Whether planned or not, your Shared Services organization has one or more terms that you use to describe your internal clients  – the other employees of your company that whom the organization interacts.  While it may seem trivial, the terms you use can set the tone for interactions and contribute both positively and negatively to your organization’s performance.

In addition to picking a common term, many have gone the extra step to define various sponsors, partners, and users of services based on their role and specific needs and interests.  Properly segmenting the various roles can be helpful to best match services with delivery requirements that are within the company and outside of the Shared Services organization.

A recent iPolling^TM question asked, “What description best matches how your Shared Services organization refers to internal clients?”  With over 80 companies responding, 67% use either the term “Customers” or “Internal Customers”, with only 7% using some form of the term “Clients”.    After “Customers”, the second most popular term, at 20% was “Business Partners”.  While a popular description, no one was formally using the term “End User”.

The poll generated a lot of discussions.  Here are some of the supporting comments from members:

1.      We used to call them Customers, but that implies that we are not a part of the “entity” but a sub-set of it. Calling them our Business Partners aligns us all.

2.      We use all of these terms depending upon the context. End Users are anyone within the network using subject applications, so more in a context of an IT solution. All the others I have seen used in our organization, as they all have appropriate connotations. Customers/Clients tend to indicate “them” and we try to communicate that we are the Business Partners that provide a service to the organization.

3.      The term “Customer” we reserve for external parties who are true customers. “End Users” is a term we use only in the context of systems. “Client” is most commonly used for internal parties serviced by our Shared Business Services organization, although we do also use “Business Partner” to a lesser extent.

4.      We refer to them as Stakeholders.

5.      We use “Clients” and “Customers” interchangeably dependent on the context of where the word is being used to avoid ambiguity when we’re referring to “store retail customers”.

6.      We use the term “Associates”.

7.      Normally, both external and internal users are referred to/treated as Customers.

8.      Customers and Internal Customers are both used, but we prefer Internal Customers to distinguish the customers of Shared Services from customers that place orders to buy our products.

9.      For our European operations, we use the term “Internal Customer”.

10.  Our focus is on service delivery and we consider internal or external parties as “Customers”.  Internal Customers are just as critical to our success as external customers are to the overall success of the company.

One our more experienced members, who have led Shared Service initiatives at multiple companies, provided a more detailed description, summarized below:

“Collectively, they are Clients. Customers are typically external and Clients are internal, but we differentiate between the five types of clients in Shared Services. We specifically separate governance between the groups.

1.   Buyer – Balances the service and costs. Most educated role in shared services. Understands both the services and the costs to deliver. In a position to make decisions about the balance of service performance and cost. Typically at Director or Senior Director level. Rarely above a VP or below a Director.

2.   User – Wants the best service possible, and doesn’t care about cost. Cares about ease of use and responsiveness. Has little or no concept of the costs within a service.

3.   Payer – Wants the lowest cost possible and doesn’t care about service. Typically responsible for cost measurement, cost allocation, productivity, etc. Rarely has a deep understanding of the service or what it contributes to the business. Usually someone in the Controller’s office or a functional finance lead.

4.   Process Partner – Partners with the provider to deliver the service and cares most about interoperability of processes and the ease of doing business. Sees the importance of RACI (a matrix that segments “Responsible, Accountable, Consulting, and Informed), OLA (Operational Level Agreements), and cost-shifting (in “productivity” projects that shift cost upstream or downstream).

5.   Stakeholder – Focuses on overall value and cares about the net business contribution of the service. Measured on business performance, not functional or service performance. Typically VP or above.”

While it may seem trivial, how members of Shared Services refer to other employees in the company is an important consideration.   While the categories and descriptions you use may be different, as described above, further segmenting clients into groups where you define their needs and priorities is also likely to be a very worthwhile exercise.

What description best matches how your Shared Services organization refers to internal clients? 

Who are your peers and how are you collaborating with them?

¹ “iPolling^TM” is available exclusively to Peeriosity member company employees, with consultants or vendors prohibited from participating or accessing content. Members have full visibility of all respondents and their comments. Using Peeriosity’s integrated email system, Peer Mail^TM, members can easily communicate at any time with others who participated in the iPoll.