the “incentive” is guranteed. So, in my humble opinion, a more balanced approach which focuses both on behavioral changes and up-skilling, alongwith dangling a ‘carrot’ would be more useful.