Over 20 years ago internal marketing was first proposed as a solution to the problem of delivering consistently high service quality. However, despite the rapidly growing literature, very few organisations actually implement the concept in practice as there does not, as yet, exist a single unified concept of what is meant by internal marketing. Critically examines the internal marketing concept and delineates its scope by tracing the major developments in the concept since its inception. The literature review suggests three major phases in the development of the concept, namely an employee motivation and satisfaction phase, a customer orientation phase, and a strategy implementation/change management phase. Proposes a definition and a set of core criteria that are essential features of an internal marketing program. Also explores the interrelationship between the proposed criteria and suggests a framework for empirical investigation of the IM concept in the context of services marketing. Discusses managerial implications arising from the proposed definition and model of internal marketing.

Advances in the internal marketing concept: definition, synthesis and extension

Presents an interdisciplinary literature review and research agenda and suggests a number of propositions, in advance of new fieldwork, to discover a revised or new theory of internal marketing as it relates to organizational change management. The literature on marketing, services marketing, corporate strategy, total quality management, operations management, human resource management, and organizational development reveals a body of work referring to or describing an “internal marketing” concept or internal customer concept. This seems to have grown out of an organizational internal communications perspective and the notion of an “inner market” in the organization comprising “internal customers”. Provides an extensive overview of tactical and strategic issues relating to internal marketing. Presents a resulting model and includes a comprehensive bibliography is included, with suggestions for some themes for possible fruitful research in this area of change management and service quality management.

Internal marketing: a review and some interdisciplinary research challenges

Purpose – The purposes of this paper are to examine whether internal market orientation facilitates the development of external market capabilities, before influencing organizational performance, and to investigate whether learning orientation strengthens the aforementioned link. Design/methodology/approach – This study collected data through a survey and utilized moderated hierarchical regression analysis to examine the hypothesized relationships. Findings – Internal market orientation facilitates the development of both market capabilities and in turn enhances organizational performance. The result also shows that customer-linking capability is a stronger mediator between internal market orientation and organizational performance. Besides, learning orientation does not moderate the relationship between internal market orientation and external market capabilities. Research limitations/implications – This study only examines two market capabilities; considers only internal market orientation and does not ...

Internal market orientation, market capabilities and learning orientation

https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=ww-management-science

Customer service in the aviation industry – An exploratory analysis of UAE airports

Purpose – This paper aims: to provide practical insights into how organisations can become more customer‐focussed; to share with researchers and organisations a framework that can be used to research “customer focus culture” and assess an organisation's level of customer focus; to describe how New Zealand's first consortium approach to benchmarking was managed so that others interested in planning a consortium study can learn from this experience.Design/methodology/approach – The benchmarking study was conducted by member organisations of the New Zealand Benchmarking Club and facilitated by a doctoral student from Massey University's Centre for Organisational Excellence Research. The methodology involved conducting an extensive literature review to identify national and international best practices in customer focus, developing a survey that was completed by 32 potential best practice organisations, and selecting seven of these organisations for a best practice visit.Findings – A framework for the examina...

Best practices in achieving a customer‐focused culture

Customer service is now playing a vital role in every company′s attempt to improve the quality of its offering. Based on a number of real‐life projects carried out by the Marketing Improvements Group across many industry sectors, explores three main issues: why companies need a customer service culture; how to create and, more importantly, sustain the culture once developed; why having a good customer service culture is worth the time and resource investment. Also describes the process through which companies should go, in order to achieve a customer‐service culture change. These include: gaining the commitment of the whole company; the identification of the key issues; the establishment of causes; identifying how to change behaviour.

Richard A. Martin

Papers

Creating, Maintaining and Reinforcing a Customer Service Culture