I have a client who design, product and install solid waste disposal facilities. How can I meet in this case the customer satisfaction requirement, being the impact of these kind of plants obviously hard?

In my opinion I can only try to reduce customer dissatisfaction by eliminating any kind of emission or leakage, but not definitely obtain people happy (delighted or over delighted???) with this.

What’s your opinion about this?

What does the customer expect? Perhaps a facility, delivered on time, at cost, and with all expected bells and whistles? A facility without leaking ceilings and waste tanks perhaps. Difficult to say.

I would suggest that you ask the customers, new and old, what they consider to be key driving factors of Customer Satisfaction. Determine these, create measures, and measure.

Regards,

Kevin

I agree you should ask your customers.

I have seen companies do many things from customer surveys -to- considering / evaluating customer complaints -to- evaluation of bids to repeat customers / contracts won from these bids. ...eliminating any kind of emission or leakage...I would think this is more of a function of customer requirements (design input). Not meeting customer requirements in this case would lead to a failure of design validation (operation in the customer's plant - I'm sure you can't validate prior to installation) which would lead to a customer complaint. This might indicate an ineffective design verification. Customer complaints are (or should be) a component of every customer satisfaction evaluation.

[This message has been edited by Marc Smith (edited 15 April 2000).]

OK, I'll weigh in here. I have a similar problem. I work for a State Government Safety Authority. We are responsible for ensuring the safety of Commercial Boats, and we have 3 main customer groups. There are the boat operators, to whom we are an annoyance that costs them more money. We would most satisfy them by simply disappearing. There is the minister who, well he is a politician and wouldn’t know his…I’ll stop there as this is a public forum and I need my job. But by far the biggest group of customers (and I’m still trying to convince upper management of this) are the general public, the users of the boats and waterways. For the most part these people just want to be safe and until something goes wrong, do not know we even exist, or need to in my mind. I think that publicity campaigns, mail-outs, questionnaires etc would be a waste of public money.
Therein lies my problem, one group of customers want’s us to just go away while the other group don’t know we exist. (I won’t count the politician). I know we need to look at customer feedback but I know I won’t get any support from upper management if we are only going to be going to the boat operators. They see it as an exercise in dropping our pants and bending over for a free kick.
Any suggestions from the group?

James Gutherson

James,

I don't think this is a problem. I had similar experience some 5 years back. We had a association which was working for (and still working for) benefit of a particular section of the business society. The funny part was the business society for which the association was started did not like us and they told us there is no need for such an association. Remember, the subscription fee to be paid by them was peanuts (around 2 US $ per year!!).

But today, the association is in its 16th year of service and almost every member of that particular business community is the member today and this association has become the second largest association in my home town (Chennai in South India).

It took a lot out of us to promote this association as we were fighting against the goverment for some benefits and the local police against their harresment.

So, don't give up just harress(!) them by asking what you could do better for their well being, and one-day they may realise the need for such an association....

Good luck!

Kannan

[This message has been edited by eskay (edited 17 April 2000).]

James got the problem (even if from an “upside down” view), in fact in my case there is only one customer, the government authority, and as a consequence, the real final customers are people living near the facilities, breathing the air and drinking water in that zone. Like in James’ example, the simple presence of that kind of plant is for them a reason of dissatisfaction. I also agree with James that sending surveys to that people would be only a loss of money with no useful information from it, in fact, people would do everything to see that facility removed, including filling customers surveys with groundless complaints.
Kevin and Marc suggested a correct way, but there is a particular kind of business in which the only requirements that can be met deal with tolerance and not with satisfaction.

Originally posted by Francesco:

...but there is a particular kind of business in which the only requirements that can be met deal with tolerance and not with satisfaction.I disagree. The issue ultimately is not whether you can keep your customers happy, but rather can you keep them happier than they would have been (are they less dissatisfied this year than they were last year). One way is to link customer satisfaction (in part) to what you perceive customer expectations to be (including ductomer inputs).

Thanks Marc, Kannan, Franceso. My problem is similar to Franceso's in that there is a customer group (boat operators) that will never be happy.

We are the "law enforcers" here (and a monopoly, they have to come through us) and to this customer group all we do is make them spend more money (on maintenace, equipment, crew etc) to meet our requirements which affects their profits. Unfortunately they are the customer that know we exist.

The larger customer group is the general public, who while they are "on our side", they do not know we exist, and really don't need to. It would be a waste of tax payers money to educate the public so that they can tell us we are doing a good job. If we do a good job there are no accidents and they have no reason to know about us.

We are attempting to make the experience for the boat operators less painful by improving our procedures, but we are doing this really from our point of view. There is a small amount of feedback from a few of the larger clients (the State Goverment owned Ferry's and the good Tourist Fleets), but mostly we are guessing what they want.

I will never get support for sending out customer satisfaction surveys with every permit we produce, as 99.99% would be "get out of the way and let us run our business". This would be very demoralising for the department as well as being political dynamite.

Does anyone have experience with a hostile customer group.

Let’s take a simple example of customer survey: it will include rating degrees going from INADEQUATE to MINIMUM ACCETTABLE to EXCELLENT it means that I have a negative level, a zero level and a positive level.

I simply say two things:

1) organizations like mine and James’ could reach at their best the zero level
2) customer surveys sent to final customers fail (in these cases) because they give information not based on facts, but on (bad) opinion

For the rest, I agree with you, Marc.

Originally posted by Francesco:

Let’s take a simple example of customer survey: it will include rating degrees going from INADEQUATE to MINIMUM ACCETTABLE to EXCELLENT it means that I have a negative level, a zero level and a positive level.
I simply say two things:
1) organizations like mine and James’ could reach at their best the zero levelI think you're being pessimistic. 2) customer surveys sent to final customers fail (in these cases) because they give information not based on facts, but on (bad) opinionMany customer survery returned are not completed by assessing facts, I'll bet. When I complete one I don't go to a database for precise info. I answer with what I know. I'll admit facts can play a part.

I will say I am not unfamiliar with what you are saying. I have had very few clients who were happy with ISO9000. They think it's a government thing (ultimately), even though we know its not. Many are extremely hostile. That doesn't stop me from asking for their opinion of my services. I don't like the IRS but if I'm sent a survey I'll fill it out.

Have either of you sent out a questionaire? What was the content (what questions)? What were the results?

I don't know if this applies, but our company makes a solid safety related product. Angry customers have anything from explosions to inoperative equipment.
However, we're the 'Cadillac' of the industry based on our sales and distribution network and customer support. Even if the customer doesn't 'like' your product, he can still appreciate it.
The easiest way to make that happen is through your direct customer interface, sales, technical support, etc. You have to help your customer forget about you and deal with the more pleasant aspects of his life.
He'll remember that later. I know, I used to be one of my current co.'s customers.

Originally posted by AJPaton:

...based on our sales and distribution network and customer support.Important input!

Posteed by: lmfoong
Posted 12 September 2000 12:06 AM *** **** ** **
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forum members,

I wish to seek better understanding of the requirement of 8.3

----Editor's Note: 8.3 is Control of Nonconformity -- I think he means 8.2.1----

which requires organization to measure customer satisfaction and/or dissatication.
I agreed that the 1994 version somewhat measures this "new" requirement in the form of "customer complaints handling". However, would it be adequate to understand the customer only based on this information. My rationale is that customer who make complaints may not indicate dissatisfaction because those who does may still satisfied and continue to have business with you. And on the other hand, customer who don't make complaints may not be satisfied but choose not to complain.

Based on the above, how would an ISO auditor or an organization determine customer satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction from the customer complaints.

------------------
Thanks and Best Regards

lmfoong

As a starter, you might want to take a read through this discussion thread: ISO 9001 - Meeting the INTENT vs. Meeting the REQUIREMENT (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=2471)

> Unfortunately, the year 2000 version (FDIS)has blinked. The Customer
> Satisfaction measurement still allows the option to measure
> dissatisfaction. Many companies will continue to try and measure
> 'satisfaction' by looking at customer complaints and warranty claims.
> Once again we have managed to shoot ourselves in the foot.

This was taken from the latter part of that thread.

Can somebody throw light on " How to measure customer satisfaction in ISO 9000:2000?

The simplest and easiest is a Customer Satisfaction Survey. Im sure that their is a consultancy out there somewhere that will take your shirt to explain how to set one-up. Personally if you doing this for the first time i would throw one together and get it out. There is a lot of value to be had simply from asking your customers if they are happy (Wow 'Plonker Widgets inc' are interested to know what we think of them), or from your employees knowing that you are looking at Customer Satisfaction ('Wow theyre asking our customers if we are doing a good job').

If you are doing this for the first time, you will be amazed at how much value you will get from simply doing this, without even analysing the content of the results.

As time goes by and you gather more experience you can always develope the survey.

For interest i would suggest a 10-15 question survey, using questions that have to be rated numerically ie 1 to 10, offer a prize for returning it, and thank the customers who return it and tell them who won the prizes.

Regards

------------------
Andy B

In a review workshop I attended last week on the ISO9K:2K FDIS there is now a requirement on "Customer Perception." Can anyone shed some light on this?

It's in 1 Scope of the DIS. You take customer complaints and contrast them with what your company states are customer requirements.

A few suggestions/comments on doing a customer satisfaction survey.

A response rate of around 10% is not unusual.

Use a forced rating scale. Use only an even number of choice so they can not pick the one in the middle (safe choice).

Minimize the number of instances where they have to actually write something. People will respond to check boxes much better.

be very careful how you word the questions. Asking how your 'service' compares to the competition may elicit a positive response when in fact they rate all of you low. Remember Tom Peters' quote 'We are no worse than anyone else'.

Finally, as Andy says, just do it. The fact that you are asking will be perceived as positive by your customers. The potential negative will be if you do not respond to their input.

Good luck http://www.16949.com/ubb/smile.gif

Originally posted by Andy Bassett:
...There is a lot of value to be had simply from asking your customers if they are happy (Wow 'Plonker Widgets inc' are interested to know what we think of them), or from your employees knowing that you are looking at Customer Satisfaction ('Wow theyre asking our customers if we are doing a good job')...



I believe you are right on this! Anyone can confirm this: how often are YOU asked about how happy you are with a product or service? How often are customer complaints/praise shared with the workforce?

Why is your organization any different from the masses who will sell you something and never ask about your experience? You have to ask, IMHO. Otherwise, you are led by your own perceptions which can be DEAD wrong.

Surveys are a start, but more can be gained from telephone conversations or face-to-face visits I think. But these aren't always the most practical either. Find the solution that fits your need and means.

Two types of feedback: solicited and unsolicited. Both are necessary. As I recall, solicited feedback is generally regarded as outbound, you're reaching out for feedback. Inbound is the unsolicited type, and in general, negative (claims, complaints, calls come in). Occasionally, you get the letter from a satisfied Customer, you know, the one that is soon posted by the copier in the mailroom.

Keep in mind that a Satisfied Customer isn't necessarily a Loyal Customer. A loyal customer is the next level, and highly desirable. Driving factors for one group isn't necessarily in the other. When tailoring your survey, keep this in mind. Addionally, Andy's suggestion at a short survey is a good one. No one wants to sit down and fill out a three page survey (well, perhaps a few of us Quality folks), at least, not for free. I once heard from a Lucent Technologies customer service manager state that their survey takes approximately 45 minutes to complete. They send this out to 2000 customers. I wonder how many of those surveys got filled out and returned? They would had to have one incredible prize attached, a trip to Hawaii perhaps! Could this be the right length though (coming from a Westinghouse background?)? I don't know, but remain skeptical.

Back to the group.....

Regards,

Kevin

1) What methods could be used to gather the information on customer
satisfaction & dissatisfaction ?
2) What are the advantagrs and disadvantages of these methodologies ?

I'll start out with a few existing threads:

Take a read through Customer Satisfaction Measures? (http://elsmar.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000056.html) and customer satisfaction questionnaire (http://elsmar.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000334.html) .

Here's an old one from Charlie:

I like Charlies PS.... And I agree with Charlie. ASK them!

-----snippo-----

Subject: Re: Q:Revised standards/Cox/Kiely/Howe/Scalies
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 11:36:38 -0600
From: ISO Standards Discussion

From: Charley Scalies
Subject: Re: Q:Revised standards/Cox/Kiely/Howe/Scalies

> From: (Dave Howe)
>
> Speaking of requiring "the measurement and analysis of customer
> satisfaction" (see below), would anyone be willing to share some good
> indices. The organization for which I work is recently ISO certified
> and we are committed to customer satisfaction, but we have been
> struggling a bit to come up with meaningful measurements for customer
> satisfaction as well as ways to obtain them (other than the typical
> survey forms). We are selling high cost, low volume products
> primarily to the Federal gov't and to foreign gov'ts.
> Dave Howe
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

It seems almost too obvious to suggest this, but often we overlook the things that lie at our feet. Why not try asking your customers how they measure your performance and how they determine their level of satisfaction with your products and services. I worked in DoD contracting for a very long time and never found the Feds the least bit bashful about telling contractors what they expected. If you are in a Formal Bid environment, their evaluation factors are likely to be limited to price, delivery and quality, as measured by the lack of rejects. If you live in the more customized environment of tech proposals and negotiated contracts, their evaluation factors tend to be more sophisticated, and published.

Charley
P.S. My wife taught me that if I ever wanted to know how to make her happy, I should ask. When I don't, it's usually because I don't really want to hear her answer. --

Charles J. Scalies/2000+

A couple more threads to consider are Customer Satisfaction (http://elsmar.com/ubb/Forum5/HTML/000142.html) and More on Customer satisfaction (http://elsmar.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000022.html)

[This message has been edited by Marc Smith (edited 17 February 2001).]

I am not sure this is going to work for our auditor, but what we are going to try is to document the fact that our sales force's call reports are widely distributed and reviewed by most of upper and middle management, as well as having the complaints tracked.

It might be impractical for some companies, but for us, and for me, it sure means more than some dry report. It really does seem to work, too.

Also see Question for ISO9000 auditor training (http://elsmar.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000134.html) (This question was cross-posted).

As far as measuring customer satisfaction. The first thing people think of is survey's. I for one am not too fond of these tools as they don't really obtain the required response to fully get a thorough definite measure.
My own methods that I have employed in the company I work for include the following on customer satisfaction:
1) Repeat Business - it makes sense that if customers are coming back then it is possible that they are satisfied. This can be tabled during management review. Alternatively if you are losing customers, then you also have an issue that can be improved that relates to future customer satisfaction.
2)credits raised - it would seem that a credit would be raised for a problem, and possibly that would be a customer complaint. Working on reducing the credits is a simple method of CI and increasing customer satisfaction in an objective manner.
3) Face to face meetings and regular phone calls - If you want to know if customers are satisfied - ASK them! Report back to management via management review activities. If they are not, raise the isue to a corrective action and report back to the customer and management.
4) Letters from the customer - A lot of businesess often get letters of praise for their services and products - these aare objective measurs of customer satisfaction.

There are most probably one hundred more but these are the simplest ones that I have implemented in my company.I would be interested to hear others opinions on this topic.

I like Greg's approaches. I'd like to add that though I'm also no fan of surveys, most of my clients use them. But I do try to get them to send them to both current (repeat business) and non-current customers. In fact, for those customers that show declines or sudden stops in work flow, the survey can be tailored a bit to maybe get more information.

As for the face-to-face meetings, I suggest the companies use a simple "Report of Call" form (generally one page, often handwritten) to ensure the meeting or conversation is documented. In one place, the completed form is circulated from the President through the management ranks and ends up with the Sales Manager to use in the review or planning meetings.

I should add that I typically work with small service based companies in metal processing.

Just to add to Dan's comments, one time in our organisation (3 years ago) our Marketing group sent out a survey to all of our customer's. This was quite a large task and a great deal of information was gathered.
The only problem was they sent it to our EXISTING customers and did not think about including the ones we LOST. So naturally the survey results favoured our products and services quite handsomely.
The real data for this analysis should have come from our lost customers. These are obviously the ones where we have come unstuck for whatever reason(s) and offer our business the opportunity to improve.
In fact, I really have no idea what happened to all that data!
Anyway, Dan made an important point about addressing the customers that "show declines or sudden stops in workflow".

The "customer satisfaction" part of ISO-9001:2000 is still pretty descriptive. You can almost do whatever you want. Note also that the word "dissatisfaction" was in the DIS, but has been removed.

The real issue is correcting nonconformities identified by customer complaints. But what the heck is a customer complaint?

Peddy,

Can only agree with Marc,

Ask the customer and use their measurments when possible.

This is not to say that internal measurements can also be derived and be important, if they are cost effective and lead to continuous action. (I'm trying not to use the word "improvement")

ASD...

ISO 9000 increasingly talks a lot about customer satisfaction, and rightly so. However, I feel that the scope of the standard is restricted to product(or service) quality and not any other aspect of customer satisfaction. For example, if a good quality product is supplied late, it is still a good product. Auditors in India are insisting that on time delivery is an aspect of customer satisfaction which MUST be dealt with in the Quality System. Do you think they are right? I dont.

Saranjame

The answer depends on the things your customer really values, which I think is a blend of Cost, Inherent product/service quality, timeliness and flexibility.

As an example, if I go to buy my favourite takeaway pizza and get advised that it will be ready tomorrow, it doesn't matter how good the pizza will be, I'll be heading for the fish and chip shop. Delivery on time is important.

Conversely if I'm buying a case of vintage wine to lay down in my cellar (I wish !), and I get advised it'll arrive a week late, then it makes no difference to me. Delivery on time (within reason) is not important. The "within reason" bit, is quite important. 1 week = OK, 1 year = cancelled order. You probably already understand how important timely delivery is to your customers or indeed what delay is deemed unacceptable - even if they don't tell you explicitly.

As a last comment...your competitors will be working hard to match or surpass your "good quality product" at the same or lower cost. If they can do so, and also deliver it on time, which of you will be seeing repeat orders from satisfied customers ?

Hope this helps...Al.

Great analogies Al http://16949.com/ubb/smile.gif

To put another spin on it: Your goals and objectives should reflect the needs (requirements) of your customers - both 'specified' and those 'implied'. The metrics (measureables) you put in place are the tools to gauge your efficiency and effectiveness to meet those requirements.

So...if 'on time reporting' is important to the customers it should be important to you.

I couldnt agree more that on time delivery is as important to the customer as product quality. Issues relating to on time delivery should be strongly dealt with in a systematic manner, but separately, and not as part of ISO 9002, which is a product quality standard. Bringing in other aspects of Customer Satisfaction under the ambit of this standard would not be right because:
a. I dont think the designer of this standard so intended - all the clauses are addressed specifically towards product quality only, and
b. It would dilute the focus of the standard towards product quality and reduce its effectiveness
On time delivery and other aspects of Customer Satisfaction should to addressed as part of the TQM initiative in the organisation, and separate systems should be put in place for the same, using the same general philosophy of the ISO 9000 standard
(as is done in ISO 14000 for example)

Your certification to ISO 9002 will expire NLT 15 Dec 2003, if you plan to stay ISO Cert you will have to transition to 9001:2000 which goes beyond product quality mgmt.

Maybe your auditor is trying to expedite a transition?

The revised standard is a significant evolution where the new focus is on Process Managment - rather than only product quality. Hence the change in standard title to "Quality Management Systems - Requirements"

This change includes specific requirements for customer satisfaction; which, product quality is only one factor the customer takes into consideration. The process approach requires that you 'Define processes needed to achieve desired results', Rather than the old "requires procedures when the absense of one would adversley affect quality".

Are other companies in your region facing the same issues with thier registrars? Or is it only the registrar company you are dealing with? Either way, I would ask them to show me (in the standard) where the requirement is specified. When they can't do that there can be no finding.

Best wishes... Eileen Wall

We are a software company, do not have a mass customer base, dealing with 3 to 5 customers at any given time. Till now we were planning to use defect metrics and customer complaints as an indication of "Customer Satisfaction - Clause 8.2.1".

However we have been advised that this is not sufficient as we are addressing 7.2.3 and not 8.2.1. Given the nature of our business, "Customer Survey" does not appear to be appropriate for meeting 8.2.1 requirements. Can someone suggest an alternative.

Thanks

Possibly ??

Do you have direct contact with these few customers upon product delivery? Do you maintain contact after sales fo any timeframe?

If so - gather satisfaction information along the lines of an "exit" interview... A few brief questions to "audit" what was expected when the customer contacter you - and his satisfaction/dis-satisfaction with the end result.

Regards
Jim

Try a search here in the forums for Customer Satisfaction. There are a number of good threads - several very recent. While not specific to software companies they should provide you with some ideas appropriate to your company and product.