According to the managers interviewed, banks are in a better position to satisfy
their external customers by first designing internal products that satisfy the needs
of the internal customers. By satisfying such internal needs, UK retail banks hope
to enhance employees’ ability to, among others but primarily so, deliver external
customer satisfaction. At the heart of the Internal Marketing initiatives within these
organisations is the view that the needs of internal customers must be first fulfilled,
prior to and as a pre-requisite for satisfying the needs of external customers. To do
so, most of the banks under the study have embarked on internal market research in
an attempt to identify, assess, and measure internal customer expectations in terms
of, for example, employees’ needs and concerns, internal service quality levels and
internal service quality gaps. One of the branch managers said: