How to Have a Better Understanding of Customers - Internal & External

In todays competitive market where the Customer is regarded as the King, the customer satisfaction is the main area where every manufacturer is concentrating at its highest possible level. A satisfied customer does mouth to mouth publicity of your products and services. You may spend millions of dollars on publicity and yet see no profits. Where as a satisfied customer does your publicity free of cost.

A restaurant is serving a good food and at a very reasonable rates need not have to spend much on publicity as the persons who eat the food would gladly recommend your restaurant to thousands of future customers. What you need to do is to maintain the quality, quantity and price.

There are two types of customers. Internal customer & External customer. External customer is much valuable since he buys your product or services. That is the reason he is attended very well. But the fact is, your internal customer is equally important and plays a vital role in any organization. The problem is, internal customer is often neglected. Let us discuss the roles of both the customers in the successful organization.

To satisfy the needs of external customers the company has a chain of departments/ units to look after such as Manufacturing, Production Planning Control, Quality Control, Sales, Marketing, Logistics, Finance etc. where you would find display boards in this unit as " Customer First " This is the conscious awareness you may find every where. A team wok concept is best suited here as the ultimate goal is to satisfy the customer.

What some times happens in the above organization while paying maximum attention to external customer, the internal customer is often neglected. Who are this internal customers ? How to identify and satisfy the internal customer is the main hitch.

We do work in teams in a unit. Our units output is other units input. Unless our output is correct and in time, the other unit can not complete their job in time and proceed to next unit. The entire manufacturing is thus linked with these various units and each unit is required to complete their job neatly. Any problem within breaks the link and the whole lot is suffered. This is how and why the internal customer plays the vital role for any organization to fulfill its requirement of his external customers.

In production line the movement of each part is fixed as per the operations to be conducted. Each person has to be alert to complete the chain. The time and the skill, both has to be ultimate. A proper production machine with its well made program by skilled technical engineer and the staff on line makes this happen in no time. The finished product then moves to next unit for further operation. Every unit has its own enhance targets. The time also plays the major role. The particular operation has to complete within stipulated time to meet the days target. Any indiscipline here makes the whole unit suffer.

Take an example of Logistic department. They have the targets of dispatching the goods in best possible and on time delivery. They depend mostly on these production units to receive the goods in time. Any delay here breaks the whole link and further process of delivery. Thus the transport department is almost in the constant touch with the production department. The delivery van people are there to bother them as well. If the material is not loaded in time, the delivery van can not move and reach on time to the required destination.

This is how the internal customer chain works. Every unit is depending on its co-unit. The strong team work pays reach dividends. The proper communication and understanding among each team makes the whole process looks very easy. Every individual plays a key role in this chain. When every one succeeds here, the external customer gets his product the way he desired.

To understand the internal customer and its needs lot of brain storming goes via training. Every individual needs to understand his role and importance of his role in the unit. Every unit has to except a challenge and work accordingly to meet the need of his next customer/ unit. This is the whole big process. To attract the external customer, build confidence within internal customers. Make them realize their value to organization and to the external customers.