Customer satisfaction on the usage of Singlish in the service industry.

• Main Authors: Chew, Min., Teoh, Glen Wei Ping., Lee, Charmaine Suet Fern.
• Other Authors: Wong King Yin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Marketing::Consumer behavior
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51553
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This project aims to examine the impact of the usage of Singlish, which is colloquial English spoken in Singapore. It is an amalgamation of many dialects and languages like English, Teochew, Hokkien, and Malay and it is understood by all Singaporeans. There have been both advocates and critics of using Singlish, with some supporting Singlish as being a fundamental part of building a nation-identity because it is a distinct trait only of people living in Singapore and hence it helps foster a cultural common bond. This is so distinct that it has become a way that Singaporeans who travel or live overseas identify a fellow Singaporean. On the other hand, the critics, mainly made up of the Singaporean government and many English-educated Singaporeans think that the acceptable national norm should only be Standard English since this is the English that is being taught in schools. They believe this form of English is more professional since has existed for hundreds of years, and it is widely used around the world. Hence, the government has tried to create a change by launching the Speak Good English movement as well as discouraging its usage in mass media. Hence, this study aims to examine the actual attitudes of Singaporeans toward the use of Singlish versus English by people, with the focus being on the service industry. This industry was chosen because the primary mode of communication is verbal and Singlish is widely used. The other variables in this study are the gender and attractiveness of the service staff. This is because we would like to find out if the expectations of customers differ if it is a male or female service staff, or if the person serving is deemed attractive or unattractive. The results of this study are based on 240 students from Nanyang Technological University aged 19-25. The reason for choosing these students of this age range is because they tend to be versatile in terms of dining choices. They tend to dine in a variety of different ambiences and have no qualms about eating in a noisy hawker center and yet are able to adapt to a fine dining setting with quiet music playing in the background only a few hours later. Hence, this group is well aware of the different expectations of choice of words and tone used in different dining settings. Therefore, this group would provide a reasonably accurate portrayal of whether the type of spoken communication used by service staff in a fine dining restaurant would affect their overall impression of the person. We have found in this study that the differences in standard of English used by the service staff (pertaining to English and Singlish), gender and attractiveness of the service staff does play a part in the overall impression of customers and especially when these variables interact together, there are significant differences in the overall impression of customers. In our study, service staff using Singlish has been found to generate a significantly lower level of perceived service standard. We will discuss our methodologies and also the implications of our findings in the rest of this report.