I was once part of a discussion where a female supervisor was complaining that she was having trouble speaking face to face with her manager. The manager responded defensively, “Well, the customer comes first and when I’m busy with a customer, everything else has to wait.” Fair enough, at first glance, but does everything also mean everyone? And who exactly is the customer?
Most of us understand “customer” to mean the person who pays us to provide a service to you. We all realize that great service is one of the incentives to keep our customers happy. But whose job is that, only yours? If you work with a team, the onus is on the entire team to provide excellent service to your external customers. This becomes glaringly impossible if the team isn’t serving each other effectively internally.
There could be many reasons why our supervisor needs face time with her manager. It can be advice, waiting for approval to proceed, essential feedback, disciplinary issues, or a host of other things. What is critical here is that the manager does not view her supervisor as her customer, and certainly not as a priority.
Why is it important to see your colleagues as customers? For starters, you spend more time with them than with your external clients. Second, you trust them to perform certain vital functions that will lead to customer satisfaction. This is because you can’t do it all yourself, which is why the team exists.
In a business sense, the internal customer should be considered more important than an external customer. Yes, you read that right. Everyone in your organization must understand that the external customer is very important, but the internal customer is even more important. You may not have chosen to work with your colleagues: they were hired for their talent and experience, not because they are your friends. In a successful work environment, we learn to work with a diverse group of people who we may not naturally attract as friends, but need nonetheless. They are critical to our success. And therefore we need to reserve enough time for them so that they have the tools, the authority and the confidence to do what is expected of them. That includes, of course, dazzling the external customer with excellent, friendly and efficient service.
Of course, there’s also the benefit that people who feel recognized tend to be more helpful, friendly, cooperative, and…yes, productive. This is because recognition is addictive.
Without our external customers our organization does not have to exist. But without a team making sure those customers get the right service, you don’t have any mechanism to deliver that service. Therefore, your team members are your primary customers. Your immediate equipment is your personal responsibility. If you are part of a team, you need to nurture and protect your relationships within that team.
“A customer is someone with whom you have dealings.”
This definition is very simple, but it is also quite profound and has wide implications. So before you make the lofty “Customer First” statement, first reconsider who your customers are and who may come in second or last as a result of putting a particular customer first.
There isn’t much you can do on your own. Your internal customers are the people who will make sure the job gets done.