Driving Service Excellence – Internal Customer Satisfaction Survey

The phrase, ‘a well-oiled machine’ has special significance for this company with interests across the region in Vessel Operating, Marine Services, and Oil & Gas Fabrication. Given that the business was scaling rapidly and fostered strong indications of continued growth in the next few years, it was imperative that functions significantly stepped up their capabilities to support the upward path. By ensuring internal service excellence from support functions, the Client would set a stable platform for the business to enable sustainable growth ahead of the market curve.

We partnered the HR team and identified the critical service areas for each support function that needed focus and improvement. We studied the existing systems, policies, and practices and drafted a detailed questionnaire to assess internal customer satisfaction levels with the services provided. Employees across the Group participated in the survey, recording their assessment of service levels provided by each of the support functions. The survey was also a tool for the respondents to provide suggestions for betterment in a structured and non-threatening way. The responses were tabulated, and reports generated to determine the satisfaction levels against benchmarks, for each of the critical service areas for support functions. The leads of each support function then setup review teams to develop actionable plans and timelines to exceed service level expectations from internal customers across the Group including the budgets and other resources required to deliver. The initiative and communication around it served to increase the focus on service excellence as a core theme within the Group strategy.

Through the process, each support function was able to identify specific areas for improvement, as well as obtain feedback and suggestions directly from internal customers. This provided the necessary impetus for teams to draw up focussed improvement plans and deliver on the same ahead of other teams – A sort of an internal competition to meet benchmarks. Further, the whole process

had a significant effect on the employee engagement levels and laid the foundation for the Group to progress rapidly on the path of long-term, sustainable growth.