Yushui Village in Lijiang, Yunnan, with snow mountain backdrop and cascading waterfalls.
4/20/2010
Selling the Singapore Brand
Walking into UOB's spacious banking hall in Battery Road as a customer is a new experience. No queue, everything a breeze. The atmosphere is like a big lounge for customers to spend a pleasant and easy time chatting with the bank officers. It is so friendly, no hassle. Banking is indeed a breeze.
And I believe Wee Ee Cheong need not have to sweat to provide such a great experience for his customers. Any middle manager who cares and bothers, and put on his little thinking cap, could easily transform the procedures and processes into one that is sensitive to customer needs. Oh, I am not a customer of UOB, so I am not partial.
If the CEO has to be bothered with such nitty gritties, then what the hell are the middle managers doing? No wonder UOB is number one. Customer friendly and making banking a great experience.
UOB should franchise their procedures and market it to the world as the Singaporean Style of management, as a sought after product. With such quality services and processes, why the need to look further for foreign talent? The way UOB runs its banking hall operation is worthy as a case study for other banks.
Good job UOB.
Now all the three local banks are touting customer friendly, customer first, customer this and customer that. You believe what they say?
ReplyDeleteForget about the talk. Just give the poor Ah Peks, Ah Cheks, Ah Sohs a little bit more in interest on their meagre savings account.
And don't try selling them dubious investment products and take them to the cleaners. They are not interested in posh banking halls that make them feel small because of their meagre savings.
I think Uncle Wee is one of the smartest, most savvy capitalists of our time, and his "acumen" has definitely rubbed off his consequent bloodline.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to check what the "Singapore brand" is, at least according to Google -- the world's and entire history's most market capitalised company -- check the key word "Singapore" on Googleism. Also try "Lee Kuan Yew" and anything else you can dream up :)
In today's high-velocity world objectives to brand building are:
1. Reputation 2. Attention 3. Action (BUY!)
1. You need a reputation, otherwise you are not in the prospect's mind.
2. You have to have some form of "attraction" so the prospect pays attention and holds that attention for a significant of time. TIME is the scarcest resource, and today's high paced, pay-as-you-go 24/7/365 world, time is definitely money.
In the "old world" most goods ands ervices were scarce and time was abundant. Now in an era of abundance in goods and services, time has become scarce. We still have the same 24 hour day... and a heck of a lot more CHOICES to make.
3. Action (BUY!!) Sooner or later you want the prospect to pay you money.
Good luck, Singapore, and Singaporeans :)
Hall appear spacious means there are less customers.Less customers may means it is troublesome and expensive to get there to do transaction due to transport and parking problem etc.That means it is not user friendly.I will only visit there when I want to see the Shenton Way modern Swee Char Bor.
ReplyDeleteNothing else can attract my attention .
Singapore brand should be customer friendly.
I agree with Matilah that uncle Wee has done a damn good job in telling the world that Singaporeans can run a bank without foreign talents, and run it damn well. It is the number one bank in Singapore in all counts. Its profits is the highest, its share price is the highest, market capitalisation highest. The big banking hall and no queues is a sign of efficiency!
ReplyDeleteSingaporeans should applaud uncle Wee for debunking the foreign talent myth. He does not need to pay millions for a foreign talent to tell him about customer first, how to cut the long queues in the banking halls, how to take care of his customers, and how to make big money without selling toxic notes.
Cheers to our local talents.