The Aims of Internal Marketing

The aims of internal marketing:

Many commentators and marketing theorists have over the years been trying to provide a precise definition of the concept of internal marketing. Their efforts in doing so proved to be unsuccessful due to the development of different schools of thoughts with different opinions as to what constitutes internal marketing. Be that as it may; Wilson et al (2008, p.280); Describe internal marketing as; “A complex combination of strategies needed to ensure that service employees are willing and able to deliver quality services and that they stay motivated to perform in customer orientated, service minded ways.” They go on to suggest that; “By approaching human resource decisions and strategies from the point of view that the primary goal is to motivate and enable employees to deliver successfully customer-orientated promises, an organization will move towards delivering service quality through its people.” This point is also backed up by Grönroos when discussing the topic who points out that internal marketing should be concerned with; “Understanding the employees role in the total relationship with a customer and of each and everyone’s role and tasks in maintaining and enhancing this relationship.” (Grönroos, 2007, p.396).

Employee as customer

Berry first came up with the concept of treating employees as internal customers in the early 1980’s. He viewed jobs as internal products and used marketing techniques to improve these products. “Applying the philosophy and practice of marketing to people who serve external customers so that the best possible people can be employed and retained and that they will do the best possible work.” (Berry, 1980). This theory was based on the notion that in order ...

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...of internal marketing:

The initial concept of internal marketing, lead authors to address the practical methods of applying marketing internally within an organisation; with the intention is to facilitate the implementation of marketing plans and strategies.

Employees in service organisations, especially the front-line personnel, have an immediate effect on customer satisfaction. It is in this context that the concept of internal marketing has been developed.

Various commentators on the subject believe that internal marketing should offer a vision to all employees and that this vision should be successfully communicated. Essentially employees need to understand how their work contributes to the organization and they need to understand and believe in the goals to which they contribute (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991; Cahill, 1995; Kotler & Keller, 2006).