01.12.2005 | Dr. Hansjörg Künzel

Internal Customer-Supplier Relationships

Despite the flood of literature on satisfied customers, every single day, we experience all too often that it is not fun in the slightest to be a customer. The recent ADAC-Customer Satisfaction Survey highlights it once more in a striking fashion: only the high image that the German Automotive Manufacturers still enjoy saves them from a total disaster. The one exception is Porsche. Here, customers are happy both with the product and the service experienced at their dealership. Once driven, they are forever smitten by those German sports cars. The remaining German manufacturers run with the pack - actually at the far end. The first places go to Japanese Manufacturers. In this instance, their customers are very happy with the product as well as the service quality.

Aren’t any books about customer satisfaction worth reading? Didn't anybody take the time to read them? Were they too complicated to understand? Or could there be other explanations?

It is undeniable that many companies seriously do try to improve their relationship with their customers. However, their efforts do not usually get beyond half-hearted trials, and often end in vain. Even worse: Through lack of planning or coordination, these well intended “customer service initiatives” often leave the customers feeling even more helpless and frustrated in the end. Are customers too demanding or are suppliers incapable?

None of the two really applies. It is a matter of perspective. Which car driver in the city doesn't get mad at ruthless cyclists? However, when in turn riding her/his own bike for a change, s/he is then mad at the ruthless car drivers. Therefore, a change of perspective has to happen within the organization: The employee becomes a customer. Then s/he can think and feel like a customer: "As a customer, would I be happy with my organization?"

Without this change of perspective, the attitude of employees and managers in the company will also remain untouched: They will not try to make the customer happy but, first and foremost, the boss. To them, a happy boss is more important than a happy customer. Why? Because they depend on this person for salary, career advancement and recognition.

Based on this analysis, the objective is to get the market into the company. Associated together with the change of perspective, it makes it possible to give the original responsibility for customers back to every single employee. If the company creates the organizational prerequisites to make each employee succeed in her/his new role, all the members of the organization will perceive it as enrichment rather than a new burden.

The concept of internal customer-supplier-relationships demonstrates how an organization can transform itself into a customer driven company by being totally oriented on customers’ demands. A customer buying from this organization will be a happy customer.

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