Every year, I wonder how many true practitioners of excellent customer service are overlooked and how the prestige of the award has been diminished by the myriad of award winners.

Among other conditions, one of the award criteria states that nominees have to attend at least one structured training programme relating to service to enhance his service performance. I wonder why this is deemed so necessary when the nominees are supposed to be well-versed in service standards.

Compliments from customers should be testament to the quality of the service rendered by the staff member. The need to attend structured training in this area seems redundant and, in fact, may be detrimental to their chances of being nominated.

Many organisations have perfected the application process to the hilt. If they want their staff members to achieve the Silver award, all they have to do is to ensure they receive at least two compliment letters, attend a structured training course in service and have at least a year's service duration with the organisation in order to meet the minimum criteria for the award.

Hence, as long as the criteria are met, the Silver award is conferred, regardless whether or not the award winner has the aptitude for customer service or the right attitude in dealing with internal customers (for example, fellow colleagues and subordinates). In this aspect, I wonder how the EXSA committee members achieve their objective of honouring service champions and recognising the efforts of service staff.

During my working stint in the hotel industry, I have encountered deserving staff members who could have been nominated for EXSA awards. These staff exude courtesy, graciousness and politeness to everyone, be it a guest or colleague. Yet, due to work and family commitments, they can only attend training courses pertaining to their work and not to service. Other less deserving staff members, however, carefully calibrate their requirements for the award and are hence nominated by their supervisors.

My second grouse stems from the fact that each year, organisations submit hundreds of staff nominations for the EXSA awards. Somehow, when you have tens, if not, hundreds of your colleagues achieving the same award as you do, the cachet of the award seems lost.

If I may suggest an improvement to the EXSA awards criteria, it would be for the selection committee to conduct a short interview with the nominees. Questions pertaining to service recovery, real-life situations and handling of difficult internal and external customers may be asked and the responses tallied. This may take up more time from the committee members, but it will sift out those who are not really customer-oriented and ensure that only genuine nominees deserving of the awards are selected.

Rick Lim