Customer orientation: internal and external customers

Two questions come first: how can a company set itself up to be more customer-oriented, and how can service orientation be put into practice? With a structured and proven approach, the programme creates awareness of the quality of service delivery from the point of view of internal and external customers.

At its core is a change of perspective. What is developed is the attitude that everyone is both customer and supplier, including in cooperation with internal stakeholders, above all with colleagues. All those involved are enabled to identify quality and performance gaps, work on them and close them with measurable success.

The concept consists of three flexibly usable modules that are introduced one after another, in virtual or in-person workshops. When customer orientation towards external and internal stakeholders is strengthened, long-term and stable customer and employee relationships emerge that secure the company’s success.

The first area of impact is customer orientation, both internally and externally. The three modules sharpen employees’ awareness of internal and external customer expectations and create the conditions for well-functioning customer-supplier relationships. Theory and practice are interlinked because the concept is rolled out on concrete services from day-to-day business. While they are still learning the method, employees identify and close concrete gaps and increase their customers’ satisfaction.

The second area of impact concerns the development and retention of employees. People who can recognise quality and performance gaps and close them measurably identify more strongly with their own function and with the company, which increases service orientation in the team. Where managers are heavily stretched, multipliers learn the method and become active supporters of the managers. This anchors the know-how in the company and secures its application in the medium and long term.

The third area of impact is organisational networking. The programme can be applied to the service portfolio of individual employees, teams, business units or the entire organisation, and can be coordinated entirely through digital channels. Its interdisciplinary character strengthens networking across departments. Silos that have grown over time can be disrupted. In transformis’ experience, reflecting on one’s own role as supplier or customer unlocks potential to use the system intelligence across departments.

The three tools build on one another. With the first, “Taking customer expectations seriously”, participants adopt the perspective of internal and external customers and analyse the customer-supplier relationships. The second, “Understanding customer expectations”, identifies quality and performance gaps from the customers’ point of view and sharpens awareness of their expectations. The third, “Meeting customer expectations”, closes the identified gaps systematically, with a focus on solutions and with measurable results.

The first tool works with four questions. First, the customer-supplier relationships are identified: who are our internal and external customers? Then the key interfaces are pinpointed, that is, the points of contact with these customers. In the third step, participants adopt the customer’s perspective and clarify how they open up to the customers and their expectations. The fourth step is solution-oriented thinking: which conditions improve the customer-supplier relationships in the long term?

The aim of this tool is to create awareness of internal and external customer expectations and to address customer orientation as a question of attitude.

The second tool leads in five steps from the task of a function to its performance gaps. It starts with the functional task: what is the raison d’être of the function under consideration? Next, the services are determined that contribute to the customers’ requirements and needs. The third step describes what internal and external customers expect from these services.

In the fourth step, measurable customer requirements are derived from the expectations. The fifth step makes the performance gaps visible: to what extent does the service delivered meet the expectations? The aim is to turn interfaces into seamless connections and to arrive at functioning internal and external customer-supplier relationships.

The third tool is a structured procedure for closing performance gaps. First, the gap is described: facts and effects are determined and targets set. Then possible causes are collected, data gathered and the main causes identified. In the third step, participants develop ideas for solutions and sort them by feasibility.

This is followed by the rollout of the selected solutions. Finally, success is measured, using the measuring points identified in the first step.

transformis understands organisations as complex social systems that provide solutions to problems in their environment. By drawing boundaries, they create an internal space to ensure stable output despite external influences. This results in highly selective perception, and relevant changes are often not recognised early enough.

To remain capable of action, organisations reduce complexity: they select their relevant environments, such as customers, suppliers, competitors, banks or employees, through observation and evaluation frameworks. The established routines are designed to confirm internal ideas about these environments and to filter out deviating impulses. An organisation sees what it sees, and as a rule it does not see that it does not see what it does not see. Appropriate leadership ensures the right level of impulses feeding into decision-making processes.

What is attributed to organisational and corporate culture has an enormous influence on the coordination of behaviour, yet eludes direct, explicit influence. This refers to undecidable decision premises: fundamental convictions, values, beliefs that are shared as a matter of course, and ritual patterns of communication and behaviour. Indirectly, customer orientation anchored in the organisation is also part of this.

Customer orientation comprises the regular, systematic recording and analysis of customers’ wishes, needs and expectations, and acting on them. If it is practised towards external stakeholders just as it is towards internal customers, one’s colleagues, long-term, stable and economically sound relationships emerge that bind employees to the organisation.

Cultural patterns change through the repeated experience of certain standards; talking alone does not set change in motion. Corporate culture cannot be ordered, but it can be influenced. The work therefore focuses on the formal structure, that is, decidable premises such as programmes, communication channels or people. The culture comments on these changes in unpredictable ways, which is why the effect of every intervention is observed. The programme serves as a pragmatic anchor for cultural change.

An implementation concept begins with the launch of the programme, followed by workshops on tools 1 and 2. In subsequent validation discussions, the identified performance gaps are prioritised before they are addressed with tool 3.

Material from practice is available for independent implementation. Introductory videos on each tool make the content tangible for participants and give internal implementers orientation. Detailed working documents contain didactic guidance for facilitators and multipliers. Templates for kick-off events and working meetings can be used in person as well as through digital channels.

Participants from a municipal utility and from a network operator report that the programme sharpened their understanding that they depend on one another and that performance can only be delivered together. It was also well received that the entire team took part and that it was not only the manager’s assessment that counted. This made the expert knowledge in the team transparent.