Customer Services Internal & External

Usually whenever we think about the customer services first thought that comes in our minds are the employees serving the customers over a counter or over the phone. If we to put customer services under a magnifying glass then we would know that customer services is taking place within the organization as well. Here I am referring to the fact that how well your staff is serving your customers “Departments, Customer Service employees, Vendors, Consultants etc.”

While companies have allocated a huge budget for the external Customer Service in order to retain the external customers a little focus is given to the poor internal Customer Services and their satisfaction. If the internal Customer Service is not up to standard the effect of this will reach your customers very soon. For improving this, what we need to do is that your internal Customer Service should be aligned with your company’s external focus on Customer Service.

You might say that this does not matter much. But believe me it all counts. Now to be more precise the internal Customer Service refers to the Services given to your other staff within the organizations in terms of your quality of work environment, communication, motivation, training needs, growth etc.

Here what is required is your appropriate action in understanding their issues, how well you understand their training needs in whatever work they are doing. How well you are trying to solve the problems of your staff. Furthermore, how much ease the staff feel in directly communicating the issues or concerns to the management for its timely resolution. Sometimes the staff might not bring their issues or concerns into your attention due to one reason or the other, which will eventually result in creation of a big problem which could have easily be resolved if it would have been communicated to you earlier.

In corporate culture as a Head of a Company you will find yourself to be in middle of wars between different departments. Marketing fighting with Finance, Finance cursing marketing, Sales blaming Customer Service and the list of rivalry goes on. What we need to do it is to have a common platform and rapid and constant communication with all concerned to keep everyone on the same page. Basically, we are all concerned about the finished product. But at subjective level we have our apprehensions.
First we have to resolve the internal disputes and create and win-win situation for everyone. We can do this by creating responsiveness, effective organizational communication, transparency, and a visualization of fulfillment of internal Customer Service.

Now how to align the internal Customer Service with the external Customer Service here are some guidelines.

1. Employees should have sufficient knowledge of what they are explaining to the customer in professional manner, if this is not done it will give an amateurish impression of your organization and customer will lose confidence in your company and its product and services.

2. Employees should never pass on the blame within the organization to some other department’s employees. This will give an impression that the internal staff is not getting along each other.

3. Employees from different departments should be given an opportunity to build bridges between each other through cross trainings, joint gatherings and parties etc.

4. If there is an issue which involves delay. Then, the concerned department should have proper communication about the time frame of the issue resolution and what are the reasons of holdup. Sometimes the departments might think that it’s not relevant to reveal any information. But on the contrary it is vital that all the concerned should have basic idea about the problem so they could guide the customer accordingly with confidence.

5. Effective motivational techniques should be employed for the satisfaction of the internal employees which will intern leave ripple effect in provision of the extra ordinary external Customer Service.

Now if we consider paying sufficient attention to the internal Customer Service then would defiantly provide the best possible external Customer Service.

Article Source: http://myarticlezine.com

Syed Muzaffar Aqleem Tirmizi is part of the operational management in leading cellular operator in Pakistan, specializing in providing training solutions for individuals, teams and organizations. He also specializes in training needs, analysis and mentoring.  For more information do  visit www.ma-tirmizi.com.

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