Below is an Autogenerated Transcript

The immigration officer’s job is not to be friendly. His job is to check your passport, check your identity, check your visa, ask you questions, and approve your entry. That’s the job. But Changi Airport wants to be the friendliest airport in the world. So they came up with an idea. They wanted every immigration officer, all 3000 of them, to say to every passenger, on every arrival – “Good morning and welcome to the Republic of Singapore. On behalf of all of my colleagues in the Immigration and Customs Authority, we hope you had a nice flight and we are so glad that you are here. May I see your passport, please?”

How long do you think that worked? Why? They have a KPI for speed. And you cannot say that five times sincerely. Much less, 65 million times a year. So they came up with another idea. They put a mirror on the computer, facing the officer, with a sticker. It said ‘Smile.’ And the friendly score went down. What? They finally figured it out. When there was no mirror, the officer would go like this and then say, “Passport”. But when there was a mirror, they’d go like this and then… and in that moment of breaking eye contact, the experience for the passenger was less friendly. So they got rid of all the mirrors.

They came up with a third idea. On every arrival and departure counter, they put a box of candy, small mints. And they wrote a new script. So now when you walk up, the immigration officer says to you the script. I’m going to teach you now, you’re all immigration officers. Someone walks up and you say the first word. “Passport.” Ready? One. Two. Three. Very good. The moment they give you the passport, you say the second word. “Sweet.” Okay. When I say go. Ready? One. Two. Three. Sweet. No, no, no. You have to use your hand like this. Okay. Ready? One. Two. Three. Sweet. Do it again. Sweet. Do it again. Sweet. Do it 65 million times a year. But you can. And if you’re an immigration officer, you want to. Because if you say, “Passport”, and then you say, “Sweet”, where does your passenger’s attention go? Oh. Sweet. A candy. Look at that. And now, because they’re distracted, you can immediately go to work looking in the passport.

But did you notice the first idea failed? The long script? It didn’t work. Did you notice that the second idea also failed? The mirror with the sticker? It backfired. But the culture of Changi Airport is to continue to keep coming up and trying new ideas until you figure out what works. By the way, Changi airport has competition. So do you. Six months later, I flew into Dubai Airport and I saw this. But six months after that, it was gone. And I thought, what happened? And they explained, I, I asked questions, I figured it out. They never told the immigration officer why the candy was there. So the officer in Dubai just thought, “I guess the airport wants to give away candy.” Fine. But in Singapore, they said, we want to change the perception of the passenger so that we are more friendly for them. So, we will put candy, and you say, “sweet?”. You guys get it?