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1 INTRODUCTION With the merger of Singapore Immigration & Registration (SIR) and almost two-thirds of Customs & Excise Department (CED) on 1st April 2003, Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) has brought together the immigration control and clearance performed by the former SIR and enforcement work performed by the former CED at the various checkpoints. ICA is responsible for the security of Singapore's borders against the entry of undesirable persons, cargo and conveyances through our land, air and sea checkpoints. ICA also enforces immigration, registration and goods-related laws and regulations by providing immigration and registration facilities with regard to entry, stay and exit of people and by screening goods entering and departing from Singapore. 1.1 Issue Identification The shared vision of ICA is to inspire confidence in all, namely the community, partners and ICA officers. ICA seeks to gain the trust of the nation and community by providing quality security and customer services and by rising above all challenges. To ICA, the community or customers refer to those people who have used our services, such as issuing of passports, visas, and identification cards, as well as those travellers moving in and out of our checkpoints (i.e. air, land and sea) that make up the majority of our customer base. As a relatively new organization, it is of utmost significance to strive for greater, if not maintain service excellence by meeting national standards and gain recognition as first class quality providers of border security, since the merger three months ago. 2 AIM OF PAPER The aim of this paper seeks to provide an overview of the service quality measures adopted by the newly restructured ICA in ensuring continuous excellence in service quality within the public sector. 3 ATTRIBUTES OF SERVICE The various attributes of service have made it difficult to apply knowledge of goods quality management to service quality management (Schwartz, 1992). Firstly, it is due to the intangibility of service, it cannot be displayed, physically demonstrated or illustrated. Secondly, service cannot be standardized. As services cannot be inventoried, performance is dependent to some extent on the level of demand. Thirdly, there is a high degree of customer involvement in the delivery of service. While goods are produced, sold and then consumed, services are sold, then produced and consumed simultaneously. Thus, the buyer of service quality usually participates in producing the service, thereby affecting the performance and quality of the service. 3.1 ICA Officers as Front Line Service Providers Adopting Silvestro el¡¦s (1992) 6 dimensions for classifying service process, ICA as front line border security providers is a highly people and process focused service, in which the value added is at the front office. The length of custom contact time is dependent of the type of service (i.e. citizenship or passport application, clearance of travel documents or cargo), and the degree of customization is also dependent on the discretion on the part of the customer contact personnel. Therefore it is difficult for a service organization like ICA to control and provide a consistent level of service, thus making evaluation of service quality more challenging than evaluating goods quality. 3.2 Servicing the Public with Courtesy and Fairness It is important to minimize opportunities for the customer to complain against ICA officers, especially since our enforcement roles of revenue collection and border protection requires us to be firm. In fact, the efficient, effective and professional carrying out of our duties would be considered "quality service" in our context. Therefore, a service vision "Serving The Public With Courtesy and Fairness" acts as a guide for ICA frontline officers to be polite and sensitive while performing our duties. In short, all ICA officers should practice the 4Fs by striving to be Fast, Friendly, Firm and Fair to our customers during the service delivery process. 3.3 Provision of Guidelines for Frontline Officers to Perform Professionally In line with the service vision, clear instructions or standard operating procedures (SOPs) have been conveyed to guide our officers in delivering service quality at the front line and to perform their duties professionally. For example, an officer in uniform will always be under public scrutiny and the image projected by that officer would be the image the public has of the Department.
Approximate Word count = 2705
Approximate Pages = 10.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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