#PRAwards 2021 highlight: SingPost banks on communication amidst COVID-19 as it debunks fake news

Taking home the silver award at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s PR Awards is SingPost.  Not unlike other countries across the globe, COVID-19 had an immediate and devastating impact to Singapore and one of its most essential services for the past 163 years - the postal service.

On 25 March 2020, SingPost also saw its first COVID-19 case which spread fear amongst the community and recipients of parcels and deliveries. Knowing it had to act swiftly, SingPost methodically drew up a plan to ensure the safety of its employees and customers. This saw SingPost taking home the silver award for Best Crisis Management Strategy at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE's PR Awards 2021.

 In this article, we look at how SingPost - an essential service provider in Singapore and a global logistics company – assured its customers that postal and parcel deliveries would be safe for recipients and that the Singapore’s postal service would continue to operate.

Challenge

On 18 March 2020, Malaysia’s Movement Control Order was implemented, which disrupted SingPost’s mail and parcel delivery operations significantly as 20% of its workforce commute from Malaysia to work daily. As a result, SingPost expanded resources to secure accommodation and special allowances for affected Malaysian employees who volunteered to stay in Singapore quite indefinitely.

Throughout March and April 2020, 11 SingPost employees tested positive for COVID-19 sparking health and safety fears not only within the operational teams, but also among members of public who were still expecting mail to be delivered. All non-frontline employees pivoted to remote working almost overnight and overall, postal services were disrupted due to operational suspensions at SingPost, as hundreds of staff were placed on quarantine orders. Affected workplaces had to be cleaned and disinfected.

The Circuit Breaker, announced by the Prime Minister of Singapore on 3 April 2020, further added new pressures on SingPost as the postal service remained operational as an essential service provider during the nationwide partial lockdown. Meanwhile, during the same period, an audio clip was also being passed around through informal networks in Singapore with a purported expert warning everyone to disinfect all mail and parcels they had received – further affecting trust and peace of mind of consumers.

Strategy

As SingPost faced challenges on multiple fronts through COVID-19, it had a very simple mandate: to keep communications with the public honest, simple and timely.

• When news of the SingPost cluster broke, its first priority was to its own team members and ensuring safety of them all. It was also committed to transparency and accountability to the community it served. Even as it safeguarded SingPost’s reputation, it knew it had to be a responsible corporate citizen in enacting the right measures to reduce community spread.
• One of the loudest concerns voiced by the community was whether COVID-19 could be transmitted through postal articles and parcel deliveries, and how SingPost delivery staff could minimise contact with recipients. SingPost knew a key communications campaign was required to instil a peace of mind in our customers.
• Even as Singapore went through an eight-week circuit breaker, the postal system became even more critical as residents were urged to stay home. With changes to the way SingPost was operating during circuit breaker, it was essential to communicate these changes to the public in a clear and concise manner.
• With the pandemic set to become a long-drawn battle as the community cases crept up, it became clear that the situation was not going to abate any time soon. Even as people were urged to stay home, Singapore saw a silver lining amidst the dark clouds: the rise of many community-led initiatives to care for the vulnerable ones around us. Many of these self-organised groups started approaching SingPost for help with deliveries, and this sparked a thought: how could we stand with and support Singaporeans through a time like this? As a responsible corporate citizen, SingPost had to give back to the community in the best way we knew how: by standing with Singapore.

Execution 

In line with its crisis communications framework, SingPost worked swiftly issuing statements on the confirmed COVID-19 cases at SingPost - on the same days as these cases were announced by the Ministry of Health.  The statements were crafted to provide more details on the nature of duties of the affected staff, so as to debunk speculations that its customer-facing employees, including postmen and post office staff, were carrying the virus. The statements were also published on a dedicated COVID-19 sections on SingPost’s website, as well as on the SingPost’s Facebook page with the intent to reach as many as possible.

As the government enacted new safe management measures, SingPost too raced against time to enact and instil these measures, and communicate the changes to team members and customers. To its customers, SingPost started putting out public service messages to assure them that risks of contracting COVID-19  through the postal system was very low.

Dealing with the circulation of fake news, SingPost issued a statement to all media outlets debunking rumours, and outlined all health and safety measures that all staff had to abide such as strict temperature and health declaration regime, segregation by teams, social distancing and round-the-clock equipment wipe-downs. SingPost also worked with its regulator, IMDA, to debunk the fake news through the government’s COVID-19 information portal.

While SingPost was designated an essential service provider through Circuit Breaker, it had to reduce operational workforce. These changes meant that extensive communications had to be made around how Singapore’s postal delivery system will be affected. Apart from putting out a press release ahead of Circuit Breaker on the changes during the eight-week period, SingPost also set up a dedicated section on its website for COVID-19 related service adjustments.

It also worked with GovTech to provide realtime crowd levels at post offices through the government portal, SpaceOut.gov.sg. This tool allowed customers to make informed decisions on queue levels at the post office.

Noting the rising trend of Singaporeans helping each other, it launched several initiatives such as:

1. BYOBClean with Temasek Foundation
2. Speedpost sponsorship of items to wife and newborn of Bangladeshi worker in Singapore who tested positive
3. Mask Sewn with Love
4. Sponsorship of envelopes and stamps for Tzu Chi mask initiative
5. Speedpost medicine deliveries for NUH and 3 Polyclinics

Internally, it launched #HereWithYou to remain mindful of the morale of employees and enforced a “softer touch” on employees to not just read but see and hear from their leaders during this challenging time. The global management team and ground leadership picked up their markers and created unique pieces of #HereWithYou prop signs for the video. They also self-recorded short videos messages from their homes or offices to express their gratitude and support to all employees amid the Covid-19 Outbreak.

The video was also posted on SingPost YouTube channel for easy sharing and played on various internal platforms such as the intranet and televisions at the delivery bases and logistics hub. 

Result

The proactive communications approach taken during the crisis had proven largely successful with media coverage explaining facts behind the cases, resulting in considerable support for SingPost on social media platforms.

SingPost’s #HereWithYou campaign initiatives were also picked up by media as they unfolded through the months. In 2020 the total number of customer complaints decreased by 7.6% as compared to the year before, and the total number of compliments in 2020 increased by 9.3% as compared to 2019.

Overall average customer service net promoter score across various transactional touchpoints such as Customer Service, Post Office, Mai l and Parcel delivery in 2020 also showed an increase, with a 9% rise from 2019.