Happy Customers and Happy Employees Means Big Money

Customer oriented strategies can give you the competitive edge

The idea of being customer service and customer satisfaction oriented is not a new paradigm in the business world. Even in businesses that are not directly working with the public, the idea of structuring the company to satisfy the needs of the people make it possible for the company to stay in business. The customers are a core value for a large percentage of businesses, especially those that are successful.

However, there are segments of every business that have no contact with customers, so it is difficult for them to develop a customer service mentality. And if the business itself is not structured to deal with the public or have conventional “customers”, the approach to the business world can be lacking in the workplace. That is why a big business trend in all type of business settings is to change the work ethic internally so that workers view those who use their work as customers.

When properly implemented, each employee actually begins to view each other, their bosses and especially people who rely on their work in other departments as customers or clients. In theory, this approach has its objective to build that customer service mentality, even in workers whose outcome of their work is only for internal departments or other workers in the company.

It’s an innovative approach to change the corporate culture of any business. By altering the mindset, especially of an office worker, to that of someone who comes to work with that entrepreneurial or retail oriented outlook, the employee is freed to become more creative and aggressive about completing quality work for their “customers” and get a greater feeling of satisfaction from satisfying their internal customers.

It’s a noble effort to try to alter the traditional culture of an office based business setting. The traditional culture of a “cubicle farm” type of office setting often resembles the comic strip Dilbert. That strip can be painful to read if you are a manager trying to keep a creative and proactive team moving forward in a business setting. But Dilbert does point out some of the communication problems that are common in an office setting. The distrust of management and the tendency of employees to drift toward unproductive attitudes, behaviors, and a low morale are lampooned by the strip.

The client-coworker business concept attempts to empower the employee to strive to perform to his or her best even when only performing duties for the department or another department internal to the company. The client-customer model calls for viewing other departments as a customer and providing customer service to that internal relationship with the same “eager to please” attitude that is necessary when serving customers whose revenue drives the company.

There are some real values to be had by introducing a customer service attitude even to internal support functions within the company. When combined with other empowering techniques, such as: process improvement and open communications with all levels of management, it can unify an office and put some real life into your staff.

However, the negatives of the client-customer model have to be avoided. This approach can create animosity between coworkers and hard feelings when one employee feels that another is not treating him or her like a customer. The client-customer model can create distance between peer employees and reduce comradely which has a great deal of value in a team oriented corporate culture. But a wise manager can implement the client customer model to a business setting and harvest from it the productivity gains while skillfully avoiding the pitfalls.

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