Internal service standards promote external customer satisfaction
Despite the high importance of the internal service quality for customer satisfaction dispensed by its own account but still one in four companies on the systematic application of intra-operating systems for controlling the quality of service. Comparatively remiss here are particularly evident in the telecom industry and the energy supplier, while insurers and health insurance companies play a leading role in the internal service management.
This is reflected in the opinion of the customers: Despite the financial market crisis, the brokers of financial products come off best in terms of customer service, and especially when it comes to responding flexibly to actual customer requests. Irrespective of their sometimes very mediocre public image, personnel service providers also achieve good marks for the quality of their service among the customers they serve. The energy suppliers and telecommunications service providers receive a comparatively poor rating from customers.
"Customer satisfaction begins with the quality of internal cooperation. Above all, the internal interfaces in the process of service provision should be committed to compliance with quality standards," comments Dr. Claus Dethloff, Managing Director of ServiceRating GmbH. "It is not uncommon for individual departments or service areas to have an excessive 'life of their own' that is not very conducive to a common service orientation".
Just as customer satisfaction is closely related to employee satisfaction, external service quality is thus a reflection of internal service quality. A high level of service understanding and a service-oriented working atmosphere in your own company promote the customer orientation perceived from the outside.
Companies that are particularly good at responding flexibly to customer requests and that achieve good marks overall for their internal and external customer service are, for example, the mortgage broker Interhyp AG, the AOK Schleswig-Holstein or the online auction house Alpha, which specializes in used vehicle trading on-line services. The companies mentioned were recently also able to place themselves among the top 50 in the "Germany's most customer-oriented service providers" competition, which is carried out annually by ServiceRating GmbH in cooperation with the University of St. Gallen, the management consultancy Steria Mummert Consulting and the "Handelsblatt" newspaper ( www.bestedienstleistungen.de ).
"Service providers who put the topic of internal customer orientation high on their agenda and promote the service understanding of their employees have decisive advantages in competition, because this attitude is immediately visible and noticeable in customer contact," concludes Dethloff.
Source: Cologne [ ServiceRating GmbH ]
