Description

Internal Service Relations: Mapping Your Internal Customers, Committing and Cooperating

Handling requests from other departments with the same rigour as those from external clients

  • 2 days — 14 h
  • In-person or virtual
  • Foundation
  • Up to 6 participants

Support functions work for departments that are not ordinary customers: they cannot take their business elsewhere. Requests arrive incomplete and all marked urgent, turnaround times are stated nowhere, and every incident revives the complaint that support never responds. The quality of service delivered to the end customer eventually suffers.

Two days to map your internal customers, write service commitments you can actually honour, scope a request before processing it and settle disagreements between departments without escalating to management. This session addresses day-to-day practice for team members; managerial steering is covered in a dedicated format.

Learning objectives

  • Map your internal customers and the services they genuinely expect
  • Formulate a service commitment that is clear and realistic to honour
  • Rephrase a vague internal request to fix its scope and turnaround time
  • Communicate a refusal or a constrained deadline without damaging cooperation
  • Resolve a disagreement between departments without recourse to management arbitration
  • Collect feedback from internal customers and turn it into concrete actions

What makes this programme different

The map of request flows between departments is built during the session from participants' real cases
A service commitment is drafted and then tested against concrete requests
Scoping conversations are role-played in pairs as support department and requesting department

Programme

1Internal customers and the services they expect

Moving beyond the unspoken

  • Identifying internal customer departments and request flows
  • The gap between the service delivered and the expectation expressed
  • Effects of a poorly scoped request on workload
  • The internal service chain through to the external customer

2Formalising service commitments

Say what you do and honour it

  • Describing a service in terms of the expected outcome
  • Choosing turnaround times and channels for submitting requests
  • Conditions for success expected from the requesting department
  • Communicating the commitment to the teams concerned

3Processing an internal request

Scope before you execute

  • Scoping questions on the need and the level of urgency
  • Rephrasing and validating the scope
  • Announcing a deadline or a well-argued refusal
  • Keeping the requester informed during processing

4Cooperation and disagreements between departments

Settling friction at the right level

  • Analysing recurring tensions between two departments
  • Handling a disagreement over priorities
  • Providing feedback after a service incident
  • Ground rules negotiated and sustained over time

Who is it for

Team members in support functions such as IT · human resources · procurement · accounting and facilities management · as well as any team working on behalf of other departments.

Prerequisites

No prior knowledge required

Dates & locations

36 scheduled dates between November 2026 and December 2027. Seats are confirmed in the order enquiries are received.

November 2026

December 2026

January 2027

February 2027

March 2027

April 2027

May 2027

June 2027

September 2027

October 2027

November 2027

December 2027

None of these dates suit you? We open additional sessions on request, and any programme can be run privately for your team.

Practical details

Before the programme
Online positioning questionnaire. Your development objectives are shared with the trainer, who tailors the practical case studies to your context.
Teaching methods
Theoretical input, workshops and practical case studies. Digital course materials and method sheets provided.
Assessment
Multiple-choice tests and role-play exercises. Assessment of learning at the start and end of the programme, with immediate and 60-day follow-up evaluations.
After the programme
One year of access to the e-learning platform. Self-assessment of the skills acquired and a 30-day follow-up session with your trainer.
How to register
Registration online or on the basis of a quotation.
Lead time
11 working days after confirmation of registration.
Accessibility
Accessible to people of determination. Contact our accessibility coordinator to design a suitable solution: contact@mpf-academy.ae
Start dates
Rolling intake: in addition to the scheduled sessions, this programme can start on request.