Dealing With the Internal Customers’ Attitude

My brother-in-law is currently undergoing training in his new office. Two weeks ago, he told me of an incident where a trainer who is an advocate of mutual respect for internal and external customer customers, slapped a trainee! He was shocked beyond belief, but I told him I was not surprised. The biggest challenge of customer service delivery in Nigeria is the disrespect from the internal customers.
It is saddening- but not surprising- that the internal customers are so good at describing excellent customer service steps, but hardly remember to practice what they preach. It is even more saddening that customer service professionals are also guilty of this. As my brother-in-law wondered what could have made the ‘gentle’ trainer do what he did, I told him the trainer has an attitude problem.

Many of us believe that we are currently involved in our present vocation by accident. For us, we are more intelligent than what we are currently being paid to do, and as such, we detach ourselves from the job. We may be very good and indispensable on the job, but that personal joy is lacking. The effect of this is that our job- and the people who are involved in getting our job done- does not in any way impact on our attitude. I have seen geniuses whose attitude towards other people is nauseating!

But be that as it may, customer service professionals must learn to do away with sentiments. There are people who have serious attitude disorder in my organization, but I don’t let them get to me. My focus is the satisfaction of customers, and I always make sure that nobody disrupts that. The truth of the matter is that if I allow a colleague’s attitude affect me negatively, it will rub off on the customers and adversely affect my appraisal.

Like I told my brother-in-law, it is impossible for all your colleagues to like you; but our attitude will determine if any form of dislike towards us is justified or not. A colleague is an internal customer, and must be managed just like the external customers. That’s what I do, and it works for me.