“Thankfully, I don’t have to deal with customers!”
I was shocked when I heard that from a bank operations employee whose role did not involve direct contact with bank customers. She was quickly re-educated to understand that while she didn’t serve the “external” bank customer, she served the people who did – the employees working in the branches and customer service center. These people were her “internal” customers.
Recognizing employees as customers needing to be served is critical since internal customer service quality drives external customer service quality. Consider the ‘domino’ effect if an employee in one department doesn’t respond to another employee’s request for information needed for a new project. This holds up the “internal customer” (the employee who needs the information) from completing his work, which impacts other departments involved in the project, and ultimately hampers the company’s ability to take care of its customers. (As I shared this example in a recent workshop, one attendee sadly shook his head. “We have problems with people like that in my company,” he told me. “We secretly refer to them as the ‘Sales Prevention Team.’”)
So how do you build a service culture that recognizes the importance of both internal and external customers? Here are several BEST practices: Bridge – Empathize – Share Training & Tips.
- Bridge organizational silos by bringing people together in ways that reinforce a sense of common purpose and send the message “We’re all in this together.” For example:
- Bring different departments together and distribute copies of the company’s mission statement and yellow markers to everyone. Ask employees to highlight and then discuss aspects of the mission that their work impacts. This exercise helps employees visualize and understand that they are all part of the same mission.
- Departments can take turns hosting a brown bag lunch or virtual open house where they explain what they do and how their work connects to company performance and the pursuit of its goals.
- Employees can briefly shadow or trade places with other employees to understand what is involved in their work. An ad agency started an “In Your Shoes Day” that resulted in its staff gaining insight and better appreciation of how the variety of agency functions enable it to collectively serve clients.
- Empathize with the customer experience. Encourage employees to explore what good customer service looks like in situations where they are customers. In staff discussions ask employees: What’s it like being on the receiving end of bad customer service? When you get good customer service, how does it impact your perceptions of the company? Would you recommend that company to your friends?
- Share Training & Tips. Frontline customer contact employees typically receive the most customer relations training. As such, they’re in a great position to share their experience and expertise with other employees who only work with internal customers. Solicit staff willing to develop and share what they have learned about what works and what doesn’t work in dealing with customers. (Peer training also helps bridge departmental silos.)
These are just a sample of BEST practices you can use to build mutual respect and appreciation among all employees who serve customers – both internal and external. I invite you to share what works in your organization.
by Sybil F. Stershic, Quality Service Marketing
Sybil is the author of Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most and a marketing and organizational advisor who specializes in employee-customer care. Her professional passion is internal marketing - taking care of employees so they can take care of customers. She can be reached at [email protected].
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