Every Employee Provides Customer Service

Any company that wants to increase market share focuses on providing top-notch service. Not all companies, however, understand that every employee contributes to providing that service. While it’s easy to focus solely on customer-facing employees when considering improving customer service, we’d like you to broaden your view. Simply put, a company won’t be seen by customers as providing a superior customer experience without making sure they have internal processes that are efficient and customer-focused. And without all employees focused on serving customers and having the skills and tools needed to do so, the goal of having satisfied customers won’t be met as well. So, what to do? Emphasize Internal Customer Service All too often, companies place a strong emphasis on exte al customer care while losing sight of the fact that internal customers matter just as much. Why does it matter? Because somewhere down the line, the service provided to an internal customer will show up in an exte al customer transaction. (Just in case it’s not obvious, an internal customer is defined as any employee who depends on the timing, quality and accuracy of a colleague’s work in order for them to succeed in their own work.) As a customer service consultant, what I've seen is that those organizations in which a customer care culture is truly embedded do not make distinctions about internal and exte al care. Each employee's mission is simply to demonstrate excellence with each and every task. There’s an implicit understanding that every job is a “customer service” job. Start With Awareness In developing a company-wide customer service training program for a large insurance client, my colleagues and I created an activity called The Ripple Effect. Just like it sounds, the game aimed to show employees the impact of their work upon others’ ability to do their own job well). It proved to be one of the most popular sections of the course and provided some true a-ha moments on the part of the participants. Many of them admitted that they’d never seriously considered the ripple effect of their work on that of their internal customers—and ultimately on the company’s exte al customers. In another initiative (this one too aimed at helping employees to recognize their interdependence), we created an Engagement Cycle which tracked a customer engagement from beginning to end and charted the various internal customer needs at each stage. Again the a-ha’s. Define Customer Service as a Function, Not a Department How does your organization view customer service—as a department, a specific job role, or as a responsibility shared by every employee? To help you assess the level of internal customer service in your organization, begin by getting each employee to answer some simple questions: 1. Who are your internal customers? 2. What do these customers need from you in order to do their jobs well? 3. Are you in regular two-way communication with those customers? 4. If internal customer satisfaction were measured, how would you rate? Managers can ask themselves a couple of additional questions: 5. How is frustration over internal customer service affecting morale and turnover? 6. What does my team need to do to both provide and receive excellent internal customer service? Teach Them to Be Good Customers What does an organization want from its customers? Satisfaction, loyalty, and maybe a bit of appreciation. Internal customer service works the same way. Employees will be motivated to continue providing good service to coworkers if they’re given appropriate feedback and, at least every once in awhile, sincere thanks for a job well done.