This is a popular question amongst entrepreneurs and branding agencies. Usually the answer is focused on the customer who pays the bills – the one you’re trying to sell to. But there’s actually more than one kind of customer, and businesses often miss the mark by ignoring half of the equation.
As a business, you have two types of customers: Internal customers (your employees) and External customers (the obvious ones who pay the bills). In a healthy organization, both customers play a role in the success of the business, both need to be spoken to, and both will leave if they fail to receive the value the business promises to add.
It’s easy to ignore employees as a type of customer because the business is paying them. When a business treats this customer this way, it is doomed to have the “I’m here for a paycheck” relationship with its employees. These businesses have high turnover, low morale, and all kinds of repeated avoidable mistakes – yes, waste – all over the place.
When you take care of your internal customers, they make it their business to take care of your external customers. They take pride in the business and begin to engage with their hearts and their minds instead of just their hands.
In addition to this, everyone in this kind of business is serving someone. No one is absent a customer, no matter what department or level of the organization they are in. This shifts the focus away from the personal “what’s in it for me” or “that’s not my job” mentality to the holistic “what’s the best thing for this business?” attitude that unifies groups under one mission.
The impact? External customers benefit from excellent customer service, excellent product or service, and interacting with ambassadors of a company who genuinely want to see it and the external customer succeed. Internal customers work for your company with intention and care. They are proactive. They take ownership over their role. They bring ideas, energy, and motivation to the table on a daily basis.
Activity: How have you identified your customer in the past? Take five minutes and describe first your internal customer and then your external customer. What gaps do you see? How might engaging differently (according to the needs and motivations of the internal customer) positively impact the business and the external customer?