Our Registrar suggested that instead of a mailer, we do personal phone calls & record the results.

I thought good idea...but what questions to ask? I have the basic 3 so far:

ON time, happy with order, order correct...

anybody have any examples or suggestions or details on what they do.

Thanks in advance,

Resident P.I.T.A (if you don't know, ask)

tim

Take a look at what Eagle Registrations did. They sent out a questionaire and followed up with phone calls (some said to the point of badgering their clients). Of course, this screwed everything up for the Quality Digest surveys. No more after Eagle pulled their stunt in 2001.

If I have a question at all, its why the registrar cares whether you send out questionaires or do phone calls and are they approaching the consulting mode.

I would be looking heavily at sales (assuming you're in a larger company) for feedback and also looking at returns / customer identified nonconformances (etc.) to gage customer satisfaction. I'm not a fan of mailers either, but I'm not sure what kind of accuracy you'll get with phone calls asking "Are you happy?".

Just a couple of thoughts.

Thanks Guys,

Both good thoughts...Marc the registrar doesn't care, we were asking what he has seen with other companies & I thought this would be a good option.

As always ladies & gentlemen...lots of great input.

Thanks
again

tim ºOº
"If no one laughs at your vision...it isn't big enough!"

Marc said:

*snip*

If I have a question at all, its why the registrar cares whether you send out questionaires or do phone calls and are they approaching the consulting mode.

*snippo*



Tim,

I'm in agreement with Marc here. Customer feedback is just that... feedback. How can your registrar dictate the FORM the feedback comes in? We don't conduct overt surveys... we use contact reports from our sales people and have specific questions that must be answered from each contact. IMO, feedback is feedback. ISO doesn't specify how it is collected.

On the other hand... if you're interested in doing Voice of the Customer work, I have a couple PowerPoint presentations I could e-mail you. They are pretty hefty files so I can't upload them here.

Cheers!!!

Mike

Thanks Mike I would love to see the Power Point Presentation (oops just spit on the screen...popping PPP's)

Thanks

tim

Dear Tim,

That's rather a marketing or customer relationship question rather than a quality assurance, I assume.

However, I hold that If I were a client of your company, I would prefer to receive telephone calls from the manager serving me, only. I would as well accept and most probably answer a reasonable questionnaire sent by email or fax. However, a call from quality assurance department could possibly annoy me in my daily routine.

So, IMHO this kind of customer satisfaction monitoring shoud be ran by the sales (or service) department instead of quality assurance. Moreover this kind of activity shoudl contribute to more repeat sales if everything is OK with the product and the servicing.

So, the questions to aks should be perfectly known by any qualified sales manager.

That's all of course depending on what business your company runs.

Anton

------------------------
Do not wait for improvements. Good things come in unnoticed!

I HATE surveys!!!!!!:mad:

Instead ask yourself these questions:

1) When was the last time you analyzed your customer's:
a) sales
b) profit
c) market share
d) use of your product
2) What steps could/should you take to improve these areas?


If we are REALLY concerned about our customer's satisfaction, then we should be concerned with our customer!

Likewise, as the same type of questions, about your vendors.

Thans folks...all good reply's.

Yes Sales/Customer Service will be handling this issue, but as the ISO Guru, King, dictator or P.I.T.A (Pain In The A**). I need to be able to guide them in the direction I want them to go...not on their own little fantasy world that won't get the info we need.

In other words & to quote some great singers (Sinatra & Elvis) "I want(did) it my way!"

Someone pass the toasted Peanut butter & banana sandwiches...

Thank You...Thank You Very Much
That is my best Elvis impersination...Saw him DJing a wedding a few years back, must be his 2nd job since he has been working at 7-11

Thanks again

tim
ºOº

If we are REALLY concerned about our customer's satisfaction, then we should be concerned with our customer's customers, recognising that we are both (us and the customer) part of a process to serve their customers.

Agreed, Jim :agree:

Here's another thought:
- look at the interactions you have with your customers (they often occur in many different parts of your business)
- identify the information content in those interactions (e.g., what does the need to ask that question about your product tell you about their "requirements being met" - use of product/ understanding of your documentation / need for something else)
- develop, if possible, a surrogate measure that gives you - in terms of your own operations - ongoing information on this topic - e.g., number of changes in engineering, number of changes in production, volume of new orders, volume of repeat orders, volume/type of product returns...many others are possible
- analyze the data from these measures (alone and in combination with any direct feedback) to identify specific actions you need to take.

This gives you specific, actionable information (rather than "our csat score is 4.5 vs last month's 4.65).

We tried a supplier scorecard but it didn't work well with our KBM system. Using Access made the database crash. A self audit would be a great idea with detailed questions, about their suppliers, tooling, changes, capacity. many companies are downsizing, can they still meet your needs.

I have one question on 8.2.1 "The methods for obtaining and using this information shall be maintained."

Does this means that we need to have a documented procedure to state how we obtain and use the information? If not, how are we going to prove that we are maintaining the methods?

Thank you very much for any reply.

Marc said:


If I have a question at all, its why the registrar cares whether you send out questionaires or do phone calls and are they approaching the consulting mode.


I would have to disagree with this comment. The registrar suggested, they didn't say they had to, maybe they were just letting them know there is other options they can use. Time didn't say his registrar had to phone calls. When I do survelliance/registration audits I very ofetn let the clients know what I have seen other companies do that have worked for them and that is exactly how I phrase it. Would that be consulting?

IMHO, what is probably happening is the auditor makes a comment and the auditee takes it as "We must do it this way", now I can only speak for myself, but if they want to take them fine, if they don't that is fine too. I don't care one way or the other it is their system and they need to make it work for them. Is it wrong for an auditor to suggest to their customers additional tools to get the job done? One thing to remember is that people often ask the auditors how have you seen other companies accomplish this, should the auditor not say how they have seen it done in other companies???????

I agree that it would be better if auditors could refrain from providing opinions and examples of how other companies get things done.

Here is a real life example. Our auditor was reviewing our calibration process and noted that we had a fairly complex method for selecting and certifying our approved calibration suppliers. The auditor mentioned in passing to the process owner that other companies have simplified the process by stating that if the supplier is ISO certified then no other certification is necessary. The process owner took the comment at face value and modified the process to require absolutely no certification:( Of course at our next audit (by a different auditor) we got written up for not having a process for selecting and contolling our calibration suppliers.:bonk:

Good advice given to the wrong person and taken the wrong way can cause problems!