Definition Customer Perception - Customer Satisfaction - ISO 9001 Clause 8.2.1

[dbzman]

Section 8.2.1 is titled "Customer Satisfaction". The body of the text uses the term "customer Preception".

Are they the same?

One of our facilities uses a salesman report to come up with a customer satisfaction number. THis is the only data for satisfaction that they use. The salesman does this during his customer visits. He does not visit all of their customers.

Does this meet the standard?

Thanks!

 

[ralphsulser]

Customer satisfaction and customer perception are different in how the standard views the relationship. What your salesman gathers can apply to both if the info is categorized. Does the salesman visit your key accounts regularly? How does his customer contacts view your company's attitude, responses, anticipating of needs and wants.Communications via visit, e-mails, phones, and feedback. These are things that contribute to perception.
Satisfaction of product quality and delivery.
Hope this helps

 

[ccochran]

Customer perceptions are what indicate whether you have achieved satisfaction or not. In other words, they represent stepping stones along a continuum. Perceptions accumulate over time and gradually equate to either satisfaction or dissatisfaction. You job is to understand and act on these perceptions so the final result is customer satisfaction.

The word ‘perception’ was used in ISO 9001, in my opinion, to highlight just how subjective this quality is. Perceptions can comprise just about anything: fact, fiction, fantasy, whatever. If customers believe their perceptions, though, the perceptions have the weight of fact. That is why it is so important to reach out to customers and specifically ask them what they think. By their very nature, you probably won’t agree with all the perceptions. A perception equals fact in the mind of the customer, though. You must act on these perceptions and let the customer know what you’ve done.

It sounds like your salesman’s trip report could be a very effective tool for capturing perceptions. After all, he’s on-site with the customer and probably can solicit candid responses. Here are a few of questions related to these trip reports: 1) Where did the issues on the trip report come from? Are they the result of understanding what the customers really value, or are they just a guess at what the customers value? 2) Does the salesman ask for open-ended feedback, as well as scaled responses? Open ended feedback typically generates the most valuable information, despite the fact it doesn’t produce much hard data. 3) Does the salesman carry a digital camera with him for taking pictures of problems or concerns? He should. This is a great opportunity for grabbing people’s attention back at the plant, and a picture will certainly do it.

Good luck!
Craig

 

[Cari Spears]

If you use the word "opinion" in place of "perception" - does it make it simpler?

We use sales call feedback and a customer satisfaction survey as well - but we also monitor quoting hit/miss ratio, top customer sales and profit reports, customer complaints, warranty returns, kudos/thank you letters, etc. It's all information pertaining to the customers perception or opinion of how we're doing.

 

[Wes Bucey]

I've always thought the concept of "touchy feely" PERCEPTION was more important to deal with than the shuffling of metrics from "satisfaction surveys" which often are based on flawed survey questions.

I definitely agree that the "guy on the ground" (sales person) is a good barometer of the customer's perception. The gathering of information about customer perception begins with the sales person's perception of the customer. Is the sales person eager to visit or call the customer or is there dread of the response from customer personnel? With a little workshop training, I agree the sales person can hone HIS/HER perceptions of the customer into a report on the customer's perceptions of the organization.

 

[Paul Simpson]

Perception is reality

The use of "customer perception" is to require organizations to go out and find out what their customers think.

For example:

If you are supplying widgets and you are still in business you may believe the customers are satisfied. In reality your sales team are working their backsides off to replace customers after they have experienced the product (and service) once. So the actual customer perception is poor but if you set your customer satisfaction measure as "full order book" then your "perception" is that the customers are happy when they are patently not.

 

[Spanner]

We measure our on time delivery, customer complaints, customer rejects as well as the touchy feely customer perception from the daily contact we have with our customers.

It does not always stack up that good delivery and good quality makes a good customer perception and vice versa. eg The customer may perceive us as unhelpful if we do not reschedule orders quickly enough for him (even if unreasonable) or give enough support to their design team even though we deliver what they order on time with no faults. Alternatively our customers perception of us can be good even though we are late on delivery or have quality problems by the way we react to those problems and are seen to be doing everything we can to put them right.

At the end of the day perception is the overiding 'measure' becasue new orders are more often placed based on the perception of the customer rather than on the actual delivery and quality statistics.