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Friday, March 2, 2012

MANAGING CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS

The Auditing Practices Group provides guidance on effective management of customer complaints.

The effective management of customer complaints is an essential part of a quality management system, in order to provide feedback when the outputs of a QMS have not achieved the objective of providing ‘consistently conforming products’.

While there is no single clause in ISO 9001 dedicated to customer complaints handling, it is important for auditors to be aware of the various clauses of the standard which relate to this topic and which enable them to evaluate an organization’s complaints handling process.

The ISO 9001 clauses which directly or indirectly require the effective management of customer complaints (often as part of the requirements on ‘customer feedback’), include:

Clause 5.2 - requires top management to ensure that ‘customer requirements are determined and are met’
Clause 5.6 - requires management review inputs to include ‘customer feedback’ (which necessarily includes customer complaints)
Clause 7.2.3 - requires the organization to ‘determine and implement effective arrangements for communicating with customers in relation to…customer feedback, including customer complaints’
Clause 8.2.1 - requires the organization to ‘monitor information relating to customer perception as to whether the organization has met customer requirements’ – it requires the organization to proactively seek customer feedback rather than just sitting back and reacting to ‘formal complaints’ which are often few and far between because the ‘customer’ can’t be bothered or feels they are wasting their time
Clause 8.4 - requires the organization to analyse data relating to customer satisfaction – this should actually be more demanding than just responding to complaints
Clause 8.5.2 - requires a documented procedure that defines requirements for reviewing nonconformities (including customer complaints) and subsequently acting on those nonconformities to determine cause, implement corrections and corrective actions, and verify effectiveness, etc.
Throughout an audit, the auditor should look out for signs that may indicate customer dissatisfaction and which should have been addressed by the organization as part of the customer complaints handling process. Good sources of such information may include:

goods returned by the customer
warranty claims
revised invoices
credit notes
articles in the media
consumer websites
direct observation of, or communication with, the customer (for example, in a service organization).
Auditors also need to be aware of the existence of ISO 10002:2004 Quality management - Customer satisfaction - Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations and they should encourage their clients to make use of this guidance in developing their complaints handling process.

The Introduction to ISO 10002 states: ‘This international standard provides guidance for the design and implementation of an effective and efficient complaints-handling process for all types of commercial or non-commercial activities, including those related to electronic commerce.’

The process for complaints handling described in ISO 10002 can be used as an element of a quality management system.

The information obtained through the complaints-handling process can lead to improvements in products and processes and, where the complaints are properly handled, can improve the reputation of the organization (regardless of its size, location and sector). An effective and efficient complaints-handling process reflects the needs of both the organizations supplying products and those which are the recipients of those products.

The introduction to ISO 10002 states that ‘implementation of the process described in this international standard can:

provide a complainant with access to an open and responsive complaints-handling process
enhance the ability of the organization to resolve complaints in a consistent, systematic and responsive manner, to the satisfaction of the complainant and the organization
enhance the ability of an organization to identify trends and eliminate causes of complaints, and improve the organization's operations
help an organization create a customer-focused approach to resolving complaints, and encourage personnel to improve their skills in working with customers
provide a basis for continual review and analysis of the complaints handling process, the resolution of complaints, and process improvements made.
It is very important that auditors have knowledge of ISO 10002 and its guidelines, and that they use that knowledge during audits. However, ISO 10002 does not specify any requirements, but just gives guidelines. Consequently it is not possible for an auditor to raise any nonconformities against its recommendations.

Auditing of the complaints-handling process

Auditors should be able to verify that an organization has established an effective documented complaint management process. ISO 10002 recommends that when examining the performance of the complaints handling process, the auditor should assess:

the conformity of complaints-handling processes with the organization's policy and objectives
the extent to which the complaints-handling process is being followed
the ability of the existing complaints-handling process to achieve objectives
strengths and weaknesses of the complaints-handling process
outcomes of internal audits of the complaints-handling process
opportunities for improvement in the complaints-handling process and its outcomes.
Output from the management review should include:

decisions and actions related to the improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of the complaints-handling process
proposals on product improvement decisions
actions related to identified resource needs (eg training programmes) used to identify opportunities for improvement.


Source : http://www.irca.org/inform/issue32/APG2.html