Customer satisfaction in Singapore up at 71.8 points

Key drivers were the finance & insurance and healthcare sectors.

The national customer satisfaction score in Singapore rose to 71.8 points in 2016, driven by increases across all sectors except Logistics and Private Education, data from the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) showed.

Developed by the Institute of Service Excellence (ISE) at the Singapore Management University (SMU), the CSISG measures customers’ cumulative satisfaction with companies based on survey data collected from end-users after consumption of products and services. It aims to generate customer satisfaction data at the national, sector, sub-sector, and company levels to provide a comprehensive assessment of Singapore’s service levels.

The Finance & Insurance sector substantially contributed to the national score, with Banks scoring 72.9 points. Meanwhile, customer satisfaction with the Motor and Other Personal Insurance, Life Insurance, as well as Health and Medical Insurance sub-sectors remain statistically unchanged from the previous year.

Neeta Lachmandas, ISE executive director noted that results highlight how the Finance & Insurance sector is largely relationship-based. “We found that qualities such as responsiveness, empathy, and assurance were key differentiators which these companies should focus on,” she added.

Credit Cards, which was introduced as a sub-sector for the first time, registered 70.7 points, with Citibank, American Express, and DBS/POSB topping the company rankings. Key factors affecting satisfaction ratings for Credit Cards include merchant tie-ups that meet customers’ needs, ease of reward redemption, and flexibility of policies such as waiver of charges.

Meanwhile, the Healthcare sector scored 71 points, primarily led by improvements seen in the Private Hospitals (73.2 points, +1.21 points/+1.7%) and Restructured Hospitals (70.0 points, +1.39/+2.0%) sub-sectors.

The CSISG 2016 Q4 study was conducted between October 2016 and January 2017. A total of 9,402 surveys were held over several sectors, with Info-Communications and Retail sectors conducted in Q1, Air Transport, Land Transport, Logistics, Public Education, and Private Education sectors in Q2, and Food and Beverage and Tourism sectors in Q3. The study recorded 40.809 unique responses covering 1,245 entities representing all the sectors.