An internal customer is the one who is affected by the product or service as it is being generated. The internal customer is sometimes forgotten in the effort to produce an item or service for the external customer. The immediate goal should be to produce the product or service in a simple and convenient manner for internal consumption. The effort to remember ‘to do’ things in a specific way, to be trained properly, to be given the proper equipment or to be given specific instructions can often be neglected.
Internal customers are often employees of the committee. Kaoru Ishikawa (1985) coined “The next operation as a customer” in order to remove the sectionalism of departments towards each other. The essential idea is to enable employees of all departments to come together to solve problems. Staff members must consider themselves as service providers. Otherwise, the staff members are in constant struggle with the line management and nothing gets done. Within a company, the staff should consider what kind of work they can perform for the line departments.
Research has shown that management practices relate to employee satisfaction, which also impacts customer satisfaction. When employees are satisﬁed with their treatment, given the right tools to do the job and supported by management; customers are more likely to have higher perceptions of quality and will continue to do business with the company.
2. Story Boards: A wallboard display; memos, letters, projects, etc.
4. Staff meetings: Share the information. Display of goals, progress charts, etc. Quality awards from customers. To stay competitive in this environment, a constant schedule of training for the entire workforce is required. Typical employee training must focus on helping them do their job better.
External customers are not part of the organization but are impacted by it. Generally, external customers play a critical role by providing the major portion of company revenues.
The category of external customers includes those that purchase a product or service for their own use. In this case, they would be the “end user” of the product. Intermediate customers purchase the product or service and then resell, repackage, modify or assemble the product for sale to an end user. These “channels” can provide volume sales opportunities for a business but will have signiﬁcantly different requirements than end users.
What is the employee’s perception of the company?
Are the quality efforts worthwhile?
What dumb things have been implemented?
Do l like my job, my boss, etc.?
Is the company a good place to work?
There are instruments or tools available to everyone for the purposes of collecting customer information.
A properly designed questionnaire gathers data using a consistent set of standardized questions. Usually, a sample is selected for use. Interviewers can be used or it can be self-administered.
A small group (3 to 12 typically) of individuals is assembled to explore specific topics and questions. A time period of 1 to 2 hours is normally required.
Individual interviews of 30- 60 minutes in length may be used. This can be very time-consuming.
The return of a card prompts a reaction by the company. These could function as feedback forms.
Some methods that voice dissatisfaction include complaints, claims, refunds, recalls, returns, repeat service work, litigation, replacements, downgrades, warranty work, is-shipments, etc.
Shoppers evaluate the company and competitors. CEOs may call their own offices to measure the ease of customer access.