More Tips for Internal Customer Service
Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, so here are 3 more ways to keep your employees happy.
By Scott Miller and Kirk Miller and Associates Inc.
| June 10, 2002
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Last month
we outlined four tips for achieving legendary internal customer
service. This month we look at three more. Customer service is a major focus of many successful companies.
And many of those companies have determined that making employees
happy leads to legendary customer service. In apparent defiance of
accepted wisdom, some customer-focused companies even place
employees in the top spot on their organizational charts. Leaders
in those companies share the philosophy of former UPS CEO Kent
Nelson, who said, "Employee satisfaction equals customer
satisfaction at UPS." So how do you achieve employee satisfaction? Just as customer
service leads to customer satisfaction, internal customer service
leads to employee satisfaction. Internal customer service is the
service we provide fellow employees and other departments within
our own organizations, as well as our suppliers and anyone else
with whom we work to get our jobs done. It is what we do when a
colleague asks us to provide him with information he needs to
analyze a product or service; it is what we say when someone from
marketing asks us to represent the company at an event; it is how
we greet the vice president of sales when she walks into our office
with an "I need something from you" expression on her
face. | Learn More | | Ever
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KMA Inc. recently had the pleasure of moderating a Breakfast
Roundtable on internal customer service at the Metro Atlanta
Chamber of Commerce with co-facilitators Patricia Wheeler of The
Levin Group and Jeff Frakes, Ph.D., of Performance Innovations Inc.
Roundtable participants--businesspeople from throughout the metro
area--used force field analysis to determine the top three
"driving forces" that work to facilitate internal
customer service, and the top three "restraining forces"
that work against internal customer service. We draw our tips this month from the number-one restraining
force determined by the roundtable participants: building
territorial walls within your company. As you strive to weaken the
forces that work against internal customer service--in this case
the building of territorial walls--you will enable internal
customer service, and employee satisfaction, to grow. Here are three tips for achieving legendary internal customer
service by weakening the tendency to build territorial walls: 1. Create
forums to share information. Do this as much as your
position in your organization permits. The more employees know
about the goals of the company as a whole, and how each department
contributes to accomplishing those goals, the less likely they are
to feel a need to "protect" themselves and their jobs by
building walls around their "turf." One way a football
quarterback enables his team to execute successful plays is by
making sure every player understands what his teammates are doing
in the play. Members of a football team do not advance the ball by
keeping their plans secret from one another. Colleagues in a
company do not advance their plans by withholding information or
assistance from one another. You might think that marketing and
accounts receivable can execute flawless plays independent of one
another, but they can't. Accounts receivable depends on
marketing to help create a market for the company's product or
service, and marketing depends on accounts receivable to collect
the money that will pay marketing and fund their budget.
Forums for sharing information can be as grand as a company-wide
assembly or as modest as a chat in the hall. A shared lunch between
two departments would qualify, as would e-mails and memos outlining
what a particular department is doing and why. 2. Practice proactive
information-sharing. Don't wait for colleagues to
ask for information they need to do their jobs. Offer it to them.
Offer it before they need it. In fact, offer it before they know
they need it. Think of ways that your information/statistics/data
can help others in your organization, and tell them. If part of
your job description already involves preparing information for
others, do it as though you are delivering a product to a customer.
Most will appreciate your interest and openness, recognize your
keen insight, and eventually repay you by knocking down their own
walls. 3. Create, or contribute to, an
environment in which status is accorded to those who share freely
and don't build walls. Most people who build
territorial walls do it to protect their turf from encroachment by
others in the company. They fear that if others have what they
have--including information--those others will make them obsolete.
Make that fear groundless by rewarding employees and colleagues who
do not protect their turf, but instead work to fulfill the goals of
the company. Reward behaviors--via compliments, pats on the back,
commendations at meetings, lunch, bonuses, letters of
congratulation, etc.--that lead to open information-sharing. Make
it clear that territorial behavior sabotages the efforts of the
company, while treating colleagues like valued customers
contributes to the company's success.
Scott Miller is vice president of Kirk Miller
& Associates Inc., a management consulting firm that writes
and presents highly interactive workshops designed to improve
productivity, retention and morale through developing
employees' soft, or interpersonal, skills.
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