The Importance of Quality Internal and External Customer Service

Providing quality customer service to the customers and clients are essential to the survival and growth of your business.  After all, majority of the income that your business earns is derived from this.  Nowadays, customers choose to avail of a particular product or service based on which one would provide them the most worth for their money.  This goes well beyond the product or service initially availed.  In fact, most of the times, it is what they are able to receive after availing of such products and services that would eventually help them make that all-important decision on which company’s products and services they will avail.

Among these is the quality of service that they would receive after availing of the product or service.  This is where ensuring that your company provides excellent customer service comes in.  Every now and then, an existing customer or client would call or send an email regarding certain inquiries and complaints with reference to the products or service that they have availed from your company.  It is the responsibility of the employees of your customer service department to make sure that the needs of the customer at this point in time are sufficiently met.  Failure to do this would often result in the customer deciding not just to take his or her business to another company.  In many cases, it would often result the customer even demanding for a refund of the amount that he or she had initially paid for the services and products that were initially availed, causing the company to actually incur losses than gains. 

On the other hand, if the customer’s needs are meet sufficiently and within an acceptable period of time, the customer would not only be more than happy to continue patronizing your company’s products and services, but also would recommend your company to other potential customers and clients.

That being the case, it is also important that your employees within the customer service department continue to be motivated in providing quality customer service to your customers and clients.  This is where the importance of internal customer satisfaction comes in.  Your employees are your company’s internal customers, and just like your external customers, they have their own needs that they expect the company to meet in return for the services that they provide.  It has been noted and observed that employees that perceive that they are being taken cared of by the company are highly motivated to go above and beyond what is considered to be acceptable based on the quality standards of the company.  As a result, they take it upon themselves to make sure that the customers and clients of the company get the same treatment that they receive. 

On the other hand, if the employees’ needs are not met, they eventually become frustrated and disappointed with the company.  This would then be manifested through their work performance.  They become less motivated in fulfilling the tasks and responsibilities that are required of them by the company.  They become absent more frequently and in some cases, this would eventually lead to a high employee turnover rate.  As with the case with external customers, these series of events would also lead to the increase of unnecessary financial losses and expenses on the part of the company who would continuously have to allocate a higher budget for recruitment and training as well as compensation for employees that have felt that their rights have been violated or ignored.