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.