| While companies focus thousands of dollars
on external customer service in hopes of wooing and retaining customers, little attention
is being paid to the effect poor internal customer service has on overall customer
satisfaction. It all starts within your organization! Sooner or later the ripple effect
reaches your external customers. To really walk your service talk, your commitment to
internal customer service must match your company's external focus on customer care.
When we think of customer service we think of staff serving
customers over a counter or over the phone. But customer service occurs within your
organization as well. How well does staff serve its internal customers: other departments,
its management, vendors and consultants? Believe it or not, it all counts. Internal
customer service refers to service directed to others within your organization. It refers
to your level of responsiveness, quality, communication, teamwork and morale.
I define Internal Customer Service as effectively serving
other departments within your organization. How well are you providing other departments
with service, products or information to help them do their jobs? How well are you
listening to and understanding their concerns? How well are you solving problems for each
other to help your organization succeed?
Teaming with Success How well do you work with other
departments? Does your Marketing department communicate well with the Legal department?
Does sales relate well with Shipping and Receiving? Do Catering and Facilities work well
together? When it's time to communicate with others from different departments do you take
a deep breath, or smile and relish a chance to renew contact with colleagues from
elsewhere in the company?
As a manager I once joined a publishing company and found
myself in the midst of a war between departments. Production resented Editorial for the
way they missed deadlines and delivered shoddy copy. Conversely, Editorial had little
respect for the resulting manuscripts they received back from Production, full of errors
and oversights. Poor teamwork, poor communication and myopic thinking had led to a
hardening of positions over time. They each cared about the finished product but were
putting pressure on each other without realizing it. Over time, both groups came to
appreciate each other and how to best work together to achieve win-wins for the greater
good of their customers.
Do you relish or dread committee work with other
departments? Does it seem their aims are contrary to your department's? When other
departments contact you for help do you regard it as a nuisance, a distraction and a drain
of your valuable time? Can you see the greater good that comes from helping them solve
their problems or fulfill their needs?
Take pride in opportunities to help other departments look
good. Obviously, you don't want their success to come at your expense. Usually helping
others doesn't mean you lose a zero-sum game, where only one of you can win and helping
others hurts you. In most cases helping other departments leads to a win-win situation.
And what goes around usually comes around. Helping other departments succeed can help
yours too when the roles are reversed.
Up with People Good internal customer service starts with
good morale within your group. Are your people happy? Do they feel good about themselves
and their contributions to the goals of the department and to the company at large? They
should, and effort should be made to help them do so. Happy employees are productive, and
customers take note. Happy employees are also better team players. Will you fly the
airline whose employees are striking with management, or the airline whose employees are
management? Employees invested in employee stock purchasing plans with matching
contributions see themselves as much more a part of the company. Thus, as the company
goes, so goes their lot.
When I fly out of Oakland International Airport I use an
outlying parking lot and shuttle van. This shuttle is shared by employees from Southwest
Airlines, coming to work or returning to their cars after their shifts. They are as happy
and upbeat when starting their shifts as when they're finishing shifts. That's great
morale, and tells me they like their jobs. It's contagious! Sometimes I'm envious on that
shuttle when I know I'll be checking in at another airline's ticket counter.
Who's On Top? Many organizational charts employ an inverted
pyramid with customers at top. Some companies instead put their employees at the top. In
many senses, the employees are management's customers. Corporate values that emphasize
treating employees well translate to good customer care too. Does your organization value
its people? Invariably, companies that care about their people can better ask their people
to care about their customers.
Catering to Customer Service Needs Here are five tips for
your organization to help strengthen its internal customer service orientation.
1. Employees should never complain within earshot of
customers. It gives them the impression your company isn't well run, shaking their
confidence in you.
2. Employees should never complain to customers about other
department's employees. Who wants to patronize a company whose people don't get along with
each other?
3. Employees at every level should strive to build bridges
between departments. This can be done through cross training, joint picnics, parties or
off-sites, or creative gatherings, as well as day-to-day niceties.
4. Utilize post mortems after joint projects so everyone
can learn from the experience. You can mend fences and gain new understandings when
everyone reviews what went right...or wrong. By doing so after the project the immediate
pressure is off, yet stronger bonds can be forged while the experience is fresh in
peoples' minds. Not doing so can result in lingering animosities that will exacerbate
future collaborations.
5. Let your employees become "Customer for a Day"
to experience firsthand what your customers experience when doing business with you.
Congratulations on turning customer service inside out!
By improving internal customer service you have just
enhanced the customer service your external customers receive. You're walking your talk
regarding customer service. Touché. |
