1.

Questions for Singapore Post

1. What is the underlying problem for Singapore Post? How did this problem get created?

Answer -

The underlying problem for SingPost in simple words was the negative word of mouth it was
receiving due to customer complaints and concerns from different national agencies which was
a result of providing unsatisfactory customer service and not acknowledging it.
So, How does it all get started, for this we have to roll back some years.
SingPost has been in business for 160 yrs and has become one of the pioneers in the industry. It
prided itself on providing end-to-end integrated digital mail solutions and offering e-commerce
logistic solutions. Its USP has been effective last mile delivery.
During the last 2 yrs, there has been a major transformation in the organizational structure with
5 directors including one group CEO leaving the company which caused a fall in its share price
and even in the eyes of investors.
Also as the world has modernized over time in technology and also as a whole, effective last
mile delivery which earlier was SingPost USP has now become a basic necessity or expected
feature from the customer’s perspective. And thus, when in the years 2018 and 2019, SingPost
was n’t able to accomplish what it used to preach it gained negative publicity. During these
years, the company received multiple instances of mail being left on mailboxes,discarded
parcels,false missed delivery notice, valuable parcels left at doorstep etc.. Moreover, SIngPost
was ignorant of these complaints and hence were criticized for not being accountable and
giving generic responses. All of these had a chain effect and resulted in the bad brand image of
SingPost which came along with a threat of losing the trust of stakeholders and losing out in the
competitive market.

2. What type of service failures were reported against Sing Post by Ang Mo Kio? What kind of
customer was he? What kind of customer ire did the brand SingPost face post the Mo Kio
incident? What does it tell you about the type of customers in the fold of Sing Post? Should it
concern them?

Answer -
An Ang Mo Kio resident discovered stacks of unopened letters in the trash bin and shared the
incident through a series of pictures on Facebook.It consisted of official letters as well and is an
offence under Postal Services Act to discard or destroy any postal article.
This incident included several types of service failures against the SingPost like Failure to
provide the core service by the company,Employee or delivery agent failure.This service failure
also included not meeting the legal obligations under the Postal Service Act by the SingPost.
As the customer took the social media route to express the grievance and took all actions
against the company legal obligations by including the third party regulating body, he can be
classified as both an IRATES and ACTIVISTS kind of customer.
After the incident was reported online, a lot of PASSIVES kind of customers who did not
complain about their service failures came forward and expressed their unhappiness and
incidents of service failures against the SingPost showing their disapproval for the company.
This incident tells us that the major customers of SingPost can be classified as PASSIVES who are
not complaining about the service failures and may be switching to other companies due to
dissatisfaction against the SingPost services.
The leadership and the management team of SingPost should be deeply concerned about such
a situation due to the following reasons -
These customers will not only add to the loss of revenue stream but will go beyond and will not
provide a chance to perform service recovery.
Also these customers will provide negative word of mouth and show dissatisfaction on online
mediums in future triggered by other similar incidents.
Also showing ineffective service recovery to these customers will lead to further problems for
the company.

3. What were the various other service failures in Sing post? Comment on the process gaps
leading to these failures.

Answer-
Among the other service failures of SingPost, one particular incident involved a small business
owner who had paid $7000 for the distribution of advertisement flyers. When the client
contacted SingPost regarding the status of his order, SingPost sent him photos showing the
successful delivery of the flyers to various mailboxes. However, later it was discovered that the
photos were digitally manipulated and all the flyers included the same unique ID Mark which
meant that only one flyer was successfully distributed. This led to allegations that the staff had
manipulated the photos in order to prove that the flyers had been delivered, however, that was
not the case. SingPost responded to this by sanctioning the responsible staff members. Here
the service gap was created due to lack of staff and the employees were overworked and had
to deliver over 2600 letters per day. Lack of compensation was also a gap.
Another Service failure was regarding leaving failed delivery notifications without waiting.
Apparently, the workers would wait at the receivers’ door for a few seconds before leaving a
missed delivery notification and leaving. When confronted with the allegation the workman
said he waited for more than 20 minutes. The SingPost policy stated that the workman will wait
for 45 seconds before leaving. The clients raised the issue of whether 45 seconds is enough
time to answer the door.
Various other complaints regarding the parcels left outside and have been signed for with the
signature not being of the receiver.

The service gaps that led to these failures can be accounted for by the shortage of staff in peak
season and the staff having to cover more doorsteps than usual. The staff had to work overtime
to cover all the addresses and they were not incentivized for the same. These factors resulted in
the frontline staff of SingPost compromising the service standards.

4. Comment on Sing Post’s handling of employee-driven failures. Do you agree with what
SingPost has done to handle these issues? How should Sing Post handle such failures?

Because of the service failure, Singpost made an apology on their Facebook page and promised
to increase their service quality. Such as announced immediate measures as a broad review of
its postal operation, aimed at solving the most pressing issues within 3 – 6 months because of
the rapid expansion of e-commerce.
Some of the steps taken by the company are as follows:
● Hired more than 100 workers to meet the rising delivery volumes; raising parcel
collection counters and worker post offices
● Worked with Government agencies, Union of Telecom employees in Singapore to
upgrade worker’s skills to alleviate the workload.
● Singpost also changed the salary structure review for employees; make higher pay for
workers with an incentive for successful deliveries of trackable items to customer’s
doorstep. And overtime pays for employees who worked extra hours.
● The extended shift for mail delivery on weekdays to ensure that the mail reaches the
customer's place on time.
● They also apply new technology and infrastructure to improve their quality of service.

This is a positive change, That Singpost realized its service failure and tried to rebuild the trust
that Singpost has lost. But it is just an immediate remedy, not an adequate solution. The
remedy is a short-term plan up to the next 6 months including promises, plans, apologies, etc.
But, customers are waiting for the application of the plans. When the Singpost is already doing
those plans to improve the quality of service and when the complaints are resolved and
minimized, individuals may say, "its short term measure is adequate."

It is good for the company to make immediate remedies for the problems that need early
action.
But this remedy is not just only the thing that the company will do. To make a whole, it needs a
little to become whole. In other words, to be on the top of the ladder, one must start at the
bottom to go up. And it needs a long journey or long-term plan that sets the process to be
done.

5. Did SingPost have a service recovery plan? Comment on how the company reacted to a
series of failures – in the light of your understanding of failure and recovery strategy.

For long-term solutions to minimize service failures. In my opinion, the important things
are effective in recruitment and training for staff step by step in process of service, attitude,
norm, and ritual, some cases may occur with the customer and use technology in work.
Because Postman is a person who is communicating directly with customers to improve the
service quality of the company.
And set up a department to evaluate the work efficiency of Postman in each locality in case any
trouble can make a solution as quickly as well. In addition, Singpost should continue to invest in
technology and automation and infrastructure to improve productivity in work like some kind
of delivery app or technology platform and apply QR code to help customers easily check their
track or what is your parcel step on, and also give more interaction with a customer like send
them the email or messenger to inform time to delivery. It can let customers more control and
follow up their mail, parcel as well as a plus choice if they need, to ensure consistency and
reliability of its processes and systems.
And streamlining of postal products followed by standardizing the sizes of letterbox postal
items, and new letterboxes with more convenience. The first step with segregation of letterbox
and doorstep deliveries by having separate teams for each delivery will help optimize delivery
routes, ease postmen’s workload and increase successful deliveries.
Set a partnership with some kind of convenience stores like J-mart, 7-11, Choices, Munch
Munch, I-Tec, Sol mart … that these stores can receive customer’s parcels or mail or customers
can come here to pick their parcel or mail up. It is so easy for the customer when the
convenience store is near and it also reduces the workload of Postman.

6. While the case mentions that SingPost was one of the Best employers, yet employees
poured out their woes as the incident involving one of their own went public. From your
understanding of Employee roles in services, can you explain this anomaly?

Ans 1: Employees are key drivers of business success in such service companies. The front-line-
employees are a critical part of delivering the service. They can make or break the image of the
service company. As we saw in this case as well as the Singapore Airlines Case.
Also, we studied in the service triangle that the FLEs interact with the customers on company’s
behalf to create customer delight or customer distress.

SingPost was named one of the top employers in Singapore by the employment standards
organization Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment Practices as a result of its
commitment to an inclusive working culture. They had set high standards when it came to
employee engagement. Nonetheless, employees vented their frustrations following the public
disclosure of an event involving one of their own.
The incidents suggested that a few things went wrong in this aspect:
● Due to high demand of services owing to the e-commerce advent, the FLEs had to work
for longer durations and had to meet large targets in one day.

Ans 2: SingPost was named one of the best employers for its efforts to foster an inclusive work
environment. Additionally, the company held regular employee engagement events such as Tea
with the CEO and town hall meetings to foster communication between management and
employees, and it rewarded top performers through a variety of recognition programmes that
included monetary incentives to assist in motivating employees and promoting higher
employee retention and loyalty.
The incident revealed that employees were overworked and not compensated for overtime,
and that SingPost routinely dismissed employees for failing to perform their assigned duties.
The company did not contribute positively to Internal Service Quality as part of its Service Profit
Chain because it did not compensate employees for working overtime during the company's
busiest season and did not invest sufficiently in their development, resulting in employees
losing motivation to be actively engaged in the organisation.
This resulted in a decline in its service delivery system as employee satisfaction decreased,
resulting in a decrease in employee productivity, as evidenced by numerous instances of front-
line employees failing to provide service. Customer satisfaction is inextricably linked to
employee satisfaction, which has decreased as a result.

7. What changes needed to be instituted by SingPost to reinstate customer confidence? What

changes needed to be instituted by SingPost to smoothen service operations to prevent
future failures? - Suggestions to be given in the light of Sing Post’s ambition to become the
last mile delivery partner for e-comm companies - 3-year transformation plan.

8. Two main learnings from this case.