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Companies of all sizes and operating segments know – even when they are not great practitioners – the importance of customer service at all times in their relationship with their customers and the amount of material available in this regard only reinforces this belief.
However, there is a “type” of customer that is neglected and sometimes even unknown by these same companies – the internal customer.
Who is the internal customer? What is its difference or what characterizes it? Why is it important to satisfy you? These and other related issues are the focus of this content.
Who is the internal customer?
If you prefer, what is an internal customer?
We prefer the first question, because the pronoun WHO presupposes the existence of a person, such as those whom companies only call customers and whom they are concerned with serving with quality and/or in a personalized way.
It is customary to call internal customers those who work for it or for it and, therefore, are employees, outsourced professionals, freelancers, service providers in general and even suppliers.
Differently from those whom the majority treats as customers and who are actually external or end customers, internal customers do not necessarily need to consume the company’s products and/or services, which is usually their main source of revenue.
Although they can be and it is desirable that they are at some point, also final consumers.
Why are internal customers?
Employees, service providers or even suppliers are called customers because at times they also have a customer relationship with the company, either by “buying” its image and brand, or its ideas and concepts, who knows its principles and values and even your vision of the world and/or market.
But they are also referred to as customers, because there are often other customer relationships in everyday life.
When employees in the finance department do credit analyses, they are serving their commercial colleagues who are their customers. When the expedition takes care of the dispatch of the products, it also has sales as customers, but also the stock and, ultimately, the factory personnel.
That is, the various departments or areas of a company meet the needs and desires of the various others, in a customer relationship.
From a third point of view, all the people who chose to work for the company, or who, in some cases, were chosen, acted like external customers, as they could have chosen any of its competitors.
Why are internal customers important?
Going straight to the point, internal customers are important – in fact, essential – as much as external customers, because everything that is done to satisfy the end customer depends on them.
It starts with the Marketing department, which conceives the products / services based on the needs, desires and expectations identified at the end and which is made up of several internal customers. Likewise, it can be Engineering and Development, but it is also production, where products are manufactured.
As they are also Sales and Support, they are responsible for direct contacts and whose behavior and posture are a relevant part of the impression made on the final consumer.
When we think like this, each area within an organization has its share of contribution so that that customer who is always remembered, evaluates how he was treated by the company.
In other words, a company that values and treats its internal customers very well, significantly increases the chances of delivering better products / services to its external customers.
On the other hand, those who do not, or even when they are just indifferent to them, may have their results compromised, both by those who are extremely professional, but who see no reason to go further and surpass themselves, and also – and mainly – by the who deliberately believe they should only do the bare minimum for what they are paid.
In general and briefly, in addition to what was seen above, there are a number of other benefits of dedicating yourself to internal customers:
- Greater commitment to the brand and the values associated with it;
- Increased talent retention rate;
- Turnover reduction and quiet quitting;
- The decrease in rates in the topic above, reduce costs with selection processes and training of new employees;
- Less rework and greater productivity;
- Improvements in the organizational climate;
- Increased motivation.
How to delight the internal customer?
Just as there are countless “booklets” that focus on end customers and that aim to teach you what to do to charm them, seduce them, build loyalty, if you saw the importance that internal customers have for your business , the time has come to set up yours for the other type of essential customer.
1. Upon hiring
Everything should start with hiring and the selection process.
It is at the moment of the first contact, which is often loaded with expectations, that the experience of the candidate and the company begins. The first impressions come from the treatment received and from how the people with whom he has the first contacts, sell the company in which he will be able to work.
Some make it seem like a cruel step and, depending on how the process is conducted, an adventure, not in the positive sense. It is not uncommon for some to literally scare away a few, who simply give up trying other steps, even though they feel qualified to occupy the vacancy.
Others, who understand that above all there is a human being on the other side, treat candidates politely, with courtesy and all the protocol that involves the presentation, seduces and produces the desire to be part of everything they are seeing and experiencing .
Which of these roles do you think produces the best result?
The companies in the second group, which generally understand the importance of the internal customer and therefore already have well-defined policies to serve them, as well as tend to be proud of the benefits that are presented on the occasion.
2. No onboarding
The climate of positive expectation and excitement that was triggered in the selection and culminated with the hiring announcement, a moment that must be almost euphoric, needs to be well used in the onboarding, or if you prefer, in the integration of the new employee.
The first day of work, as well as the next, are in some cases decisive and much of what will come later may depend on a well-thought-out and practiced integration process, such as the next item, for example.
3. With internal communication
In the same way that communication is one of the pillars of good service to the external customer, it is also in relation to the internal one.
Effective communication in the company presupposes that it occurs in the best possible way between all levels:
- From the company (top management) to all employees and involving policies, rules, protocols and the entire set of information to which everyone should have access and knowledge;
- From managers to their direct collaborators and that needs to be bidirectional, that is, openness and proper tools for information to travel from top to bottom and bottom to top;
- Between employees in the same area or department, with the aim of eliminating the noise that causes problems within the sector due to poor or poor communication;
- Between different departments, when it is necessary to exchange information that is essential for each to perform its functions optimally.
4. Through training
Not only the training that is applied when hiring new employees and during the integration period, but all those that are intended to qualify more and better, recycling programs and even when there are novelties, such as new systems or even new products / services.
Even better when training is part of something bigger, such as a corporate education policy aimed at training managers and better professionals.
It is common to find in these same companies that understand the importance of investing in corporate education, also an administration oriented to the next item, precisely because they are two closely associated and complementary aspects.
5. Establishing talent management
As we mentioned in the previous section, corporate education aligned with talent management produces synergy.
The company and collaborators win.
The first because it takes advantage of the best of its human capital. The second, because they act according to their greatest abilities.
The mutual satisfaction produced tends to result in a lasting “marriage”.
6. Effective people management
A fundamental part of the work of enchanting the internal customer rests with the managers, and it is up to them to institute modern people management methods that are in line with the company’s purposes and the demands and trends of the market.
The difference between bosses and leaders appears in the results that one and the other manage to produce.
It is even their responsibility – the managers / leaders – to institute internal processes and standard operating procedures that should not only bureaucratize and organize how things happen internally, but should be optimized in order to pursue effectiveness / efficiency, better intercommunication and intradepartmental, security and better results.
Great, concise and efficient processes produce greater satisfaction for the people involved.
7. Incentive marketing
Frequently associated with or as part of an Endomarketing policy (Internal Marketing), Incentive Marketing, as the name suggests, aims to produce stimuli or encourage certain desirable and expected behaviors in employees.
As with Marketing aimed at the external customer, incentive marketing seeks to identify needs, desires and expectations of employees and meet them and thus produce motivation.
8. Quality of Life at Work
You can’t talk about satisfied internal customers, not to mention QVT (Quality of Life at Work).
Many spend more time at the company than at home and with their families and that would be reason enough for companies to invest in an environment – not just physical – that is pleasant and invites them to be happier and therefore more productive. .
The promotion of the physical, health, emotional, psychological, social, professional and financial well-being of each person in the organization must be the objective and, as a consequence, the production of highly satisfied internal customers.
Conclusion
Seeking the satisfaction of the company’s customers necessarily involves the satisfaction of a “type” of customer that is rarely remembered – the internal customer.
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