Internal and external customers

 In every organization, there are internal and external customers and both play a significant role in running the business. Internal customers are workers who provide services such as production, operations, human resources and so forth. They include superiors and subordinates who interact in providing quality customer service through applying their knowledge and skills in business operation. On the other hand, external customers are customers (retail buyers, discount buyers, service buyer, service user, wholesalers, distributors, and so forth) who purchase the products (Bouranta, Chitiris & Paravantis, 2009).  Internal and external customers need quality services for them to run the business effectively and purchase the products. For example, internal customers need to be appreciated, they need respect, a positive work culture, effective guidelines and effective communication. These will help them increase productivity, morale, performance and provide quality external services. On the hand, external customers need positive relationship, excellent experience,   quality customer service, positive response and professional behaviors (Bouranta, Chitiris & Paravantis, 2009).

 The big issue in modern organizations is that they do not value the internal customers.  For example, the organization management do not value the internal customers in that sometimes customer use poor equipment, they lack complete instructions and work orders, they work in unhealthy work environment and management ignores internal complaints and so forth. This issue result to devastating effects on organization’s business since internal customer decreases performance and external customers become dissatisfied with the services offered.   Note that lack of teamwork and communication will result to fail to achieve common goals and organization effectiveness (Bauer, Duffy & Westcott, 2006).

Many organization pay attention on external customers and pay little attention on internal customers. Management tends to offer quality service to external customers with objectives such as retaining them and to maximizing revenue. They focus on business growth and profitability and for this reason they apply all the possible strategies to ensure that external customers are satisfied (Bouranta, Chitiris & Paravantis, 2009).  However, it is importance to understand that both internal and external customers play role in promoting positivity and productivity. The fact is that if internal customers get better services, definitely external customers will get high quality services. According to Bouranta, Chitiris and Paravantis (2009), internal customers need internal quality services such as teamwork, training, policies and procedures   and more.  For them to offer quality services to external customers, internal processes are key determinants in that they influence willingness and satisfaction.

To address these challenges, the organization management must care for internal customers for them to offer quality services to external customers. Bauer, Duffy and Westcott (2006) add that quality external customers’ services are rooted from quality organization function. Therefore, management should build a customer-focused organization   which encompasses quality function deployment (QFD).  This is an approach where the business understands all the customer needs and creates plans and strategies to meet the needs. In other words, in order to effectively respond to the ‘voice of the customer’, internal customers should produce quality products through product planning, process planning, quality control and so forth (Bauer, Duffy & Westcott, 2006). The point is for them to achieve quality; internal customers need clear expectations, reasonable guidelines, clear responsibilities, clear communication, training and more. These will help them increase retention, foster external customer satisfaction, increase productivity and minimize acquisition costs. It is important for the management to pay more attention on internal customers and build a positive relationship with them. They should ensure that internal customers gain a sense of empowerment through addressing their problems and concerns (Bauer, Duffy & Westcott, 2006).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference

Bouranta Nancy,  Chitiris Leonidas & Paravantis John. (2009). The relationship between internal and

external service quality. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 21  (3)

pp.275-293,

 Retrieved from: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/09596110910948297

 

Bauer, J. E., Duffy, G. L., & Westcott, R. T. (2006). The quality improvement handbook. Milwaukee, Wis:

ASQ Quality Press.