7.4 Recognise all the players
Exceptional service starts by looking at the company through the eyes of the customer. You have probably decided that the above question was simple, but think again. Think beyond the obvious. People and external organisations that do business with your organisation are obviously customers. They buy your services or your products. However, there is another customer who you may not have considered. It does not matter what your role is in your organisation, you will at some time serve customers who are also your colleagues . So, did your list cover the major groups? Did you artificially constrain your answer? Did you consider the customers within?
The idea of internal customers or the "customer within" is certainly not new to you, as it has been mentioned in earlier chapters in this subject. Think about the role and relationship with internal customers in the development and maintenance of the quality system; in the quality audit itself; then the review and subsequent events after the audit report.
Stop now and think back over the work that you have covered so far and how important the internal customer is to the overall quality and service excellence of an organisation.
This concept of treating internal departments and colleagues as customers leads to increased efficiency and an improved environment in which to work. This, in turn, provides increased service to external customers and has benefits for all involved.
Consider this example:
Think about the personnel onboard a ship. The people managing the relationships and the resources on board must also ensure that there is understanding between shipboard and shore-based managers and personnel. In addition, internal customer relations on board play a crucial role and everyone involved must work together as a team to give the external customer (the shipper or the charterer) quality service.
While you may work in situations where it seems you are far removed from the external customer, it is likely that the work you do will impact on those in your organisation who do deal directly with them. Thus, everyone in an organisation should see himself or herself as providing a service.
Another example:
One of my previous positions involved the enrolment of students at a university. Our department's internal customers included academics who would teach the newly enrolled students and the Distance Education Centre who would be required to send study material to the students before the commencement of the academic semester.
One particular year a new system of enrolling students by Optical Mark Reader cards was introduced. Problems with the design of the enrolment forms and computer programming resulted in late processing of enrolments.
This affected the Distance Education Centre as they were unable to effectively, let alone efficiently, send out study materials, resulting in some students receiving materials after the commencement of the semester. Academics were annoyed because they were uncertain of the number of students in their classes. As some external students received their material late, academics were faced with extending assignment deadlines.
Thus, our internal customers were unable to do their jobs effectively and were concerned about their hard earned image. Obviously, our external customers suffered greatly. The image of the organisation as a whole suffered.
Always remember that colleagues are also customers. Adopt and maintain a "can-do" attitude. With good communication, collaboration and teamwork, your work environment can become a more rewarding workplace.
Imagine yourself working in a port competing against a host of other ports, many of which have services and facilities similar to those you provide.
What would you say distinguishes your port from the rest? What would you offer potential customers, investors and other users of the port community that others do not?
If you were to view various planning documents from port authorities (we did this in Principles of Management and will do so in greater detail in Strategic Management ) you would see a strong emphasis on customer services.
This highlights our philosophy towards customer service - an "overall, corporate-wide" approach and attitude towards service excellence that is required to be truly successful in providing customer service. Good customer service cannot be considered just the responsibility of the "front-line staff" who deal directly with the customer. It has to be everybody's responsibility. We will cover the role of Management as a corporate philosophy in the next chapter.
Key service requirement:
Regardless of your position in an organisation you have the responsibility to focus on quality service excellence.
We have mentioned efficiency several times - can you remember the difference between effectiveness and efficiency from Principles of Management ?
If you are effective you achieve the desired outcome in a decisive manner - you know "what " needs to be done. If you are also efficient , you achieve the same outcome not only decisively, but also productively, without waste. Effectiveness is the ability to choose appropriate goals and achieve them. Effectiveness has two parts: firstly, goals must be appropriate and secondly, those goals must be achieved. Efficiency is the ability to make the most appropriate use of available resources in the process of achieving your goals.
For example:
For a port to be effective it must possess a number of resources. These include infrastructure (for example, berths, yards) and superstructure (for example, cargo handling equipment, warehousing, transit sheds) tugs and navigation aids etc. Geographical location is also important (for example, Singapore , Hong Kong ).
How efficient the port is depends on how it utilises these resources in order to achieve objectives. For example, how do you allocate cargo handling equipment to achieve a quick turnaround time; how do you arrange yard space to receive containers; how do you allocate gangs for the maximum usage of work; how do you allocate tasks for maximum productivity - do you change crane operators after a particular time to maximise productivity?
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