8 | The Lion King
Effective
internal
customer
service:
By Opeyemi Aifuwa
E
very organisation strives to remain relevant
and competitive in business. Organisations
tend to do this by focusing on surpassing
their customers’ expectations and ensuring con-
sistency in delivering excellent customer experi-
ence. However, many organisations erroneously
hold customer facing departments responsible
for the overall customer experience of the
organisation and fail to focus on the primary
path to exceptional customer service: internal
customer service.
Internal customer service simply refers to support
services provided by staff of an organisation to
fellow employees and other departments within
the same organisation, as well as to service
providers.
In a financial institution, for instance, it could be
back-office transaction processing; a central
processing centre of a bank that ensures cus-
tomers’ account requests made through the
branches are promptly treated.
It could also be what we do when colleagues
ask for information they need to complete their
main task for the day, or what we say when
someone from marketing asks for the addresses
of good contacts, or even how we react when
colleagues walk into our office with an "I need
something from you" expression on their faces.
Superior internal customer service is the bedrock
of exceptional external customer service. It im-
proves morale, productivity, employee retention
and, ultimately, profitability. Caring for your
"associates" is fundamental to caring for your
Feature
The bedrock of
exceptional customer
service delivery
