Treatment Of Customers Essay Samples

Abstract

The very employees of an organization are its internal customers, who always need the help of superiors or colleagues across departments for advice and help on a regular basis. Every employee particularly looks for handholding and appreciation from the top. An employee of an organization is likely to show commitment and care toward the customers of the organization if he himself feels proud of being an employee of the company. Thus, a company’s internal customers or employees are as important as its external customers or clients, and treatment of the internal customers decides how a company treats its external customers. Taking good care of the internal customers promotes a conducive and happy work atmosphere, which in turn increases the overall productivity and profit of the company while decreasing employee turnover.
The employees of a company are its best resources, and investing in the welfare of the employees ensures their job satisfaction. A satisfied employee acts as a role model to everyone within the company while functioning as an ambassador of the company elsewhere. Hence satisfied employees alone are able to create satisfied customers. Benjamin Schneider of University of Maryland says that there is a strong link between the way internal customers of an organization are treated and how the external customers recognize the quality of services of the particular organization. When Fortune magazine asked employees the reason for working in the ‘Top Ten Best Companies’ not even a single employee mentioned salary, reward schemes or the opportunity to move to the senior position. Instead, they gave the foremost priority to the relationships prevailing at the workplace (Edwards, 2010). The passionate employees were proud of the work cultures existing in their organizations that made them feel as though their workplace was an extension of their home. Obviously, self-satisfied internal customers or employees of an organization always look forward to being in the workplace with like-minded colleagues toward maximizing their talents and contributing to the growth of the organization. Thus, in my opinion, only supportive and caring colleagues, who see the internal customers as valuable as the external customers, contribute to enhancing the image and tradition of an organization.
Companies driven by customer service and friendliness may sometimes unreasonably punish a genuine internal customer to prove they live up to their reputation. Here, I feel the famous phrase, ‘customers are always correct’ coined by Harry Gordon Selfridge needs to be given a rethinking. An organization needs to distinguish between an unruly customer and a loyal employee to uphold the morality of the workforce, which in turn decides the reputation of the company. This is indeed a challenging task for organizations to distinguish a lousy internal customer and a disruptive external customer. If a company could distinguish bad customers and avoid them, it can save its reputation of favoring dishonest customers at the cost of a breached morality of its own internal customers, which in the long run proves fatal to the company. Therefore, companies should promote themselves as being ‘value friendly’ rather than being ‘customer friendly’ to give the impression to their employees that they treat both their customers and employees equally all the time.
While it is true that an organization cannot exist without satisfied customers, it is equally true that organizations cannot exist without loyal employees. Loyal internal customers alone promote satisfied customers, and hence both are mutually exclusive. Therefore business organizations should start from caring for their internal customers which in turn would bring them more and more loyal customers.

Reference

Edwards, S. (2010, March 15). 12 ways to ensure your internal customers look after your external customers. Retrieved March 27, 2015, from http://www.mycustomer.com /topic/customer-experience/12-ways-ensure-your-internal-customers-look-after-your-external-customers-0