DED honours 20 outlets from retail and service sector for excellent service performance

The winning outlets were honoured alongside the Service Excellence Conference, which the Department organized today at the DCCI auditorium.

The Dubai Service Excellence Scheme was launched by the Department of Economic Development in 2003, with the objective to raise the baseline for service levels in Dubai. Since its inception, a total of 533 members have achieved the DSES certification by fulfilling the criteria laid down by the scheme. The annual conference organized by the DED aims to spread the message about the importance of service excellence, in addition to creating a platform where DSES members can share their best practices.

The top honours in the Best Service Performance Mall category went jointly to Deira City Centre, Burjuman Centre and Lamcy Plaza. The award for the Best Service Performance Brand was conferred in several categories. The winners included Damas in the Special Business Category, Commercial Bank of Dubai and Rivoli Group in the Large Business Category, Alukkas Jewellery in the Medium Business Category and Optifashion and Aldo in the Small Business Category.

Ali Ibrahim, Deputy Director General for Executive Affairs, DED said: "Excellence in service enables organisations to push accountability down to branch level and create a platform of service quality benchmarking at customer touch points. Today, we are recognizing members of the DSES that have achieved high levels of service performance as part of our objective to widening the culture of quality and excellence in the retail and service sector in the emirate."

Dr. Lway Nackasha, Adviser for Quality and Business Excellence at the DED said:

"The DSES aims to keep Dubai on the cutting edge of best business practice. The scheme is based on a set of clear standards or ethics for businesses in Dubai, to be implemented across relevant sections of each organisation. The number of DSES members is expected to reach 1000 by 2006."

Retail outlets also received awards for excellence in service for the Best Service Performance Outlet in the General Retail, Apparels, Footwear, Furniture, Restaurants, Money Exchange Services, Retail Banking, and Jewellery Stores Category. Actual employees from the outlets were present to collect the token of appreciation on their achievement.

The winners also included Grand Stores (Burjuman Shopping Centre Branch) for Best Service Performance Outlet - General Retail Category, Giordano (Burjuman Shopping Centre Branch) Best Service Performance Outlet - Apparels Category, Nine West (Burjuman Shopping Centre Branch) for Best Service Performance Outlet - Footwear Category, THE ONE (Wafi Shopping Mall Branch) for Best Service Performance Outlet - Furniture Category, Sumo Sushi & Bento (Sheikh Zayed Road Branch) for Best Service Performance Outlet - Restaurants Category, Thomas Cook Al Rostamani (Al Rostamani Building Sheikh Zayed Road) for Best Service Performance Outlet - Money Exchange Services Category, Commercial Bank of Dubai (Jebel Ali Branch and Al Garhoud Branch) for Best Service Performance Outlet - Retail Banking Category, Damas (Deira City Centre and Lulu Hyper Market Branch) for Best Service Performance Outlet - Jewellery Stores Category.

The Service Excellence Conference proved to be a great success with participation from over 300 delegates. The DED also released a shopping map of Dubai and the DSES criteria booklet at the conference.

Speaking on 'Who Owns The Customer.........and Who Cares?' Philip Forrest, from The Osprey Partnership and Chairman of Judges of The National Business Awards, UK, said: "The issue of ownership of the customer's relationship with the company varies widely from company to company. Some do it by department, some by division, some not at all and some try by technology." He emphasized that service excellence is a business fundamental that drives and protects revenue and profitability and is changing fast like all other business fundamentals.

"There is a new way that releases the knowledge that is needed to drive out waste, reduce cost, increase profitability and improve employee and most importantly customer satisfaction," said Stephen Parry, Managing Director of Transform 4 Ltd, who spoke on 'The Service Climate and Customer Intelligence.' He demonstrated the concept of Sense and Respond and its ability to achieve fundamental and positive change in a business.