Debated in Parliament on 8 Jul 2019.
Mr Kwek Hian Chuan Henry asked the Minister for Communications and Information (a) whether he can provide an update on the current standard of service by SingPost; and (b) whether there have been visible signs of improvement over the past six months.
My Ministry and the Info-communications Media Development Authority (IMDA) have been working closely with SingPost to improve its operations and service delivery. In February 2019, SingPost announced immediate measures to improve service quality, such as extending delivery hours to Saturdays, hiring more postmen, and reducing delivery of non-core services such as advertisement mail.
SingPost recently announced further plans to improve its service delivery. These include increasing the number of postmen to better manage their load, having dedicated teams to conduct doorstep deliveries to improve efficiency, and extending doorstep delivery to evening hours to increase their success rate. SingPost will invest in technology and automation to increase the efficiency of postal processes and support its postmen better.
There are early signs of improvement. SingPost has seen a 30% drop in the number of letter and parcel delivery complaints in May 2019 compared to April 2019. Across post offices, SingPost has also observed an improvement in customers' satisfaction with its customer experience score improving from 8.2 in December 2018 to 8.8 (on a 10-point scale) in May 2019.
While SingPost's efforts to address its service delivery issues are in the right direction, these would need to be sustained. My Ministry and IMDA will continue to hold SingPost accountable for delivery, even as we work with them on longer term improvements, such as enhancing our postal infrastructure.
PAPERCUTS