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Keywords
Public libraries, Internal marketing, Employees, Library users
Abstract
Reports a survey undertaken in 2001 which examined employee satisfaction and customer orientation in a sample of six public library authorities in London. It forms part of a larger investigation into the evolution of internal marketing within these organisations.
Introduction
Rafiq and Ahmed (2000) outline three phases in the evolution of internal marketing within organisations. One phase, the strategic perspective, was addressed in an earlier paper (Broady-Preston and Steel, 2002). The remaining two phases, namely employee satisfaction and customer orientation, are examined in this paper, using the results of the survey undertaken in the summer of 2001 with a sample of six public library authorities in London (Broady-Preston and Steel, 2002).
In a service organisation the "employee-customer" interaction is a critical factor in the customer's perception of service quality. When Berry (1981) first devised the term, internal marketing, he focused primarily on organisational views of the role of the employee in creating perceptions of service quality, proposing that organisations should view employees as they would customers; in other words, they should become "internal customers". Naturally, the skills and customer orientation of employees are all of crucial importance in developing customers' perceptions of the service. Indeed, as Gilmore and Carson (1995) suggest, all employees must have a customer orientation and a willingness to serve customers if the organisation's marketing strategy is to be successful. However, Berry (1981) believes that employees must be satisfied with their job, their organisational environment, and their relationships with their employer and other employees, before they can serve the customer effectively (Foreman and Money, 1995). His philosophy is that organisations are increasing their chances of satisfying the needs and wants of customers by meeting the needs and wants of employees:
Investing in people quality, in a service business, is investing in "product" quality (Berry, 1981, p. 278).
Thus, as Berry and Parasuraman (1991) assert, internal marketing is the management philosophy of treating employees as customers.
Greene et al. (1994) state that internal marketing should therefore be concerned with promoting the organisation and its product or service to employees. Improving employee satisfaction will also have the related effect of improving customer satisfaction (Frost and Kumar, 2000). Many authors have highlighted...