In an interview, Director of Institute of Service Excellence at SMU (ISES) Caroline Lim said that the institute strives to achieve its mission through research and thought leadership, establishing close ties with industries, and its work on benchmarking and analysis. She also touched on the importance and usefulness of the Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) to companies and the general public, her observations of the 2013 full-year CSISG results, how ISES had helped companies improve their customer satisfaction, as well as ISES projects in China.