Methodology

The Singapore's Best Customer Service 2023/24 rankings are based on the results of an independent online survey. The respondents were customers in Singapore who have either made purchases, used services, or gathered information about products or services in the past three years.

The survey was set up and run independently, companies were not involved in the project and customers answered the questions anonymously. The survey was conducted using online access panels, providing a representative sample of Singaporean customers. Each of them gave an evaluation of several brands. Additionally, the survey was open to readers of The Straits Times. Answers from almost 10,000 respondents and more than 92,000 evaluations of customer service have been analysed. Evaluations from the previous year’s edition have been considered with a smaller weight.

Longlist of Companies

The survey covered retailers and service providers from 99 categories, providing results for customer experiences in traditional retail, online and service segments. To obtain a solid evaluation base, for each category, the most relevant brands were included as reference in the scope of the survey according to reputation, presence and availability in Singapore, as well as turnover or market share. Every category included at least five companies for reference. Survey respondents were given the option of adding companies to any category via free entries that were then added to the scope of the ranking. Only companies that are active and offer their services in Singapore were taken into account.

Variables and calculation of scores

The final assessment and rankings were based on the Likelihood of Recommendation (50 per cent of the final score), implying the willingness of the customer to recommend a company, and five evaluation criteria (also 50 per cent of the final score):

1. Quality of Communication

Measures whether the contact (via e-mail, telephone or face to face) was friendly and polite.

2. Professional Competence

Measures the quality of information received and whether questions were answered correctly and in sufficient detail.

3. Range of Services

Measures the variety of solutions available to fulfil one's personal expectations.

4. Customer Focus

Measures whether the customer feels acknowledged and important.

5. Accessibility

Measures the availability of customer service in a shop or on a helpline.

These criteria are the base for the score calculation. Each of them has been evaluated on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is the minimum and 10 the maximum. Overall, more than 1,800 companies were evaluated and 327 of them received awards in 2023/24.

The top three to five brands with the highest scores in each category were given Singapore’s Best Customer Service 2023/24 awards.