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BORA Consulting - Consultancy for Entrepreneurs - Ralf Borlinghaus
contact: ralf.borlinghaus@bora-consulting.com, +41 44 58 66 157

Last week I had the first workshop with the HR (Human Resources) department of a German power supplier in order to increase its level of internal customer orientation. From the participants' perspective the most interesting part of the workshop was discussing the question: who is my customer? Obviously, a lot of misunderstandings could be clarified during that day.

Spontaneously, most of the participants regarded the employees as their customers, since a lot of effort is put on providing proper payslips and development opportunities to the employees. Some put special emphasis on the managers due to the fact, that they have to deliver the right number of people with appropriate qualification in time according to the managers requests. Those who had to deal with the workers' council were pretty close to integrate those people in their customer portfolio.

It's pretty easy: The one who pays is the customer, always. From an internal perspective that means the one who signs the salary and the bonus is the customer; full stop. First priority is to make the boss successful with ones own services.

Referring to the HR department, the HR Administrator has to deliver proper payslips in order to make the Head of HR Administration successful. He or she has to ensure proper HR administration in order to make the HR Director successful. The HR Director has to run a proper HR business to contribute to the CEO's success. Finally, the CEO himself has to ensure, that the contributions of all his internal suppliers are assembled to a total performance, which can be successfully sold to the market, where all the salaries come from. 

Being the customer of ones own staff might sound quite attractive to all managers. But be careful, acting as an internal customer is a big challenge and requires a thorough understanding of your needs and their clear communication into your organization. The less specific your communication is, the bigger the risk, that the needs are not met. On the other hand it's always also up to the service provider to take all necessary action in order to understand his customers' needs.

As long as internal customer needs are not properly communicated in a reasonable top-down approach, the company's resources are not allocated properly in order to ensure the company's sustainable success.

 Your comment is welcome

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The Human Touch

Pure Customer Orientation

"Nichts ist unmöglich" (nothing is impossible) is Toyota's slogan in Germany. In other words: The customer should always get what he wants. The interesting thing: The customer does not exactly know his needs. Therefore, the service provider should know the customer better than he knows himself. The one who knows the customer best and meets his needs, makes deal. Toyota has made it