If you can recognize that the purpose for which every human is born is to live their life in service, to appreciate what the universe has provided and endeavour towards leaving this world a better place because they have lived.

If you can appreciate that it necessarily follows then that the true purpose of any organization should be to profitably serve its community, and through its community serve the world.

If you can get from that perspective, service has to be an idea far greater that just customer service, but an idea that daily works towards the ideals of simultaneously delivering highly profitability, performance and fulfillment for everyone involved.

Then you need to join the cause for which the Singapore Service Academy was set up; to assist everyone in organizations just like yours become conscious of the bigger picture and strive to up the standards of Creating A World Class Culture Of Service Excellence, so that Your Customers, Your Stakeholders and The Community You Serve simultaneously benefit.

So go on and join the cause and get everyone you know to join it too!

http://bit.ly/SayNOToBadService

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SingNet has been fined $50,000 for its Mio TV outage on March 1 as it failed to comply with license conditions on Quality of Service (QoS) and Consumer Service.

Read the below and please note how other organizations are benefiting from SOCIAL MEDIA and why your organization could use a The Singapore Service Academy‘s SOCIAL MEDIA based Measuring Customers’ Experience technologies to..

1) Retaining Your Existing Customers

2) Attracting New Customers

3) Boosting Your Overall Profitability

Businesses both big and small are flocking to social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Foursquare. The fact is that a presence on these platforms not only allows companies to engage in conversations with consumers, but also serves as an outlet to drive sales through deals and coupons.

And while major brands like Starbucks, Virgin, and Levi’s have been participating in the social web for some time now, the rate of adoption among small businesses is increasing too. According to a recent University of Maryland study, social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year. But as these businesses look to Facebook and Twitter to connect with customers, many are finding that some strategies work and some do not produce results.

The Creme Brulee Man Casestudy

Curtis Kimball, the man behind the enormously popular Creme Brulee Cartin San Francisco, has quickly amassed over 12,000 followers in a little over a year. He knows that most of his business comes from people who follow him on Twitter because Twitter is the only way you can find the cart’s location for the day. “It gives people a valid reason to follow me,” he says.

The other use of Twitter for Kimball is to tell people what flavor of creme brulee he is serving in a given day. And Kimball says that Twitter gives him the ability to develop a personal relationship with his followers and others. He says he tries to engage his followers by asking for suggestions of what type of custard to serve or where he should park his cart, and he always tries to keep things humorous.

Kimball says HE HAS NO MARKETING BUDGET AND TWITTER HAS BEEN A GREAT WAY TO AMASS FANS. Yelp has also been a valuable source of referrals for the entrepreneur. The cart has 224 reviews and is rated with 4 and a half stars.

The Joie De Vivre Casestudy

Joie De Vivre, a company that operates 33 luxury hotels in California is using a variety of social media platforms to drive sales and marketing for its properties. Central to the hotel group’s strategy is disseminating deals and coupons to followers and fans on Facebook and Twitter. Every Tuesday, Joie De Vivre’s Twitter account will Tweet an exclusive deal to its nearly 10,000 followers. Followers have only hours to book the steeply discounted room rate.

And the company has partnered with Foursquare to offer deals for check-ins at its various restaurants.

The company’s marketing VP Ann Nadeau tells me that because of the economy the hotel industry’s MARKETING BUDGETS HAVE SHRUNK, AND SOCIAL MEDIA EFFORTS HAVE PROVEN TO BE A GREAT WAY TO TO BOTH DRIVE SALES AND BUILD LOYALTY.

IN TERMS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE, NADEAU SAYS THAT EACH PROPERTY MANAGER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MONITORING CONVERSATIONS AND REVIEWS ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND YELP.

The Stone Korean Kitchen Casestudy

Co-founded last November by chef Terry Lin, and LinkedIn employeesRobby Kwok and Dan Yoo, Stone Korean Kitchen aims to bring modern Korean cuisine to the Financial District in San Francisco. Yoo tells me that as soon as the restaurant launched, he started a presence on social media sites, including Twitter, Yelp, and Facebook. But THE CHALLENGE OF MANY SMALL BUSINESSES WITH SOCIAL MEDIA IS DRIVING TRAFFIC TO THE RIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNEL rather than splitting it between various sites. Yoo says that interconnecting content between the various profiles has helped gain Twitter followers and Facebook fans.

The Dr. Irena Vaksman, Dentist Casestudy

Social media and dentistry don’t necessarily go hand in hand, but one San Francisco dentist has forged an impressive social media campaign to raise awareness of her recently launched practice. She has a Twitter profile, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel and an website. Dr. Vaksman’s husband, lawyer Robert Vaksman, has been the strategist behind her social media efforts. Robert says that his wife is confronted with the challenge of practicing in a building that houses hundreds of other dentists that have more established practices. He says that IT’S A NO BRAINER TO BE LOOKING AT AS MANY SOCIAL CHANNELS AS POSSIBLE for marketing efforts.

The Levi’s Casestudy

Now more than ever, RETAIL BRANDS ARE ENGAGING CONSUMERS ON SOCIAL NETWORKS TO OFFER DEALS, ALLOW USES TO SOCIALIZE AROUND PURCHASES, AND MORE. Levi’s Jeans was one of the brands that was first to use Facebook as a tool for sales and marketing initiatives and has launched a number of compelling campaigns using Facebook.

As one of Facebook’s initial partners USING THE SOCIAL NETWORK’S NEW LIKE FUNCTIONALITY, Levi’s allows Facebook users to like products on Levi’s online store and its Facebook page (which has nearly 500,000 likes) and share their favorite items with their friends. Within the first week, Levi’s got more than 4,000 likes, says Inside Facebook.

The Starbucks Casestudy

Most experts will agree that Starbucks has one of the best social media strategies out there.  Now that it is giving away free WiFi, it is even more of a magnet for roving laptop warriors. And with 10 million Facebook fans, the company has held a number of promotions on its page to drive engagement.

For example, Starbucks held a promotion for free pastries on its Facebook page, allowing customers to access a coupon that would give them a free pastry with a purchase of a coffee drink. Advertising on the social network has also helped to drive traffic to Starbucks’ page.

In terms of Twitter, Starbucks has also been incredibly active on the microblogging network, amassing nearly one million followers. Not only does the company’s Twitter stream serve as an engagement tool with customers who are talking about the brand on Twitter, but it is also used as a way to spread news from Starbucks. Starbucks has also participated in Twitter’s promoted Tweets program, which allows advertisers to buy sponsored links on Twitter.

The combination of geolocation and social networks is also a huge avenue for Starbucks and the company was one of the first major brands to broker a deal with popular location-based social network Foursquare. In March, Starbucks started offering Foursquare mayors of retail stores special ‘Barista’ badges that would come with discounts on drinks and food. Starbucks also partnered recently with mobile social network Brightkite to give members special discounts on drinks.

Extacted from http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/17/how-social-media-drives-new-business-six-case-studies/

Singapore Airlines recently won the Best Airline for the 3rd Year in a row, but based on opinions not everyone agrees they deserve this award.

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Dear DBS and POSB Customers

I am writing to personally apologise to you for the inconvenience caused by the sudden disruption in our banking and ATM services from 3 am to 10 am, Monday, 5 July 2010. You have every right to expect uninterrupted services 24/7, 365 days a year from us and I am sorry we have failed you on that count. This is the first time we have experienced a system outage and service disruption of such magnitude, so please allow me to explain what happened.

The outage last week was triggered during a routine repair job on a component within the disk storage subsystem connected to our mainframe. This component was emitting alert messages, indicating that there could be an intermittent problem. As our IT environment is highly resilient and as the banking system was still fully functional, the problem was classified as “low severity”.

A component replacement was scheduled for 3 am, a quiet period, which is standard operating procedure. Unfortunately, while IBM was conducting this routine replacement, under the guidance of their Asia Pacific team, a procedural error inadvertently triggered a malfunction in the multiple layers of systems redundancies, which led to the outage. The IBM Asia Pacific team is the central support unit for all IBM storage systems in the region, irrespective of whether the installation has been outsourced or is being managed in-house.

I am treating this matter with utmost priority and the full scale investigation that we initiated last week is still underway. This investigation is being done with the support of IBM’s labs in the U.S and their engineering teams in Asia. So far, we understand from IBM that an outdated procedure was used to carry out the repair. In short, a procedural error in what was to have been a routine maintenance operation subsequently caused a complete system outage.

We take full responsibility for this incident. The matter is obviously of grave concern to us and we are working closely with IBM to ensure that such lapses do not recur or cause such significant impact. In fact, 12 months ago DBS commenced work on a major two- year program to further strengthen the resiliency of our system and minimize the risk of service disruptions.

Please rest assured that all payments and transactions that were scheduled to be made on 5 July were completed. Nothing was held over and full data integrity was maintained at all times. When the system was down, our priority was to minimise customer inconvenience. We:

• allowed all cheque encashments up to $500. In fact, we encashed almost 1,700 cheques worth over $500K between 8.30am to 10am
• provided frequent situation updates to the media, posted updates on our website and also alerted our staff accordingly so that they could inform their customers
• contacted over 10,000 customers via phone/sms to inform them when services were restored
• kept our branches open for an additional two hours on the evening of 5 July

IBM informed us of the system outage at 3 am and a technical command function comprising DBS and IBM staff was activated by 3.40 am. A restart of the systems was initiated at 5.20 am. Following complications during the machine restart, at 6.30am, we activated our bankwide disaster recovery command centre. By 8.30 am, we knew that our branch and ATM systems could be restored from 10 am onwards and therefore did not need to invoke full disaster recovery measures. All other services were progressively restored through the morning and virtually everything was back on track by lunchtime.

On hindsight, our internal escalation process could have been more immediate. We could also have done more to mobilise broadcast channels to inform customers of the disruption in services first thing in the morning. Once again, please accept my apologies and know that we take full responsibility for this incident. There have been valuable lessons learned and I assure you that this matter will continue to remain a top priority for me. My colleagues and I are doing everything we can to prevent an incident of this scale from happening again.

Yours sincerely

Piyush

For the third consecutive year, the Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) has awarded Singapore Airlines (SIA) the prestigious Best Airline International Online Award at the 2010 AFTA National Travel Industry Awards on Saturday night.

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Congratulations To Marina at Keppel Bay

The Marina at Keppel Bay has become the first marina in Asia to be awarded the 5 Gold Anchors rating from the Marina Industries Association of Australia (MIAA) for excellence in services and facilities.

MIAA is the leading industry association for the marina industry across the Asia Pacific region. The MIAA launched the Gold Anchor International Rating Scheme for marinas in 2009 with ratings from 3 to 5 Gold Anchors.

The 5 Gold Anchors rating comes shortly after Marina at Keppel Bay was named Best Asian Marina at the 6th annual Asian Boating Awards in May 2010. In its debut year in 2008, Marina at Keppel Bay also won the title, “Best New Asian Marina/Yacht Club” at the Christofle Asian Boating Awards. In the same year, just three months after its opening in January, it became the only Marina in Asia to be awarded the Clean Marina certification by MIAA.

MIAA President, Andrew Chapman, presented Marina at Keppel Bay with the 5 Gold Anchors award at a recent ceremony. He said Marina at Keppel Bay has again set the benchmark in Asia by attaining the new certification designed to keep marina businesses at the forefront of best practice, “Marina at Keppel Bay is to be congratulated for setting the highest standard for marinas. Marina at Keppel Bay is again providing marina industry leadership across the Asian region”.

Receiving the award on behalf of Marina at Keppel Bay, Augustine Tan, Chief Executive Officer, Singapore Residential of Keppel Land, said: “We are happy to be the first in Asia to be awarded this certification. Adopting best practices through this scheme spurs us to continue to provide the best marina facilities in the region. This also reflects our ultimate aim of delivering a true waterfront lifestyle at Keppel Bay for the enjoyment of our home owners and boaters in Asia’s water playground.”

Marina at Keppel Bay complements the premier waterfront lifestyle offering at Keppel Bay. Owners of Keppel Bay’s luxurious homes, including the FIABCI award-winning Caribbean at Keppel Bay and iconic Reflections at Keppel Bay designed by master architect, Daniel Libeskind, enjoy complimentary membership to the Marina for ten years as well as free subscription for five years. The twinning association with sister marina, Nongsa Bay Marina & Resort in the Riau Island of Indonesia, also provides Keppel Bay home owners with an even wider spectrum of waterfront activities and privileges.

Not unlike the five-star rating system for hotels, the Gold Anchors is developed by MIAA as a reference system to help boaters and marina users to determine which marinas in the Asia Pacific region best fit their requirements and needs.

Gold Anchor marinas are independently audited with assessment across nine areas including marina design, infrastructure, access, services including customer service and feedback, environmental considerations, land facilities, food and beverage facilities and local attractions. Participating marinas are also subject to ‘mystery shopper’ checks during the three year rating period to ensure the integrity of ratings.

The Marina is also the choice venue for prestigious international events such as the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, Boat Asia, the largest boat show in South East Asia in April, and more recently, the venue to welcome the Jewel of Muscat, a heritage vessel which is a gift from the Sultanate of Oman to Singapore.

Original article and more can be read at Property-Report.com

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SMALL and medium-size enterprise (SME) operators in Singapore need a mindset change if they are to step up their productivity, says Member of Parliament Inderjit Singh.

Discussing challenges for SMEs to pursue productivity and embrace innovation, Mr Singh said SME leaders should also upgrade themselves and not just their staff. Citing the example of cloud computing, he said an SME owner who does not understand technology may end up spending more resources on it instead of cutting costs.

Mr Singh was speaking at the 5th SICCI Champions of Industry dialogue session yesterday, which focused on productivity and innovation challenges facing SMEs.

He pointed out that one of the major challenges facing SMEs is understanding what increasing productivity actually entails. ‘Being productive does not mean working your workers much harder than before, or reducing your workforce while maintaining output levels or compromising on quality to improve quantity. A productive company focuses on increasing the value of its goods and services through quality and service excellence and not just through mere volume,’ he explained, adding that, for SMEs, improving efficiency alone is not enough and that new value needs to be delivered to customers.

Explaining how Muthu’s Curry restaurants incorporated technology to cut waiting time down by 50 per cent and helped it double its turnover to some $7 million, Mr Singh said SMEs must not focus on cost when exploring productivity boosts. ‘It is more useful to focus on better and faster, which focus on output or top-line productivity, and not bottom-line or cost productivity, which has been the past focus. I hope our SMEs do not continue to be stuck at the cheaper part; you must focus on the top-line part more. Singapore is too expensive to make the cheaper part work well,’ he said.

J Manickavachagam, an SME owner and Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry director, told BT small businesses here face several challenges when it comes to improving productivity. He listed defining productivity as a key challenge for SMEs but also noted that talent attraction and retention as well as capital attraction become difficult as they have to compete with larger companies for these resources.

While Mr Singh highlighted government initiatives to boost productivity and urged SMEs to work closely with agencies such as SPRING Singapore to tap some of their schemes, he acknowledged some challenges in this regard which need to be overcome. ‘There is a need for greater coordination among agencies to help SMEs,’ he said.

For the original article and more please go to the Business Times

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