Quality of service provided to the customers is a very important part of ensuring the success of your business in today's competitive world. However, customer satisfaction today, according to several experts, is dependent on employee satisfaction. Internal service quality is the key to external service quality. In other words, if your employees are satisfied with the services they have been given, the chances of them providing excellent services to your customers are high. Under these circumstances, it is important to understand what is meant by quality of internal services as well as how you can improve those.
Meaning
Service quality is defined as the assessment of performance of any organization. As mentioned earlier, this can be with regard to both internal as well as external services. Service quality is measured differently by different experts. One such measure is the GAP model, which talks about service quality as the gap between the expectations of the customers and their perceptions. It is assumed that if this gap is smaller, the quality of service is better. While service quality checks are often done externally, it is important to conduct them internally as well. Internal service quality is achieved through the process of internal marketing, where employers attract, motivate, develop and retain qualified employees while ensuring their maximum satisfaction.
Dimensions
When dealing with internal service quality, it is important to understand the dimensions that need to be marketed to ensure maximum profitability. These include factors like creating a good work environment, which in turn will lead to increased satisfaction and ultimately increased productivity.
· - Job satisfaction: One of the most important dimensions that will help measure internal service quality is job satisfaction. This in turn is measured by assessing the varied skills required for accomplishing the job. Additionally, it is important to ensure that the employees are handed the job right from the start to the finish. Significance of the job in question, which includes the contributive value towards overall profitability, will also play an important role in ensuring job satisfaction. Freedom and independence allowed to an employee while completing a job also affects satisfaction. Finally, feedback plays an important role in ensuring that the employee stays motivated.
· - Workplace design: How the hours of work are designed plays a role on the impact it will have on external service quality. Clear cut office hours will improve reliability and responsiveness of the employees while also ensuring their empathy towards customers. Similarly, their work spaces should ensure ergonomic sitting arrangements, proper lighting and sound etc while also allowing them to be comfortable while they work. They should essentially feel as if they belong to the workplace and have some control over what they do. This is very important from a psychological point of view.
· - Employee recruitment and development: If you want to give good services to your customers, it is important to hire the right kind of people while also ensuring their proper training and development. Hiring people with the right skill set and mindset, and training them properly will ensure that they behave better and respond well.
Internal service quality has several attributes and factors, all of which essentially go into ensuring that the employees are happy and satisfied. The final fact still remains that a happy employee will ensure a happy customer, which in turn would bring profits and success to the business.
