Customer-Centricity Becoming More Important in Times of Adversity

HONG KONG, CHINA - Media OutReach - 9 July 2020 - Creating
a seamless, consistent customer experience across physical & digital space
is more important than ever as online shopping prevails. Recognising local
organisations which demonstrate excellence in consumer care, the
9^thGS1 Hong Kong's
"Consumer Caring Scheme" awarded 93 local enterprises for delivering
their service promise. A total of 46 companies won the "Consumer Caring 5
years+" and "5 years" Award, showing their commitment to consumer care for 5
years or more in a row.

Consumers' online spending has become all time high
today. As companies are placing greater emphasis in expanding their
omni-channel offerings, they are also striving to meet or even exceed their
service promise for convenience, value and experience. According to the survey report
"Tapping Into Smart Retail" jointly published by GS1 HK and KPMG, 45 percent of
C-level executives rank strengthening the customer journey as the top priority,
showing that businesses are betting on better user experience as a way to
retain customers, especially those from online, who are price sensitive and
have an ever-increasing choice of e-commerce providers.

"As
more consumers are shopping across multiple channels, commerce can mean
everything from a store, a smart kiosk, a website to an app, which has made it
more difficult for companies to maintain consistency and fulfilling customers'
demands. Only by continuous improvement in operation efficiency and fulfilling
commitment by delivering excellent services, can a company differentiate itself
from today's cut-throat business environment." said Anna Lin, Chief Executive
of GS1 Hong Kong.

Consumer
Caring Companies are those which can keep their pledge to offering the finest customer
journey. Judged based on seven core consumer caring values, including consumer
care, sincerity, commitment, product quality and safety assurance, service
quality, understanding consumer behaviours and caring for employees, the
winners are evaluated through on-site visits and consumer survey, in accordance
to the internationally-acclaimed scorecard based on the Efficient Consumer
Response (ECR). This year's winners have all showed the effective use of
international standards, information technology, and the optimisation of operation
management to improve business processes to enhance consumer
satisfaction. (Please refer to the
Appendix for details)

"Congratulations
to the winners who have successfully uphold the motto of 'consumers first',
they are all role models of the industries in driving product and service
enhancement, bringing benefits to both brands and consumers," said Anna. "No
matter what channels your business use to engage customers, exceptional customer
experience always champions in the end."

For details, please refer to our website: https://www.gs1hk.org/industry-recognition/consumer-caring-scheme/overview.

Appendix

List
of recognised companies of Consumer Caring Scheme 2019

(in alphabetical order by brand or company name)

About GS1 Hong Kong

Founded
by the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce in 1989, GS1 Hong Kong is the
local chapter of GS1®, a not-for-profit, standards organisation that develops
and drives adoption of easy-to-implement global standards for business to
uniquely identify, accurately capture and automatically share vital information
about products, locations and assets. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, GS1
has over 110 national chapters in 150 countries.

GS1
Hong Kong's mission is to empower business to grow and to improve efficiency,
safety, authenticity and sustainability across multiple sectors and facilitates
commerce connectivity through the provision of a full spectrum of platforms,
solutions and services based on our global standards. We provide a trusted
foundation for accurate, sharable, searchable and linkable data. Our EPC
standard lays the foundation for IoT, powering a range of IoT-based services
and applications. We are helping industry to meet the challenges of
omni-channel commerce and create a seamless customer experience. By engaging
with communities of trading partners, industry organisations, government, and
technology providers, we are fostering a collaborative ecosystem and aiming for
"Smarter Business, Better Life".

Currently,
GS1 Hong Kong has around 8,000 corporate members covering close to 20
industries including retail consumer goods, food and food services, healthcare,
apparel, logistics as well as information and technology.

For
more information about GS1 Hong Kong, please visit www.gs1hk.org.