Prioritizing the needs of your employees — even before those of your external customers — tells them that they matter. When employees feel valued, they are more likely to stick around and contribute to your long-term success.
Learn more about the clear definition of internal customer service, why it's indispensable in every company, and the best practices you can implement today.
Table of Contents
What Is Internal Customer Service?
Internal customer service is a type of customer service within an organization, directed towards its employees.
It involves everything an organization can do to help its employees fulfill their duties, reach their goals, and enjoy their work environment. It covers how different departments communicate and how individuals interact with their colleagues, subordinates, and superiors.
Internal customers are the employees within an organization, including managers and supervisors.
Here are some examples of internal customers:
- A corporate secretary who handles all correspondence between departments in a large company
- A marketing coordinator who coordinates ad campaigns across various products and departments, working closely with sales teams and graphic designers
- Stakeholders, partners, and shareholders who have a vested interest in the organization’s success
8 Best Practices of Internal Customer Service
- Use Customer Service Tools
- Make Company Knowledge and Resources Available in One Place
- Set up Multiple Communication Channels
- Have an Internal Help Desk
- Foster a Rewarding Workplace
- Listen to Your Internal Customers' Feedback
- Address Every Concern
- Set Clear Expectations and Service Standards
Here are the top 8 best practices for ensuring you're providing outstanding internal support:
1. Use Customer Service Tools
Customer service tools are invaluable for both internal and external teams. Their features assist internal teams in processing employee requests and completing daily tasks.
Using an internal customer service tool can also help your team handle customer service issues more efficiently by allowing them to access information faster than they would with a manual process. This increases productivity and ensures all employees have access to the same information, eliminating the need for extensive training and enabling them to work efficiently from the outset.
2. Make Company Knowledge and Resources Available in One Place
We've all been there: you're working away, and suddenly, someone comes to you with a question. Maybe it's a coworker asking for help with a project, or perhaps it's a customer inquiring about your brand’s products.
No matter if it’s a simple request or a complex problem, being asked for help triggers a part of your brain to go into crisis mode, which can disrupt your workflow.
That's where an internal help center comes in! By having one in place, employees can look up answers on their own, reducing back and forth and allowing everyone else to be more productive in their tasks.
Ensure your internal help center includes access to company knowledge, the employee handbook, and FAQs available.
3. Set up Multiple Communication Channels
An excellent internal customer service strategy ensures you have the proper communication channels for employees to get in touch with colleagues and supervisors and address any work-related issues.
Moreover, it also means providing them with multiple communication channels. This ensures that everyone has access to the same level of internal customer service, regardless of their preferences and needs.
This means an openness to face-to-face meetings, emails, phone numbers, and even a choice of superiors to discuss issues.
4. Have an Internal Help Desk
To improve your response time, you need enough people on your team to handle the volume of requests. If you do not have enough internal staff, you can use a chatbot or other AI-driven systems to operate 24/7.
Additionally, you might explore options such as hiring an internal phone answering service or a call center help desk.
5. Foster a Rewarding Workplace
Research shows that employee recognition is the most critical driver of excellent work.
You want your employees to feel valued and appreciated. Create programs that recognize their efforts, good performance, and hard work, and cultivate a company culture that prioritizes support and collaboration.
A rewarded employee will enjoy what they do and, in turn, make magic happen for your clients and external customers.
6. Listen to Your Internal Customers' Feedback
The best way to keep your employees happy and productive is to listen to employees’ feedback and suggestions for improvement, and then act on it.
Actively seek input from employees about their workplace experiences and concerns. Make sure everyone feels valued, respected, and included in the workplace by considering their feedback on how you can make things better.
7. Address Every Concern
Problems and challenges happen; they’re inevitable in any business environment. However, don't let your internal team members shoulder the burden alone.
No matter the problem, employees deserve a response. If you want to build a solid internal culture that values transparency and communication, you should be able to acknowledge any question from your team — even if you don’t have an immediate answer.
When you resolve a case, let employees know how and why the issue occurred and the steps taken to address it. This demonstrates your commitment to being there and supporting them through challenges.
8. Set Clear Expectations and Service Standards
Working in a company where you don't know what's expected of you is hard. That's why you must set clear expectations for everyone in your organization.
Ensure that all employees know the specific standards you expect them to meet and their responsibilities to your company.
Internal Customer Service VS External Customer Service
When you think about your customers, external customers likely come to mind. After all, they are the ones who purchase and use your company’s products or services.
When you're running a business, it can be easy to forget that there are people on the other end of your products or services — the individuals within your organization who contribute to its operations and success. These are your internal customers.
Your internal customers are the ones who make it all happen, and they are just as essential to your business.
If you don't take the time to accommodate your employees, this can affect how your organization runs overall.
Why Is Internal Customer Service Important?
Much like having call centers for clients, every company should have internal customer service in place. It helps employees in need and helps the company be more efficient.
Internal customer service can help with the following:
Employee Morale
Employees facing challenges with their job or work environment can be a drag on the company’s morale and productivity. When you provide internal customer service, you're not just helping your employees succeed — you're helping your company win as well.
High-quality internal support boosts employee satisfaction. It enables workers to more easily solve problems that impede their productivity and assures that assistance is readily available whenever they need it.
Employee Retention
Internal support can lead to improved employee satisfaction and retention rates. Happier employees are more likely to stay longer in a company compared to those who feel disengaged due to poor working conditions or limited career opportunities.
If you want to retain your employees, demonstrate genuine concern for their well-being. One way of doing this is by offering robust internal customer service.
With such a system in place, employees can get the help they need without going through external parties or third-party contractors. They gain access to information they need to do their jobs correctly, without having to wait for approvals from other departments.
Workplace Culture
Internal support allows employees to collaborate directly with internal teams, providing them with insight into how their work impacts the organization's success.
In fact, research shows that companies with better employee engagement are 23% more profitable.
Internal support improves engagement by giving workers the chance to feel connected and invested in the organization's overall goals.
Company Reputation
Internal customer service improves workplace culture by providing employees with tools and resources to help them better understand their company’s clients. This, in turn, allows employees to respond more efficiently and effectively when dealing with issues or inquiries raised by customers.
Examples of Internal Customer Service
- Creating an email address where employees can send questions to your support teams, such as techsupport@companyname.com or hr@companyname.com
- Creating a help center where employees can search for answers to common questions and find up-to-date information about benefits, company policies, etc.
- Live chat with an internal support team member for questions that can be answered with a quick back-and-forth (e.g., basic tech issues)
- Establishing a web form where employees can describe their issue or choose from a drop-down menu to indicate what issue they're having (e.g., tech support or HR)
Internal Customers Service: Final Thoughts
Your employees are your most important customers — they're the ones who make your company run smoothly day in and day out. It's worth putting in the effort to have excellent internal customer service.
Doing so will help your business grow healthier, which ultimately means scaling in the long run too! Consider hiring the services of professional call center companies to further enhance your internal support.
Internal Customer Service FAQs
1. What is an example of internal customer service?
Improve employee support and enhance communication and accessibility by implementing the following strategies:
- Establish dedicated email addresses for employees to send questions to relevant support teams, such as techsupport@companyname.com or hr@companyname.com.
- Develop a comprehensive resource and help center that provides answers to frequently asked questions and is regularly updated with relevant information about benefits, internal policies, and more.
- Enable live chat for employees to ask simple and quick questions to the internal support team, such as those related to fundamental tech issues.
Build a user-friendly web form where staff members can describe their issues or select from a drop-down menu to indicate what type of support they require.
2. How to improve internal customer service?
Here are the ways you can provide excellent internal customer service:
- Offer multiple communication channels for employees to reach out.
- Ensure your help desk is well-staffed to provide timely responses.
- Centralize knowledge and resources in one platform, such as a help center.
- Provide clear information to manage employee expectations.
- Aim to empathize with employee’s perspectives and understand their needs.
- Monitor feedback and take action to address shortcomings.
- Respond to every question, even if an immediate answer is not available.
- Leverage data to identify areas for improvement.
- Curate the appropriate tools for your tech environment.
- Make employee service an integral aspect of your talent strategy.
3. What's the difference between internal and external customer service?
The difference between internal and external customer service comes down to two critical factors: the recipients and the provider.
Internal customer service is geared towards members, employees, and managers within an organization, while external customer service is aimed at individuals and organizations outside the business entity. This implies that internal services are exclusive to the company and its components, whereas external services can be utilized by anyone, regardless of their affiliation with the company.
