In modern-day Singapore’s business landscape, the concept of actually knowing what your customers and employees think isn’t a nice thing to have; it is essential. Be it the product team for a fintech startup, a manager at a retail chain, or a consultant in public service, the ability to gather honest, timely feedback can shape the many decisions you have to make.
With that, online survey tools have become popular for collecting data at scale. They are fast, efficient, and cost-effective, but for businesses that are focused on long-term relationships and service quality, structured responses only tell part of the story. To understand what matters to people, you still need to hear them out – literally.
Online surveys are now standard practice
In Singapore, this has been a long-running issue and challenge for many businesses. This has led the business community to consistently stay ahead of the curve when it comes to digital adoption and how they use survey platforms. Companies and government agencies in the island nation rely on tools like Hearback, Typeform, and Google Forms to measure everything from employee satisfaction to consumer preferences.
The appeal is obvious, as these tools help organizations reach large audiences quickly, customize questions based on target segments, and assure anonymity—often resulting in more honest responses. The Singapore government, for instance, regularly uses online surveys to gauge public sentiment before rolling out new policies through mobile ads and even direct outreach, while companies in the e-commerce business track customer satisfaction in real-time to fine-tune services.
But speed and scale come with trade-offs.
What surveys usually miss
While survey tools are great at providing measurable insights, they are not great at understanding human tone, emotion, and intent. Think about this scenario where a customer might rate your service as a “2 out of 5”, but that number doesn’t explain whether it was a delayed delivery, an impolite staff interaction, or unclear product instructions that tipped the score. Also, how does this relate on a broader scale as some may even judge the scale differently from others?
When speaking to Terng Shing Chen, an entrepreneur and founder of PR agency SYNC, he sees this regularly in his work. “Surveys help identify trends, but real marketing insights often come from conversations,” he explains. “It’s in interviews and direct feedback where we uncover the reasons behind the numbers.”
Why verbal feedback still matters
There’s something powerful about sitting across the table or being on a call when it comes to understanding what a person really means. Verbal feedback often reveals what surveys can’t: emotions, context, and details that don’t fit into your traditional checkbox. Businesses need this to develop products that consumers genuinely like and also to better understand issues within their own business.
Here’s how verbal feedback adds value:
- Richer insight: Most people can explain their frustrations, share suggestions, and express satisfaction better in their own words.
- Real-time resolution: In service industries like F&B or retail, issues can often be addressed on the spot when staff are trained to listen.
- Employee connection: There have been instances where HR teams in Singapore have seen better engagement and career development outcomes when regular one-on-one chats are part of performance reviews.
- Spotting the hidden issues: Direct conversations often highlight problems that don’t show up in a metrics dashboard.
Blending both approaches for better outcomes
The most effective organizations don’t pick one approach over the other—they combine both. Here’s how businesses in Singapore are putting this into practice:
1. Start with digital surveys
Use them to measure Net Promoter Scores (NPS), employee engagement, or satisfaction with a specific product or service.
2. Follow up with human conversations
Once you identify the patterns from survey data, follow up with interviews, focus groups, or one-on-one discussions. This helps clarify vague responses and gives you the depth needed to make decisions that matter.
3. Use tech to enhance, not replace, the human touch
AI tools like speech analytics and natural language processing (NLP) are very useful at helping businesses understand verbal feedback more efficiently. These technologies can pick up on sentiment, flag recurring complaints, and group responses by themes—helpful when dealing with hundreds of hours of call recordings or customer service transcripts.
4. Take action and close the loop
Share what you’ve learned internally, make the necessary changes, and let people know their feedback made a difference. This helps build trust and encourages future participation.
Industry applications: what’s working in Singapore
Across industries, the combination of surveys and conversations is shaping better business practices.
- Financial services: Banks use digital tools to collect feedback on mobile banking experiences, then turn to relationship managers to dig deeper into client concerns.
- Retail & e-commerce: Online reviews and surveys provide the starting point, while in-store staff and customer chats bring context to buying behaviors and complaints.
- Healthcare: Patient satisfaction forms help monitor care quality, but conversations with patients and caregivers provide essential emotional and cultural context.
- Education: Most student surveys highlight teaching effectiveness, but teachers often rely on direct discussions to spot individual learning gaps.
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As Singapore continues its progression towards a data-informed economy, good survey tools will remain a staple. But as every good leader knows, listening is as important as measuring. The future of feedback lies in getting the balance right—using digital tools to capture signals at scale and verbal conversations to understand the story behind the data.
