Who is an internal customer?
Internal customers are people inside the company, typically employees or other stakeholders. They are customers of internal services which they get from another company, department, or employees.
- in contrast to external customers who pay for your services and are not directly connected to the organization
- the idea of internal customers comes from quality management approaches (Six Sigma) and IT service management (ITSM)
- distinguishing internal customers helps to improve internal service quality and inter-department communication
- treating everyone as a customer may also encourage employees to take each other seriously, just as if they were dealing with an external customer
Examples of internal customers
- employees are internal customers of internal IT department, which ensures all computers and other IT services are running smoothly. Without IT employees couldn’t do their jobs and help customers
- every employee is an internal customer to HR departments because they provide employee relations, training, benefits, and mediation
- employees working in the offices are customers of office management
- all employees use some buildings, facilities and work equipment and are also customers for the facility management department