STRAIGHT FROM THE TIOLET

Service excellence of Changai Airport (Singapore)

Changi Airport Group (Singapore) Pte Ltd (CAG) was formed on 16 June 2009 and the corporatisation of
Singapore Changi Airport (IATA: SIN, ICAO: WSSS) followed on 1 July 2009. As the company managing
Changi Airport, CAG undertakes key functions focusing on airport operations and management, air hub
development, commercial activities and airport emergency services. CAG also manages Seletar Airport
(IATA: XSP, ICAO: WSSL) and through its subsidiary Changi Airports International, invests in and
manages foreign airports.

Changi Airport is the world's sixth busiest airport for international traffic. It served a record 62.2 million
passengers from around the globe in 2017. Changi Airport has 400 retail and service stores, as well as 140
F&B outlets. With over 100 airlines providing connectivity to 400 cities worldwide, Changi Airport
handles about 7,200 flights every week, or about one every 80 seconds.

The top 10 airports in the world for 2018 according to Skytrax:

1. Singapore Changi Airport

2. Incheon International Airport

3. Tokyo Haneda International Airport

4. Hong Kong International Airport

5. Hamad International Airport

6. Munich Airport

7. Chubu Centrair International Airport

8. London Heathrow Airport

9. Zurich Airport

10. Frankfurt Airport

CELEBRATES 25 YEARS OF SERVICE EXCELLENCE

SINGAPORE, 13 February 2018 – Since 1994, Changi Airport has been honouring outstanding individuals
who have exemplified service excellence by going beyond their call of duty. To celebrate the silver jubilee
of the Annual Airport Celebration (AAC), Changi Airport Group (CAG) introduced three new awards this
year - ‘Changi Hero Award’ to recognise staff who had stepped forward in a life threatening situation to
take charge and aid passengers; ‘Changi Service Star’ which recognises the remarkable achievement for
staff who has won top service awards multiple times; and ‘Special Commendation Award’ to commend an
airport partner who had consistently been a supportive employer to airport staff over the years.

Over the past 25 years, a total of 338 service staff have been honoured for their exemplary service, out of
which 38 individuals have won the AAC service awards two times or more. Within this special group,
three individuals have won the top awards at least three times, making them the first recipients of the
‘Changi Service Star’ award.

Award recipients have been selected based on the extent to which they had gone beyond the call of duty to
assist passengers; their self-initiative, resourcefulness and creativity in handling a difficult situation; as well
as passengers’ feedback.

Committed to service excellence and staff welfare

In the last few years, Changai has introduced a series of productivity initiatives to improve
efficiency and the working conditions for its staff. One example is the automation of the
trolley transportation process. This has both helped to ease the workload of trolley service
staff, as well as enhance their safety and that of other airport users.

Besides leveraging smart capabilities to serve passengers better, Changai firmly believes
that staff are very important assets, so emphasis is placed on taking care of each and every
one of them. This includes paying close attention to the training and skills upgrading of
staff to ensure that they remain relevant as operations become increasingly dynamic.

One Changi Movement

This movement is formed to coordinate all agencies to work together as one to create an
enjoyable experience for the more than 62 million passengers who pass through Changi
Airport every year
Case

I am a frequent visitor to Singapore but for this time around, it was just a 45 minutes transit at the
Singapore Changi airport and I was not looking forward to it. Especially after
ter missing my flight from
Doha to Kuala Lumpur because of the flig
flight
ht delays at Delhi and then staying at the Doha transit
hotel for 9 hours.

The only way, Delta could route me from Doha to Kuala Lumpur was through Singapore, with a 45
minute transit at the Changi airport. After all the delays, those 45 minutes transit at Singapore sounded
like a bad idea, until I met Sundaresan
Sundaresan. He was the janitor responsible for the toilet near the gate I was
going to board my flight to Kuala Lumpur.

With only 45 min to board my flight to Kuala Lumpur, I didn’t want to go to the lounge or shop at the
airport. Found a seat closer to my boarding gate, went to the nearest rest room to freshen up. Nothing
surprising, a well maintained Singapore styl
style airport restroom. One that I could
ould expect at a minimum
in any international airport. While heading out, I saw a display screen asking for my
m experience.
I hit the poor rating button and I marked the reason as wet and dirty floor and I submitted my response.

Again I came back to the same wash room after 15min I saw the floor is dry and cleaned. This time I
hit the ‘EXCELLENT‘rating, didn’t realize that the janitor was standing right behind me. When I
noticed him, “Thank you for keeping the toilet so clean”, I said. “It’s my job, sir”, he replied. When I
walked out of the restroom, I was amazed at the passion Sundaresan as well as Changi Airport
management exhibited in making my restroom experience easy and comfortable.

I was amazed at the 360 degree user focus of the toilet management of Changi airport. Every single
aspect of customer service management was carefully planned and executed. As soon as customer
gives the feedback it will be immediately transferred to the chief customer officers and they instruct
the workers to fix the problem.

Customer Service Excellence at Singapore Airport

Every 3 toilets have an owner like Sundaresan. That person is like the chief customer officer for those
3 toilets and are accountable for the overall cleanliness of the toilet as well as user experience

• If any users rate ‘POOR’ or below rating in the survey then users will be asked to select from one of
the following 7 reasons for their ‘POOR’ rating (No toilet paper, foul smell, Litter bin full, Wet
floor, Dirty floor, Dirty basin, faulty equipment). Once the user selects the reason, turn around time
to fix the issue is 5 minutes. The back end also gathers their POOR rating reasons and draws a
Pareto on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. This is also tied to the performance of the Janitor and the
respective team lead.

• Workers who receive 100% rating for the entire week are rewarded for their performance
Changai Airport has customer feedback survey screens across multiple other areas in the airport
including information desk, immigration etc. But my conversation with Sundaresan gave me insights in
to the customer centricity and the actions that happen behind it and above all the passion to enhance
every touch point of the customer’s journey is what we need to learn from.

The world of customer service/experience talks about some 4-5 leading multinational organizations as
benchmark for Customer centricity. After my experience and research on how Changi airport manages
user experience, I would expect them to be a new benchmark for user experience management.