Every day we look for ways to develop our companies by maximizing their resources and presenting the best offers and opportunities for our products. We continuously develop action plans that are framed around the needs of our customers and followers.
We responsibly perform market analysis, evaluate social media reach, conduct needs studies, measure consumer sectors, and populations, among other strategies to successfully impact our external clients. These are almost mandatory exercises when we seek the growth of our company. However, with this approach we forget about the most important people for our external customers to believe, live and assimilate the benefits of our products: our internal customers.
Internal customers are the first buyers of the ideas of the company, they are one of the assets to make possible the company's goal. Internal customers are impacted by: organizational results, quality and compliance, organizational culture, as well as the successes and failures of their peers. Some examples of internal customers within our company are executives, managers, administrative personnel, regular employees and temporary employees. In other words, all those people who are hired by the company directly or indirectly to provide a service and whose main role is to generate the final product of the company in one way or another.
In order to have a better understanding, it is important to ask: How much do we know our internal customers? Here are some tips to identify who our internal customers are:
1) Internal employees who are the first buyers of the company’s promise of service and quality.
2) They are the staff who are commonly related to the company process and products.
3) Are those who are guided and assisted by the chain of command in order to deliver part or the final product or service.
It is important to mention that as part of their functions and organizational culture these employees receive attention from other departments or managers, which makes them internal customers. In such scenario, the purchase is not necessarily the product, but rather the process and intermediate results to achieve the final product and service. If there is no internal satisfaction from this exchange, when it comes to the final product there will be no genuine intent, encouragement, or commitment. In other words, these personnel who have an intrinsic relationship with the company become the initial judge of the internal services and in turn the final product. These employees are the ones who observe the true fulfillment or non-fulfillment of quality, and who also become the spokesperson for the product.
When you have an optimal organizational culture focused on competitive results, staff motivation, fair and cutting-edge metrics, proactive use of technology, constant inclusion of communication tools, and tracking of results, then you can proactively please the internal customer. Organizational culture is key to meeting the needs of our internal customers: the values, visions and expectations of the organization, and the final impression that our internal customers will take away, depend on it. It is important that this culture has effective communication tools and seeks to provide internal customers with a quality experience and a high degree of satisfaction.
In summary, the key to proactively impact your internal customers lies in strengthening your organizational culture and developing organizational relationships innovatively and strategically. In this way, your product experience will be 100% excellent.