In the past, people always thought that the president (general manager) was above the company, the salesman was at the bottom, and the subordinates served the boss, which was the so-called traditional pyramid. This concept changed greatly in the 1980s, resulting in the so-called inverted pyramid (see the figure below). That is "customer satisfaction" is the highest value orientation. Front-line employees serve customers, middle managers serve front-line employees, and top managers serve middle managers. Taking "service" as the link mode, the closer to "God", the higher the value to the company.
Jean Carlsson, former president of Swedish Scandinavian Airlines, emphasized the importance of external customer service in his best-selling book Critical Moment. And rather than saying that subordinates serve their superiors and employees serve their leaders, they serve each other (two lanes). He urged that the traditional pyramid should be turned upside down.
I serve internal customers, and internal customers serve external customers. Internal customers are satisfied, and internal customers turn to better serve external customers. Some people even claim that internal service comes before external customer service.
Recently, some foreign experts believe that the concept of "internal customers" is virtual in order to make the back-office employees (all employees who do not directly deal with customers, including senior managers) have service goals. Nevertheless, they still agree that it is very important to serve the front-line staff.
How to serve internal customers well
First of all, we should change our ideas. Service is not the patent of service industry, but the magic weapon of all industries. Similarly, not only external customers have services, but also internal customer services are indispensable. Ma Mingzhe, chairman and general manager of China Ping An Insurance Company, put forward the new concepts of "management is service" and "leadership is service", and personally attended a hero banquet with front-line salesmen. The general manager of Antai Insurance Group Malaysia Branch goes to the staff club from 4: 00 pm to 5: 00 pm every Monday to make coffee for the staff and provide services.
Secondly, like external customer service, the essence of internal customer service is to establish trust, that is, to establish trust interaction between server and client. Almost all customer service skills are equally applicable to internal customer service. For example, one-stop service and personalized service. Three elements of internal customer service: care, cooperation and communication.
Foreign business circles have set up special internal customer service training courses to improve the service level of internal customer service personnel. DIANE BAILEY introduced 2 1 internal customer care activities and 12 course. Emphasize the role of everyone in the internal customer service chain and review the contribution of individuals, teams and senior management to the customer care culture. This book clarifies the following important questions: Who are your internal customers? What is internal customer care? What are the benefits of internal customer care? What is an internal customer service chain? What is the standard of internal customer care? What are everyone's rights and obligations in internal customer care?
Here we take an MBA case from Harvard Business School to illustrate the importance Japanese companies attach to internal customer service.
Warrico, an American company, operates the first TV factory in 15 and is a supplier of Sears. At its peak, it had 2000 employees and was an important enterprise in the city. Later, due to poor management, quality problems frequently occurred, and the defective rate reached 10%, which made it in trouble. The management of the company invited Sanyo Company of Japan to participate in and manage the factory. After Japanese managers arrived at the factory, they did three things in succession, which opened the eyes of Americans. First of all, invite all the employees of the TV factory to get together, and everyone will sit together for coffee and doughnuts. Then give each worker a transistor radio. At this time, the Japanese manager told everyone that the factory was dirty and messy. How can everyone produce in such an environment? As a result, Japanese managers took the lead and everyone began to clean the factory together, and the whole factory was painted completely new.
Internal customer service and human resource management
Talking about internal customer service and human resource management, we can't help but talk about the development of enterprise human resource management. Up to now, human resource management has experienced at least four stages of development, namely, modern personnel management, modern personnel management, human resource management and human resource management.
Is there a fifth stage? The answer is yes. The concept and practice of internal customer service will be an important feature of the fifth stage. As for the name, this is not the most important.
In the past, in Chinese mainland, people thought that the personnel department was a power department and enjoyed other people's services (so did some personnel workers), so management, congestion and stress occurred from time to time. In fact, in foreign countries, the human resources department of an enterprise is not a power department, but a management department and a service department. JOHN GREER, an American human resource management scholar, put it well: "Human resource professionals don't just deal with business. We will become more service providers and information providers. " Some people even suggest that the human resources department is the profit center.
Human resource managers mainly face internal customers. Occasionally, there are external customers. Are local government departments and social organizations our external customers? That's not true. The human resources department of an enterprise should be their customers.
Who are the internal customers of the human resources department?
Every employee: from the general manager to the salesman. In a large enterprise, human resources departments at all levels have their own customers, and different offices and positions also have their own customers. Of course, sometimes they overlap.
Internal customer service is the most important work of human resources department. The service scope is as follows:
Provide for top management: human resource planning, input-output optimization, and employee relationship handling.
For front-line departments: provide outstanding talents.
Provide employees with skills upgrading, potential development, incentive care and personnel development.
How do human resource managers do internal customer service well?
First of all, we should have a strong sense of service, correct service attitude and superb service skills. Consciousness is the foundation and premise. Without service consciousness, service attitude and service skills are out of the question. The improvement of service awareness is helpful to actively understand the needs of internal customers. Service attitude is the embodiment of service consciousness. The two are inseparable. Correct service attitude, starting from me, starting from small things (ordinary). Service skills are the development of service consciousness and service attitude. Skills are expressed through behavior. Skills will be transformed into skills only when they reach a certain level of proficiency.
Everyone has learned the service consciousness and attitude of the waiters in mainland restaurants. If you have eaten in Shenzhen Good World, you will feel what quality service is. The waiter there, as long as you take out a cigarette, she will light it for you enthusiastically; He will open the door for you as soon as you walk down the steps of the gate. People who enjoy Haier's service will understand that Haier will definitely become a century-old Haier. Her after-sales service staff not only installed it for you free of charge, but also explained and demonstrated it for you. What's more, in order not to dirty your floor, they put a cloth cover on their feet immediately before entering the door.
There is a big company in Shenzhen, China that implements the cadre promotion examination system. After each exam, the personnel department only feeds back the exam results (scores) to the department head or himself. As a result, all kinds of misunderstandings have been caused. In fact, the personnel department will get twice the result with half the effort as long as it improves its service slightly. The specific way is: not only to yourself but also to the person in charge of your department or the leader in charge, feedback the whole exam (not just the score), and make it clear that those who fail can come to consult the test paper; When necessary, show the original answer sheet to the head of the department or the leader in charge (for the safety of the question bank, it should be recycled on the spot).
Excellent service skills turn bad things into good things, and small good things into good things, which makes internal customers sincerely grateful. With a strong sense of service, correct service attitude and exquisite service skills, we will continue to innovate and try our best to think of our internal customers.
Secondly, it is necessary to implement an open commitment system. Now the government is improving its working methods and efficiency. Many government departments in Shenzhen have implemented the public commitment system, open procedures and commitment time limit. But strangely, many of our enterprises, especially large enterprises, have not implemented the public commitment system. It is inconvenient for the staff of grass-roots branches to go to (please) the headquarters to handle affairs.
Besides, we should make full use of intranet and information technology. Network technology has low cost, can improve work efficiency and can be used by everyone. Many companies input some human resources information, such as job vacancies and welfare information, into the intranet. The human resources department has gone a step further and created a perfect interactive software, which allows employees to fill in forms directly, get personal information from the database, and even weigh the length of various welfare projects online. When ELIZABETH GROVER took over as the president of compensation and benefits of the famous American Oracle Bone Inscriptions (Oracle Bone Inscriptions) company, no one in the human resources department had a computer, and all the business was done by hand. GROVER organized and implemented the input of flexible welfare items into the intranet on 1995 to realize computerized processing, which was very popular.
Fourth, treat complaints correctly and establish a perfect complaint system within the enterprise. In China enterprises (especially non-public enterprises), the trade union is not perfect, and the personnel department should not only represent the employer but also consider the interests of workers, which is easy to become the focus of contradictions. Even if you serve well, customers still think you haven't done enough. The appeal system helps the company's management decision-makers to know the voices of employees in time, and also helps the personnel department to comprehensively review their work and handle employee relations well. Of course, the personnel department engaged in internal customer service should prevent from going from one extreme to the other, that is, accommodating internal customers unprincipled.