How Reconsidering Who Your Customers Are Helps In Achieving Customer Service Excellence?
Who are your customers? Do you really know? All too often businesses and employees limit their definitions of a customer to someone who is outside of the company. Look up the word “customer” in your dictionary.
The first definition of customer is “a person who buys,” but the second definition is “a person with whom one has dealings.”
In fact, everyone who works for a company has customers regardless of whether they work with external, paying customers or internal co-workers.
The external customer
External customers are the people you deal with either face to face or over the phone. They’re the ones who buy products or services from you — customers in the traditional sense of the word. Without them, you’d have no sales, no business, and worse yet, no paycheck. If your definition of a customer stops here, however, you’re seeing only half the picture.
The internal customer
Internal customers are the other half of the picture. They’re the people who work inside your company and rely on you for services, products, and information they need to do their jobs. They’re not traditional customers, yet they need the same tender, loving care that you give to external customers
By expanding your definition of a customer to include co-workers, you take a vital step toward providing excellent service. At work you play the dual-role of customer and service provider at different times.
For example, a co-worker may come up to you and ask for a printout of a report. In that case, since you’re the one providing the service, information, product, you’re the service provider.
However, ten minutes later, you may turn around and go to that same co-worker and ask for help with a project. Now he’s the one providing the service, information, product, and you’re his customer. In less than one hour, you’ve changed hats!
Having an indirect effect
Many years ago, coauthor Keith Bailey worked as a waiter in a restaurant. One of the cooks was moody and had a bad habit of throwing kitchen utensils at the wall on the far side of the kitchen.
The noise of clattering metal let all the waiters know when the cook wasn’t a happy camper and to beware! One day, Keith was taking an order from two dinner patrons, and one of them asked to substitute steamed vegetables for the French fries that usually accompanied such an order.
As his smile congealed, he immediately thought of the unhappy cook and his desire to live. Eventually, Keith nervously said, “I’m sure that’ll be no problem.” On the trip back to the kitchen, he felt like he was walking up the steps of the gallows.
He poked his head into the kitchen, quickly threw down the order and left before the spoons started flying. As Keith waited on his next table, he noticed that the cook’s attitude had put a wet blanket on his own enthusiasm.
The cook’s job, as written on his job description, was to prepare food. No mention was made about how his dealings with or attitude toward other employees might indirectly affect the customers’ dining experience.
Breaking news: Staff members are customers
We once were invited to present our ideas about providing service to senior executives at a large and well-known manufacturing organization. They were puzzled about why surveys of customers continually revealed one central weakness: They were not service-oriented.
We began the meeting, and the executives became less and less comfortable with the idea of treating
co-workers and employees as customers.
During an afternoon break at this rapidly deteriorating meeting, a vice president of human resources shuffled us into a darkened corner of the boardroom and said with fear in his eyes, “Are you trying to tell me that the way I treat my staff has an effect on how they treat their customers?”
“Yes,” we said in unison. He shook his head in dismay, lit his pipe, and wandered off through his own smoke. We never were invited back.
Here was a group of educated, experienced professionals apparently unaware of one of the basics of excellent service: Treat your staff like customers.
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