BEING ranked 15th in the world for service in Singapore is not enough, National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) secretary-general Lim Swee Say said on Thursday.

This is the next target he has set for Singapore to achieve in service standards: make it back to the top 10 again, as it did in 1998.

'We can never be the best because we can always be better,' he said, a day after Singapore was ranked 15th in the world this year for customer service - up from 26th spot last year - by the World Economic Forum.

The goal is to keep improving, said Mr Lim, who is also Minister in the Prime Minster's Office, at the 10th Customer Centric Initiatives (CCI) Learning Journey at Hougang Mall on Thursday morning.

The event showcases the heartland malls managed by AsiaMalls Management, the irst mall owner to participate in such initiatives.

The programme was first extended to mall owners last year in a bid to get the small and medium-sized companies to improve their service through the incentives offered under the programme.

So far, 200 of AsiaMalls' SME tenants have taken part in in the programme. Results show that paying attention to service does pay, said the management company's chief executive officer Michael Leong.

Shopper traffic at all four of its malls that have embarked on customer service improvement programmes has gone up between 3 and 7 per cent, and sales of participating outlets have also risen by 10 to 18 per cent.

To make the shopping experience more seamless, even their cleaning companies and carpark operators have been roped in, Mr Leong added.

Mr Yeo Guat Kwang, co-chairman of the CCI Working Committee said, going forward, to push Singapore's service standards one notch higher, the aim is to get the remaining 80 per cent of retailers and 75 per cent of food and beverage companies not yet on the scheme to recognise and participate.

H added that the next task is to get other sectors to join in too.