Understanding Customer Value: How Your Team’s Performance Impacts Success 

By Gerry Murray 

Whether your team interacts directly with customers or operates behind the scenes, their performance ultimately affects the customer experience. Every team — whether sales, IT, finance, or operations — plays a role in delivering value. So how can you ensure your team understands the broader impact of their work? 
 
In this article, we’ll explore: 

• How both direct and indirect roles impact customer satisfaction. 
• The importance of internal customers and their role in the overall success. 
• Practical strategies to align your team’s performance with customer success.   

How Does Your Team Impact Customer Satisfaction — Directly and Indirectly? 

You might be wondering: if my team isn’t on the front lines with customers, how do we influence their experience? The truth is, whether your team works in sales or IT, marketing or operations, the customer’s satisfaction is shaped by everyone’s performance. Here’s how: 

• Direct Customer Interaction: Teams like sales, marketing, and customer service have obvious connections to customer satisfaction. These are the roles that engage with customers directly, and how well they communicate, resolve issues, and deliver products or services directly shapes the customer’s perception of the company. 
   
• Indirect Customer Support: Even if your team doesn’t interact with customers face-to-face, their work still impacts the customer experience. For instance, IT keeps systems running smoothly so customers have a seamless experience online, and finance ensures payments and transactions happen efficiently. A delay or mistake behind the scenes can ripple out to affect the customer’s experience with your brand. 
   

Understanding this chain of impact helps your team connect their everyday tasks to the broader goal of customer satisfaction. 

Who Are Your Internal and External Customers? 

Every role in your company has both internal and external customers. Here’s how to think about the two and why they both matter: 

• Internal Customers: These are the colleagues or teams who depend on your team’s work to achieve their own objectives. For example, the sales department might rely on marketing for promotional materials, or HR might depend on IT to keep payroll systems functioning. Ensuring your team delivers quality work to internal customers creates a positive chain reaction throughout the organization.
• External Customers: These are the people or companies who purchase and use your products or services. For customer-facing teams, the link is obvious: their performance directly affects how the customer perceives the brand. But even for back-end teams, external customers still feel the effects. A procurement delay could mean a missed delivery to a customer; a technical issue could disrupt an online transaction. 
  

Everyone in the company ultimately serves the end customer, whether directly or indirectly. 

How Can You Help Your Team Understand Their Impact on Customer Success? 

To align your team’s work with customer success, they need to understand the ripple effects of their performance — whether their customer is internal or external. Here are some strategies to make this connection clear: 

• Share the Big Picture: Help your team see how their work fits into the bigger company mission. For example, explain how accurate data from finance enables better business decisions, or how quick IT solutions enable a seamless customer service experience. When employees see how their efforts contribute to customer satisfaction, they feel more connected to their work. 
  
• Gather and Share Feedback: Whether it’s feedback from internal or external customers, sharing comments (positive and negative) helps your team understand the impact of their work. Internal customer feedback might come from colleagues in other departments, while external feedback could come from customer reviews or surveys. This ensures accountability and helps your team feel invested in their role. 
  
• Customer-Centric Training: Even for teams not directly interacting with customers, customer-centric training can help them understand the standards and expectations that drive satisfaction. Whether it’s understanding how different departments contribute to the customer journey or learning how their role supports customer-facing teams, this training helps internalize the importance of customer value. 
  

By helping your team understand their role in delivering value to both internal and external customers, you foster a mindset that prioritizes customer success.

How Can You Improve Customer Satisfaction Through Team Performance? 

Whether your team is on the front lines with customers or working behind the scenes, you can drive customer-focused performance by fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement: 

• Foster Collaboration Across Departments: Many issues affecting customers require collaboration across teams. For example, customer service might need IT’s help to resolve a system error, or sales might need product updates from operations. Encourage cross-department teamwork to ensure internal processes run smoothly, which ultimately improves the external customer experience. 
  
• Recognize Customer-Focused Behavior: Acknowledge employees who go above and beyond for both internal and external customers. Whether it’s someone who steps in to solve a cross-functional issue or an employee who delivers exceptional service to a customer, recognizing these actions reinforces a culture that values customer success at every level. 
  
• Encourage Continuous Improvement: Set regular performance reviews that focus on how your team can improve efficiency and quality. Whether it’s delivering better service to internal departments or optimizing processes that impact external customers, a mindset of continuous improvement drives long-term customer satisfaction. 
  

By aligning your team’s performance with both internal and external customer needs, you create a culture that consistently delivers value, ensuring customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

Master the Essentials

• Every team, whether customer-facing or not, plays a critical role in the company’s customer experience. 
  
• Help your team understand the importance of both internal and external customers and how their work impacts customer satisfaction. 
  
• Drive customer-focused performance by fostering collaboration, sharing feedback, and promoting continuous improvement. 

This article is adapted from our Team Leader Essentials program. To learn more about this program download our brochure or book a short call. 

Next Article: Mastering Performance Management: Four Key Principles for New Managers.

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