tomers, then it must be prepared to do a great job with its employees.
Unhappy employees will make for unhappy customers, so unless
employees can be successfully taken care of, the success of the organ-
ization on its ultimate, external markets will be jeopardized.
According to Gronroos, it is not enough to have customer-con-
scious employees for effective service delivery, there must also be
coordination between front-line staff and back-office staff.^26 Internal
marketing is, therefore, seen as a way of integrating various func-
tions to enable staff to work together across functional boundaries
and aligning those cross-functional teams with internal and external
customer needs and expectations, so that their work is attuned to the
company’s mission, strategy and goals. This gives rise to ‘the notion
of the internal customer. That is, every person working within an
organisation is both a supplier and a customer.’^27 This largely fits
with the TQM approach, where the emphasis is on relationships
between employees themselves, who make demands upon each
other in their efforts to improve quality. The main concern then
becomes one of improving customer service and quality at an indi-
vidual ‘exchange’ level. The internal exchanges between the organi-
zation and its employee groups must be operating effectively along
the entire length of the supply chain before the organization can be
successful in achieving its goals regarding its external markets. All
employees then, in fact, are part of the process which connects with
the customer at the point of sale or ‘moment of truth’.^16
Judd categorizes different levels of staff within the organization
depending on the degree and type of contact they have with exter-
nal customers:^1
● Contactors: employees who have direct frequent or periodic customer
contact
● Modifiers: employees who have less direct frequent or periodic cus-
tomer contact which is usually not face to face
● Influencers: employees who traditionally have no direct contact with cus-
tomers although they may make many decisions in relation to cus-
tomers
● Isolateds: employees who have no customer contact at all.
According to Judd, the ‘contactors’ are not the only people who are
involved in service delivery. However, their ability to function effec-
tively depends to a great extent on the support they get from other
employees from within the firm. Often there is a large number of
The recruitment and internal market domains 315