DED organises shopper survey on service excellence

The initiative is part of DED's commitment to provide the best service standard to shoppers in Dubai. More than 850 residents and visitors to the emirate, of different nationalities, participated in the online survey via the DSES website, www.dses.ae.

The survey focused on over ten important issues used to define service excellence including: "paying full attention to customers while serving, the genuine desire to serve, pleasant attitude, greeting on arrival and departure, giving proper information about the products and services, and good value for money of products and services offered."

"Good value for money of products and services offered" came first in the list of priorities and were voted as most essential in customer service excellence by participants followed by "giving proper information about the products and services" and "full attention while serving."

"The Dubai Service Excellence Scheme is part of DED's mission to enhance Dubai's international competitiveness and economic growth by setting high standards in quality and enhancing productivity. DSES aims to motivate us to achieve further higher standards and set international benchmarks," said Khalid Al Kassim, Deputy Director General for Planning and Development at DED.

He added: "The Department of Economic Development encourages and supports such initiatives because they have a commendable role in placing Dubai on the world map of quality and excellence."

"We conducted the survey to determine the main factors customers care about while shopping or receiving a service. The definition of service excellence may differ from one society to another and from one culture to the other and thus, organising the survey will help us augment the DSES criteria for service excellence at all levels,"

said Dr. Lway Nackasha, Advisor, Quality and Business Excellence at the DED.

In addition to the questions on quality and service excellence, the survey included an interesting question for the shoppers to rank the top five shopping malls in Dubai. Deira City Centre came first, followed by Mall of the Emirates, then BurJuman Shopping Centre, Lamcy Plaza and Dubai Festival City.

The Dubai Service Excellence Scheme secretariat in co-operation with members of the Scheme offered participant 16 prizes worth Dhs40,000 in total, all in the form of cash and vouchers from. 16 winners of these prizes were randomly selected from the participants in the survey.

Participants in the survey expressed their willingness to participate in other surveys and to receive updated information on Dubai Service Excellence Scheme and its members.