Do You Know Your Customers?

Identifying Internal Customer Expectations

Choosing service over self-interest means asking, “What can I/we do to better serve my/our INTERNAL customers so that together I/we can provide a seamless approach to serving our EXTERNAL customers?” Individually or with a team, visit several internal customers and ask them the questions outlined below.

Set this ground rule: Listen more than you talk and don’t get defensive about what you hear.

Then share the answers with your whole department. Your answers to these questions will serve as the basis of improving the “handoff” between your department and others.

INTERNAL CUSTOMER =
anyone who receives the output of your work

Three questions to ask:

What do you expect to receive?

What do you actually get?

What can we do better?

				Internal customer’s name or department.
				Output (products, services, information, etc.) provided by my work unit?
				What are your expectations of my/our work unit? What he/she hopes to receive.
				What criteria do you use to evaluate our service quality?
				What do you actually get from us?
				How does this impact your ability to do your job(s) and serve your customer(s)?
				What three to five things do we need to improve?