You were born in the 80's if you know Singa the Courtesy Lion

That’s right. If you know Singa the Courtesy Lion, you were perhaps born during the 80’s. As you would know, Singa the Courtesy Lion was the mascot of the National Courtesy campaign which started since the early 80’s. The campaign was an initiative to encourage people to adopt a more courteous attitude, particularly towards tourists visiting Singapore. It was an indirect effort by the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board to polish Singapore’s tourism sector. (Courtesy, by broad definition, refers to acts of kindness and being polite in conversations)

Politeness is a vital aspect of customer satisfaction. A customer is satisfied not only when the service is delivered, but also when it is delivered with politeness and professionalism. Consider a scenario where you are buying a hamburger at a fast-food restaurant. Your hamburger comes fast and the counter staff says “Take your hamburger. $5.50!” Consider another scenario where your hamburger comes a little later and the counter staff says “Here is your order. That will be $5.50. Have a great day!” (Assume both burgers taste as great) From this example, we can see how big a difference politeness makes. While you may not be unduly affected by the impoliteness of one service encounter (after all, it’s just a hamburger), imagine a tourist who experiences a series of bad service encounters. More importantly, the tourist may be coming from a culture where politeness is an integral aspect of their language. It is not difficult to understand why the government initiated the National Courtesy Campaign for that purpose; although it seems like a queer idea that courtesy towards tourists, and not towards fellow Singaporeans, was of greatest importance.

The E-Learning lecture on Politeness, Face and Power gave me insights on whether the service sector is heading in the right direction towards promoting politeness. While the campaign encourages one to say “thank you” and “please” more often, it does not emphasize the use of various Politeness Maxims. There may be cases where a service staff may keep saying “please” but still sound offensive. Imagine a service staff approaching a customer who is smoking at a non-smoking area. He says: “Please don’t smoke. Here is a non smoking area. Go there please.” Now imagine another approach: “Sir, I am afraid this is a non smoking area. It’ll be great if you could help yourself to the smoking area located over there.” (Notice that neither “please” nor “thank you” is required in the latter) The message conveyed is the same in both approaches, but the use of tact maxim in the second approach with the help of a few downgraders, make the request a far more polite one.

Therefore, it seems like Singa the courtesy lion indeed had a much longer way to go. Promoting politeness involves "re-learning" the language and understanding the various Politeness Maxims. Increasing the frequency of “thank yous” and “pleases” in conversations will not go far. Of course, one cannot deny that using these words is a good way to start the courtesy ball rolling. They do make one’s day. A side note is that teaching the entire nation the various Politeness Maxims is an uphill task, if not impossible. What the people need is not comprehensive understanding of the concepts. However, it is essential (especially for the service sector) to know the basics of “improving politeness” and recognize its effectiveness.

The days of Singa the Courtesy Lion may be over, but hopefully it is not because we do not want to be polite anymore, but because we have recognized more effective methods to promote politeness.