Hi All! :bigwave:

Found this board about a week ago and have been disseminating information to help with my company's transition from QS to TS2. I am the MR and have been given a 12-15 month requirement for certification from my management. This group is definitely on the top of my resource list!

My company is an Automotive Tier 2/3 supplier (with one direct part to GM - hence the TS requirement). We manufacture Interior Trim Components and Assemblies.

I scanned through a lot of the threads and could not find an answer to this question, so I thought I'd use it for the subject of my first post:

We receive and can acquire from the Internet "Report Cards" from our Customers. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the contents - Delivery Performance, PPM, Cost Savings, Flexibility, etc. My question is (finally ;)) can the tracking of these "Report Cards" satisfy Customer Satisfaction (8.2.1 and 8.2.1.1)?

Thanks,
Tom Bejma

Try searching "How to measure customer satisfaction" You should find some information there.

The report cards are a good measure of customer satisfaction and they also indicate what aspects of service are important to your customer.

Hope this helps.

Mshell

The report cards are a means of showing that your Customers are not dis-satisfied with your performance. The registrars I've worked with in the past have all been very firm on this kind of an interpretation. Many of them only reviewed the scorecards to verify you have the ability to interact with the customer in their prescribed format of electonic exchange and check your "pulse", so to speak.

How do you determine Customer's perception aspect of the Customer satisfaction requirement 8.2.1?

The report cards are a means of showing that your Customers are not dis-satisfied with your performance...
...How do you determine Customer's perception aspect of the Customer satisfaction requirement 8.2.1?

I've heard this said before and I just don't understand how a customer provided report card is not information relating to customer perception...

Report cards, PPM reports, cost to own ratings, etc. do indeed show cutomer dis-satisfaction as well as satisfaction. If my daughter's report card has a bunch of C's and D's, I'm dis-satisfied. If it is full of A's and B's, I'm quite satisfied. In the same manner, if our cost to own multiplier goes up, my customer is showing recent dis-satisfaction.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I agree Cari. If a customer gives your organization a rating of 100% then their perception of you as a supplier is pretty darn good (I would think). If their perception were bad then the rating would be low. Maybe I am just way off here but it seems simple.

I agree Cari. If a customer gives your organization a rating of 100% then their perception of you as a supplier is pretty darn good (I would think). If their perception were bad then the rating would be low. Maybe I am just way off here but it seems simple.

I think this would depend on the system they have set up. I have seen customers that give low ratings, yet love our work. They say the low ratings don't refelect their perception becuase they now that their hands are tied sometimes by the system when calculating the rating. But in general if you are getting high marks or 100% then you would think that the perception is high as well.

First of all, welcome to the cove tcbracing! :bigwave:

The customer report card is indeed an excellent measure of satisfaction. I agree with Cari and Mshell. Sorry Bigfoot but your registrar's reasoning is faulty.

However, it is not the ONLY measure of customer perceptions. You should use a number of different methods to acquire that information (and then USE IT to make improvements). Some we utilize in our organization are: Voice of the Customer (QFD), customer satisfaction surveys (to several "layers" of the customer), top mgmt good will interviews, customer complaints, and any special correspondence - whether kudos or gripes. FWIW IMHO TTFN.

Thanks everyone for the responses! Great discussion! So, basically, I'm going to use the Report Cards but I'm not going to give up on surveys and other types of feedback. Sounds good! (chomp) [sound of one of the pieces of the elephant being eaten]

TB

I would support the comment that the report cards are most certainly one
important input to customer satisfaction. I might even go further to say that
the organization should focus on the specific measures that the customer
measurement system uses as their priorities.

Having said that I have an automotive client who has had excellent customer scorecards
but is shrinking. (This is due to several factors, primarily migration of their
commodity to low cost manufacturing overseas, alas!) So we started using
new job win rate as another customer satisfaction measure. Yes, it also
measures a bunch of other factors, but if you don't sell new jobs you eventually
won't have any customers to satisfy. In my mind this is an "acid test" measure.

Regards,

Brad

...I have an automotive client who has had excellent customer scorecards but is shrinking. (This is due to several factors, primarily migration of their commodity to low cost manufacturing overseas, alas!)...

This is a shame - we're seeing a lot of that ourselves.

We also have an issue with our customers' reports not agreeing with our interal reports. This is a problem! What we have found is that the contacts we use (i.e. engineers, plants) do not have much to do with the systems, and they agree with our numbers, but for whatever reason are unable or unwilling to update their own systems to reflect correct info. They keep coming to us for product despite some really bad looking statistics. We used to spend tremendous resources getting the the customers to see our side and correct their systems, but when they don't really pay much attention to them, what is the point? Oh yeah, the point is that when our contacts leave/transfer/get downsized we have to explain to the next guy who thinks the numbers are "real". This is a true pain in the behind. They seem to know it is a problem and no one will fix it.

Or a really great case where one engineer gives us bad marks because we refuse to quote a process we do not have. Gee, why don't these systems work?

That said, our auditors are generally pretty understanding about the whole thing. That makes me believe that this is not a problem specific to us. Now, with our eventual TS conversion, one wonders if we SHALL need to keep our customers' systems correct AND cut our prices?

Mary

I think customer scorecards are great, and definitely meet the "customer's perception" criterion. Using other means of getting customer satisfaction information at the same time is also a good idea. Yesterday I was talking with a client of mine who recently started making phone calls to existing/past customers for feedback. They were surprised at a lot of the information they were getting back. They even found customers who would be happy to buy more from them if they were just asked! :D

BTW, here is a customer satisfaction tool that has proven ineffective...

During our TS audit, our regristrar's wanted to see the scorecards, however, they were more interested in the visits, (both here, and us going to our customers facility), run-at-rates, program readiness visits (one customer uses this). e-mails, letters, phone calls, surveys, I could go on and on.

One way we have of capturing this, is during our mgt. review of the system. This is one agenda item, we open the floor and talk about all of the above that has happened since last mgt. review (3 months). Minutes are taken, this is our documentation.

Our auditors were satisfied with this.
Hope this helps a little!!

Good Luck!

Hi All! :bigwave:

Found this board about a week ago and have been disseminating information to help with my company's transition from QS to TS2. I am the MR and have been given a 12-15 month requirement for certification from my management. This group is definitely on the top of my resource list!

My company is an Automotive Tier 2/3 supplier (with one direct part to GM - hence the TS requirement). We manufacture Interior Trim Components and Assemblies.

I scanned through a lot of the threads and could not find an answer to this question, so I thought I'd use it for the subject of my first post:

We receive and can acquire from the Internet "Report Cards" from our Customers. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the contents - Delivery Performance, PPM, Cost Savings, Flexibility, etc. My question is (finally ;)) can the tracking of these "Report Cards" satisfy Customer Satisfaction (8.2.1 and 8.2.1.1)?

It may meet the requirement for 9K2K(?), but definitly does not meet the requirement of TS2 8.2.1.1.
Customer "report cards" are "after the fact" and serve no purpose for the organization, other than to compare against tour own measurements.



Thanks,
Tom Bejma

We have added customer perception right to our report card with a definition underneath. Havent been through the ts audit yet; but comfortable that this will be ok. :bigwave:

Sam,

So are you saying Report Cards should not even be considered for any part of Customer Satisfaction?

That seems to go against what the others have said (that it should be used, but not entirely).

Please clarify.

Let me clarify,You totally misread my post; probably due to lack of information - I was hurrying at the time.
I certainly don't want anyone to think the report cards are not needed. They are perfect. What I meant was we added customer perception with a comments area for the customer right onto our customer surveys, which include engineering support, quality ratings, etc. This was in addition to the surveys.

Dawn, Tcbracing was talking about Sam's post...

Sam, I'm a bit confused about your post also. Unless you're psychic, how can any measure not be after the fact?
:confused:

My statement:
"It may meet the requirement for 9K2K(?), but definitly does not meet the requirement of TS2 8.2.1.1.
Customer "report cards" are "after the fact" and serve no purpose for the organization, other than to compare against tour own measurements."


tcbracing, I'm saying that they have nothing to do with meeting the requirements of clause 8.2.1.1. You could compare them against your own measurements, but then, you should already know whether the customer is satisfied without seeing their report.
If you wait until you receive a report from your customer stating their satisfaction, then IMO it's too late.

Howste, You are correct, all measurements are "after the fact", therefore you should already know you are having a problem before your customer knows it. That is, of course, if you are taking a proactive position with your customer.

You are right Sam,
Look close at 8.2.1.1, where do you see (or read) about customer intervention? This is talking about your realization process maintaining a customer focus. Is capacity available, are the processes adequate, are issues from the last run corrected and fed back through the system.

We may have great customer sat, but work overtime to correct problems so the customer doesn't see them. The proverbial "Hidden Factory". The report cards, etc. are the result of the effort or lack of effort put in to 8.2.1.1. IMHO

After re-reading my last post, I think I gave the wrong impression of my thoughts. I agree with you Sam, the organization should have its finger on the pulse of the customer(s) by measuring the right things at the right time and not just waiting for the customer to give feedback. I also agree that customer scorecards I've seen don't meet some of the requirements of 8.2.1.1.

Strictly speaking, internal measurements cannot measure "customer satisfaction" if you go by the ISO definition. To meet the "letter of the law" the measurements must come from the customer ("customer perception"). 8.2.1.1 then comes along and gives some examples of measurements, most of which are typically measured internally.
Performance indicators shall be based on objective data and include, but not be limited to:
- delivered part quality performance,
- customer disruptions including field returns,
- delivery schedule performance (including incidents of premium freight), and
- customer notifications related to quality or delivery issues.
In order to both meet the requirements of 8.2.1.1 and be effective, you need to collect internal measurements, then get the "customers perception" of the same metrics.

IMO customer scorecards can meet most of the requirements of 8.2.1.1, but probably don't. I've never (yet) seen a customer scorecard that really evaluates "efficiency of the process" in the last sentence of 8.2.1.1.

In order to both meet the requirements of 8.2.1.1 and be effective, you need to collect internal measurements, then get the "customers perception" of the same metrics.

I agree, and in order to meet the specification I need to summarize all of the Report Cards we are currently receiving (about 50 customer's worth). Then work on a system to pull all of the metrics by customer.

That's the hard part. Up until this point, we have been tracking all of the Report Card indices in some way or another, but as a whole, instead of indivdual customers :frust:

Thanks for the feedback everyone! :agree: