Why Internal Customer Satisfaction is Important?

As we all know, customers can be divided into two categories, internal and external. External customers are those who buys products or services from your business. They can be individual consumers, businesses, or other organizations.

Internal customers are employees or departments within your organization. Other than employees, subcontractors, partner businesses or individuals or – by some definitions – suppliers and vendors can be included as internal customers. For example, every employee is an internal customer for HR. In processes, departments depend on each other and that makes them their internal customers.

There is a lot of focus on external customers or even upgrading employee technical skills however, in most of the organizations internal customer satisfaction is completely ignored.

There is a famous saying ‘If you want to treat your customers well, start treating your employees well’. Management wants to treat employees well. The question is are employees treating their internal customers well? For example, say an employee goes for an outdoor work. He incurs some expenses for which he prepares a voucher and gives it to accounts. Accounts feel he has overcharged somewhere and questions him. Employee feels embarrassed as his manager knows and it has been already approved. They run into an argument.

In a factory, material is moving from process A to process B and then to dispatch. This is an important and urgent client requirement which has to be taken care of today. In other words, it has to be dispatched today. How quickly employees in process A and process B are working so that it reaches dispatch department on time so that they can in turn dispatch to the client.

I am sure you will have many such experiences to share where internal customer focus plays a key role. The question organizations need to ask themselves is, are employees really caring for each other and working to make everyone’s life easier? or are they actually using the systems to slower the process, show their authority and bringing the internal employee satisfaction down.

I have noticed in many organizations that employees sit next to each other, talk to each other sometimes yet know little about each other. They would rarely talk about work they are doing, challenges they are facing or even talking about how things can be done better. Many problems in the organization will be solved when these employees start interacting and sharing with each other. Instead of following the lengthy process, in many cases, they can talk to each other directly and save time and money for the organization, and improve customer satisfaction.

In many organizations, there is a centralized HO and all the decisions are taken from there. Plant and branches in most of the cases will have a very high dependency on their HO counterpart. That need for immediate action when felt at factory may not be felt at HO and that leads to slowing down the work process. Often plant employees feel frustrated as they have to write an email, wait for an approval and then things would start moving. To be fair, HO counterpart can be overloaded.

However, the same employees and systems really work fast when there is a task that comes from the top. In such cases they really act lightening fast. It means if there is a desire, they can really move fast.

I have experienced such failures many times and has impacted me. For one of the training sessions, I had to go to a remote location in Maharashtra which is 400kms from Mumbai. My train tickets were not booked as there was a waiting list (they could have booked the wait list tickets and could have got confirmed). In tatkal quote, I got the ticket but in return journey, admin could not get the ticket. He wanted me to travel 400 kms plus by bus. He did not even bother to check my convenience. Admin wanted me to bear the brunt of their lethargy in booking the tickets.

There are organizations who would ensure that salaries of the employees are credited on time but the suppliers and vendor payments are delayed.

I am sure every trainer has experienced this. You get a call from HR and they want you to prepare a proposal which is extremely urgent and important. They will sound as if they want to conduct sessions tomorrow itself. You leave everything and prepare, and email it to HR. You wait for a day or two and then write an email to check the status. No reply to your email. You try to call but not reachable. Finally, those two-three hours you have spent on making a proposal is wasted. They will not even reply to you. It is ok if the payment gets delayed or if the trainings are not finalized. It is about the attitude. It is about the way you are being treated.

I had an interesting experience some year before. I had gone for a job interview. The interviewer was the CEO of the company. I reached there 10 minutes before time. Tea and water were offered. They even told me where the restroom was. Receptionist informed me that he would be joining in few minutes. CEO came to the reception area. He apologized for the delay. We went in to his cabin. Conversation was really good. He came till the exit to see me off. I didn’t get the job but the feeling was great. You wished you had that job. You will always have a great feeling about this company.

The mindset of most of the interviewer is to make them wait. One of the CEO whom I worked with, ensured he kept people waiting for interviews. If they want a job they should wait. Shouldn’t they?

People are not bad. They are unaware of the impact they are creating, the damage they are doing to their organization's reputation. Employees also fail to deliver because of rigid systems.

We are now working in a knowledge era where opportunities for right talent is plenty. If you don’t treat them well, they will go away. You will be left with mediocre talent.

It is important that employees are empowered depending on their skills to take certain decisions. Employees need to be trusted. Leaders need to show trust.

It is important that organizations take steps to sensitize their employees to treat every internal customer like they would be treating a revenue generating external customer.

Thank you.

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