Creating Value Through Service: Ron Kaufman

In Conversation with Ron Kaufman , best-selling author, speaker, educator and CEO - Uplifting Service - Ron Kaufman .

Ron came to Singapore 34 years ago, originally tasked with a modest one-week project. Little did he know, this project would shape his life and career, positioning him at the heart of Singapore’s service transformation.

Let’s understand his journey.

There was a pressing need to reimagine what service means and how improving service could add value to the nation. An even bigger challenge was to find a solution that could deeply engage and inspire the adult working population across diverse industries to not just embrace a new definition of service, but to practice it enthusiastically and consistently.

With his background in adult education and experience organizing global teams and events around the sport of Ultimate Frisbee, which emphasizes collaboration, communication, and an uplifting “Spirit of the Game”, Ron contributed to developing a national curriculum to reshape the understanding and practice of service in Singapore. What began as a one-week assignment flourished into a decades-long journey of learning, teaching, and thought leadership that ultimately shaped a purpose-driven, successful career.

Ron’s work in Singapore underscores a critical path. To deliver an exceptional service experience, a service provider must first understand what the recipient of their service wants, needs, will appreciate and value. This calls for curiosity and genuine interest in what someone else wants to learn, gain, accomplish, achieve, or avoid. This simple yet profound insight became the basis of Ron’s professional philosophy and led to the development of his clear and actionable definition of service: “Service is taking action to create value for someone else.”

This shifts the focus of service from following established processes to a more human-centered approach that emphasizes understanding the service recipient’s needs, concerns, desires, and situations. Whether you're working with customers, colleagues, distributors, suppliers, or other service partners, the essence of service lies in taking actions that genuinely create value for others. These actions are driven not by whatever you may think or believe is important, but by what the recipients of your service will value in the moment, and into the future. ?

Breaking Away from Standard Definitions

Ron’s philosophy transcends traditional customer service training. While many training programs focus on service scripts, standards, and procedures, Ron call his approach “Actionable Service Education”, which teaches individuals how to engage with others and think creatively in ways that are responsive and respectful of their circumstances. It’s about empathy and action, seeing the situation “from the recipient’s point of view,” and then taking action to deliver value that fulfils their needs and aspirations.

Over time, Ron has seen this principle take flight not just in Singapore but across the world. He has published 15 books on customer experience, service culture, and creating value through service, with a focus on how organizations can empower employees to deliver service beyond transactional interactions. It’s about fostering a mindset of curiosity and a skillset of adaptability, both qualities essential to thriving in our constantly changing world.

Whether in Singapore or anywhere else in the world, service is not about providing what we think others need; it is about truly understanding the needs of the person we are serving and taking thoughtful, deliberate action – often in coordination with others – to create value for them.

Rethinking Service in a Dynamic Environment

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, service is an ethos that permeates every action, every decision, and every employee and client interaction. Whether a company engages with distributors, suppliers or directly with customers, the core of a business's value proposition lies in its ability to deliver not just a product or a service, but a value-creating or value-adding experience. This approach to service, when integrated throughout a community or an organization, becomes an actionable driver of value that elevates the customer, the service provider, and every other stakeholder which, as in the title of Ron’s latest bestselling book Uplifting Service, is the proven path to delighting your customers, colleagues, and everyone else you meet.

For decades, companies have calibrated their success with a set of traditional metrics, including top-line revenue, bottom-line profit, market share, and shareholder value. These have been the cornerstones for all private corporations. However, as we’ve seen in recent years, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, the spotlight has expanded to include mental wellness, emotional health, and personal well-being. The toll of burnout, anxiety, and depression has led many to re-evaluate the very nature of service, recognizing that it must extend beyond transactions to truly impact individuals’ lives and societal well-being.

True value is not simply in the delivery of goods or services but in their contribution to the well-being of the people – real human beings – that businesses, non-profits, and government agencies are aiming to serve. This concept of well-being spans financial security, physical health, emotional balance, relational connection, and even social and existential fulfilment. Service, in this context, is about supporting the complex and multifaceted needs of people, and not just in providing a product or a solution.

Introducing "Care" in Business

This new era has also brought with it a heightened focus on Care. While service is about creating value through action, care is about the deeper concern and commitment to the well-being of the person, group, or community being served, now and into the future. The challenge for modern organizations is to recognize that care is not just a ‘soft skill or a nice-to-have,’ it is a critical component of sustainable success. Care is the active element that contributes to the well-being of others.

Organizations seeking to instill this concept must look beyond transactional models of service and adopt a culture of “continuous learning and growth”. This requires an educational shift. Instead of focusing primarily on training employees to follow procedures, organizations must prioritize education that fosters a deeper understanding of the principles and practices of service and care. Leaders, frontline workers, and internal functions alike need to be prepared and aligned, with not only the tools to perform their jobs effectively but also the mindset to approach their work with a genuine sense of care.

The Need for Transformation in Service Culture

Building a service culture goes beyond simply teaching employees what to do, it involves creating and sustaining an environment that fosters a ‘mindset of service and care.’ At the foundation lies actionable education, but this must be supported by a set of service-culture “building blocks”, activities that engage, remind, recognize and support employees from the early experience of recruitment and orientation to the ongoing experiences of communication, recognition, and career progression. These building blocks, including customer feedback systems, measures and metrics, recovery policies, benchmarking, and role-modelling, work together to cultivate a culture where Uplifting Service and Care for Well-Being become deeply rooted in every decision, interaction, and outcome.

An essential part of this culture is the recognition that care for the future is a vital part of successful business strategy. Companies that successfully integrate care into their operations create more loyal customers, higher employee satisfaction, and, ultimately, more sustainable business. By prioritizing the well-being of employees, customers, and communities, companies can differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market.

Measuring the New Model’s Success

Traditional metrics such as sales figures and profit margins are still important, but they must be supplemented by measures that assess the impact of service on well-being. These could include metrics that track customer sentiment, customer loyalty, employee engagement, mental wellness, community involvement, energy, environment, and other sustainability goals. Importantly, the way these metrics are interpreted and acted upon must be free from bias and driven by genuine insight into what truly matters to all those being served.

For example, you can measure not only how many products you sold or how quickly a customer’s service requests were completed, but also whether the service experience increased the customer’s confidence and trust in your organization and their desire to continue being served in 'partnership' with you into future.

Creating Competitive Advantage Through Uplifting Service

At its core, Uplifting Service is about constantly striving to create more value. It is about going above and beyond, by anticipating needs before they arise, and about providing service that not only meets expectations, but elevates the customer’s experience. When this kind of service becomes ingrained in the culture of an organization and is viewed as a continuous process of improvement, it builds a competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate. This is why companies like 新加坡航空 , and countries like Singapore, are and continue to be very successful.

Uplifting Service is particularly powerful when it transcends external customers to include internal relationships. Organizations that foster a culture of care and service among their employees, whether they’re in HR, IT, or facilities, create an environment where everyone is motivated to provide the highest level of service to one another. This internal service culture becomes the catalyst for external success, leading to better customer experiences and, ultimately, business growth, stronger branding and higher shareholder value.

The Future of Service: Service and Care Converge

As we look to the future, it’s clear that our understanding of service must evolve. The question is no longer simply “How can we satisfy customers?” but “How can we improve the well-being of those we serve?” This shift in thinking is a necessity to thrive in a world that increasingly values holistic well-being over mere transactions.

The opportunity is for companies to rethink their service strategies, embed responsibility and care into their cultures, and measure success through a lens that prioritizes current and future well-being. By doing so, they won’t just create more loyal customers, they’ll also elevate experiences to create more trusted and trusting partnerships, and a more sustainable future for us all.

Top Priorities for Organizations Today

Ron sees three key areas:

1. Enhancing Service Performance: The first priority for any organization should be to address areas of customer dissatisfaction. Where complaints exist, improvements must be made. It's crucial to enhance overall service performance to deliver and sustain customer satisfaction.
2. Cultivating a Culture of Continuous Improvement: Building a culture where every department collaborates to uplift service levels is essential. Rather than focusing on compliance and unit level behavior, departments should proactively seek opportunities to support each other, with a mindset of shared success.
3. Fostering Service Innovation: Beyond incremental improvements, companies should focus on service innovation. This involves asking “What have we not tried before?” and “What else can we do?”, seeking ways to create breakthrough value that goes beyond enhancing current service levels. The goal is to innovate and continuously elevate the customer experience.

Ron’s Client Relationships and Achievements

One of the most fulfilling achievements Ron experienced during his long career is the enduring relationships built with clients, some of which have spanned across decades. His work across a wide variety of sectors – high-tech and manufacturing, logistics and supply chain, retail and hospitality, finance and transportation, non-profits and government agencies – demonstrates that every organization can differentiate by improving the service experience delivered to customers.

In Singapore, Ron and his team have worked with many organizations including Singapore Airlines, Changi Airport, Raffles Hotel, Marina Bay Sands, as well as government entities including HDB, CPF, IRAS, Police, the Civil Service College, and even the Singapore Prison Service. Singapore Prison’s mission, to rehabilitate individuals and reintegrate them into the community, stands as a unique example of true commitment to future personal and social well-being.

Building a Sustainable, Green Home: Future Plans

Looking ahead, the home Ron and his wife, Jen, are building in Singapore is a project they have named “Home Reef”, exemplifying sustainability, generosity, and community engagement. Their goal is to “create a space to thrive in place” that serves as their private residence and as a gathering point for uplifting community conversations and interactions. As passionate scuba divers, they envision their home as a microcosm of the values they have spent years enjoying below the waves; an eco-friendly, carbon-balanced, socially generous space where healthy living thrives. It is a space not only for the two of them but for their friends, neighbors, and other social contributors to come together, learn from each other, and foster a vibrant sense of belonging and well-being.

Ron sees social contribution and impact as a vital part of the future. The new home is designed to serve as a welcoming venue for small events to raise interest and support for a range of worthy causes including healthcare research, environmental awareness, social integration, cross-cultural appreciation, and more. By hosting community dinners, student groups, and visiting delegations interested in these topics, Ron and his wife seek to facilitate engagement and inspire collective action.

Defining Personal Success

Ron says, “When individuals make the personal decision to help others, they often experience a surge in their own energy, enthusiasm, and sense of purpose, creating value for the giver and the receiver.” With this understanding, his personal motto for success in life is that “A life well lived contributes to the well-being of others.” It's not about individual achievement but rather about making positive contributions to individuals, families, groups, teams, neighborhoods, communities, and the social and ecological collective. At the end of the day, it's not personal accolades or material success that gives an enduring sense of fulfilment. It’s about living in ways that contribute to the well-being of us all.

Influential Families Inspiring Change

For family offices serving ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI), Ron believes the key to creating value is to understand what members of next and rising generations truly care about and then helping them to connect their family’s wealth to meaningful causes. Whether animal welfare, preserving cultural traditions, reducing poverty, supporting mental health, or improving the environment, personal commitment and understanding are essential to make wise choices and drive positive impact.

By creating such opportunities for families to express their values and passions, family offices can become instrumental drivers of purposeful and sustainable initiatives. This approach not only creates lasting legacies but also ensures that the wealth of these families has a positive impact on society.

The future of business and society lies in care and collaboration, investment and innovation, sustainability and service. As we continue to engage and explore new ways to contribute, our focus should remain on creating value that uplifts others in our communities and beyond and be uplifted ourselves in the process.

Visit: https://www.ronkaufman.com/