Everyone has a customer although it is not always apparent to everyone who their customer is. When we think of the customer we tend to think of the company or consumer who receives the product or service the company is providing.

But along the way of getting the product or service to the end user there are many people who must handoff their part of the product to someone else. Think of an assembler on a production line. Once they complete their part of the production, the product will go to someone else to further complete it and add value. Each person along the way is a customer of the person before them and so on.

This concept is often referred to as internal/external customers, meaning that some people serve internal customers and others serve the external customer. The people in the customer service department may interface daily with the external customers but they also serve internal customers. If a salesperson comes to them to process a special order, they need to serve the salespeople. But the salesperson also serves the customer service rep because if they do not provide the proper information then the customer service person cannot do their job properly and this will affect the external customer.

This concept of internal/external customers was made popular as part of Total Quality Management (TQM). We do not refer to this management approach to producing high quality products often these days but most companies, especially manufacturers practice it in one form or another and may call it something else.

Toyota adapted this methodology in the early sixties and won the Deming Application Award in 1965 and later the Japan Quality Medal in 1970. The transformation of Toyota from a perceived poor-quality automobile to an industry leader in customer perception is said to be due to their investment in the principles of TQM and related approaches.

The idea of serving your customer with the best possible products and service whether they are internal or external is a mindset that is established by top management and then taught to everyone in the organization.

The business owner of CEO is also serving his customers, made up of employees and the external customers. If employees are to deliver excellence to their customers, then the leader at the top must see to the needs of all the employees. Only when these needs are met, and they understand that they also serve internal customers can superior products and services be delivered consistently to the external customers.

The most obvious example is in healthcare. The nurse or caregiver must meet stringent quality standards in the delivery of medication, monitoring of equipment and the attitude and behavior that is displayed. The needs of the nurse revolving around training and development, rewards and recognition and emotional support is crucial for this person to perform all aspects of the job consistently.

A good exercise to improve customer service to both internal and external customers is to define quality standards for each department. This should be done with the participation of all employees, so they get to give their input and agree on the standards they need to be well served. Once quality standards are established between departments a way of measuring performance needs to be in place so quality can be improved over time. Continuous improvement is a foundation principle of TQM and can only be put into practice if standards are established and measurements put in place. This approach transformed many great companies such as Toyota and can be applied to any size company if there is commitment starting at the top.