Who Are Your Customers And Do You Really
Know What They Want From You?
But do you really know who your particular customers are and what they want from you? It’s true that your customer base is all the customers that you serve in whatever capacity. But…it makes sense to look at your customers by grouping them according to various characteristics. The simplest way is to divide them into two basic groups…those who are your internal customers and those who are your external customers.
Your internal customers are those who work within your organization. Regardless of whether they are at another location in your building, in another state or country or sitting at the next desk or working on the floor above or below you…if they depend on you and the work you do in order to complete their own work or serve their own customers…then they are your internal customers. Internal customers are those who benefit from your work or conversely suffer when your work is not done or done poorly. Sometimes it is difficult to identify your internal customers especially when you do not see them face-to-face. It is even harder to know whom they are if you are not sure if they see or deal with the work you produce. Then again it may be easy especially if the internal customers you serve also provide some sort of service to you.
Regardless, your internal customers deserve the same great service you would normally give to an external customer.
Is external customer a new term for you? Let me define it for you. External customers are the people who purchase your services. They are external to or outside of your organization. They are the source of the revenue that funds your organization’s continuing operations. Without external customers, your organization won’t be in business for very long. External customers literally pay your salary. They are pretty easy to identify.
There are some interesting facts about serving internal and external customers:
- Anything and everything you do to serve your internal customers ripples outward, affecting how well you serve your external customers.
- You can serve your external customers only to the degree that you serve
your internal customers. - Customer satisfaction mirrors employee satisfaction.
- Happy employees create happy customers (internal and external).
It is a critical part of your job to identify your customers, to know what it is that they need or want from you and how you can provide it for them. Watch all of your customers closely. Their actions will tell you more than their words. Monitor customer behaviors that tell you how they really feel about your company and its services. I mean to become aware of such behaviors as: repeat visits, the frequency of using a service or services, the amount of referrals sent to you by your customers. Collect information from your customers at every opportunity. Listen closely to what they tell you when they call or ask questions or present you with problems.
Talk to your customers one on one. At the time when they are using your services. Ask them to be blunt in Their evaluation and criticisms. Ask them pointed questions abut why they did or did not come for specific services. Make it easy for them to tell you. Ask them what they really like about their favorite organizations where they seek similar services, even if it’s totally unrelated to your organization. Get a sense of what kind of treatment your customers value from wherever the source. Then try to figure out how to include those qualities in your customer service approaches. Get to know your customers as unique people. The more you know about their lives, the more you will understand how your services fit in with the whole of their lives…it may give you some clues on how to better present or package your services to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty to your organization. Daniel Scoggins, president and CEO of TGI Friday's, a popular restaurant says: "The only way to know how customers see your business is to look at it through their eyes."
Serve your internal and external customers well by understanding them deeply. Do use surveys and other tools to determine customer satisfaction. They show that the organization cares about customers. They should be as simplistic as is possible. You could use a three (3) question form given during the time a customer is leaving. The three (3) questions should be based on three (3) things that are usually most important to a customer: value of the service, were promises kept such as the appointment time, etc., and would the customer return.
