How to Structure Internal Customer Focus Groups
Larger organizations have internal customers as well as external customers. This is because the external customer will generally only deal with one team in the organization--such as sales or customer service. Interactions that follow involve internal customers. When the sales team gives the order to the administration team, then they effectively become the administration team's customer. When the administration team passes it on to the warehouse, the administration team becomes the warehouse's customer.
One way to examine how well your organization is carrying out its internal customer service is with a focus group. These groups need to be carefully structured to get the answers you need.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Determine whose opinions and impressions will give you a good sampling. This means you may not necessarily want to create a focus group that is only team leaders--these men and women have more of a stake in their opinions than regular employees do. However, they also have a higher-level understanding of what goes on, so it is up to you whether your focus group will consist of all employees, all supervisors or a mix.
-
2
Meet your participants face-to-face beforehand and establish an informal atmosphere. This is particularly useful if the participants don't know each other.
-
-
3
Ask open-ended questions to establish context. These questions should involve what kind of work the participants do and what their impressions of internal customer service are.
-
4
Ask open-ended key information questions. These should address the issues you've previously established.
-
5
Ask open-ended probe questions.These should elaborate on the key information answers.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Don't be afraid of deviating from a script. Your job is to gather information, not stick to a pre-set series of questions.
