By Roydon Gibbs Skillset New Zealand

Putting all your effort into understanding the needs and expectations of your customers could be a waste of time.

It may be tempting to focus on the people who use your products or services, but let's note that you have both external and internal customers - with the internal ones being your colleagues.

Your internal customers should be your priority.

Why a priority?

Because the quality of the service you provide to external customers will be a reflection of the quality of internal customer service your team experiences.

By all means make sure you give serious thought to what your external customers need and expect to feel satisfied. But, you and your team will not be able to successfully provide quality customer service to others unless you first provide it to each other.

How happy is the team?

It might take some courage, but if you and the team ask the following questions you will be on the way to making some real progress with customer service.

• Do we really understand what we need and expect from each other to do our work?
• Does the way we deal with each leave us all feeling like satisfied customers?
• Do we always show genuine courtesy, respect and empathy to each other?
• Do we take each other seriously, listening and responding quickly to requests?
• Can we rely on each other to provide what we need, when and how we need it?
• Do we seek ways to add value for our colleagues—looking for opportunities to assist, encourage and commend each other?

Help your team to improve the way they serve each other, and you will be helping them to more effectively deal with difficult customers and reduce complaints. Happier teams lead to more happy customers.


Interested in a workshop on customer service for your team?