Who is the Customer of an Organization Investing in its Subsidiaries?

Hi

I am working in an investment organization that investing in subsidiaries (real estates & multi car agencies)

each and every subsidiary is certified with ISO 9001 and they take care of customer satisfaction as required by the standard.

now,,, who would be the customer of the investment division since it is certified with the ISO 9001 as well? or how to measure the customer satisfaction while they dont have a customer!!

I am quite confused here since the the external auditor was asking about the investment division customer satisfaction process/analysis/.....etc

thanks

Re: ISO Cert. & Customer

Ask the question "who do I serve?" and you should be able to answer your question. Sometimes that could also be asked "who do I bill?"

Keep in mind that there may be different tiers or layers of customers. For example, an automaker sell to auto dealers, who in turn sell to consumers. That would be two tiers of customers. Their real customer is the auto dealer, but their product will not sell well unless they pay attention to the end user as well.

If you have a multi tier customer base, you may wish to find a way to discover what each tier thinks of you, but I would think your primary responsibility is to the top tier.

Re: ISO Cert. & Customer

Probably the investors in the organization?

Re: ISO Cert. & Customer

aburaggi said:

Hi

I am working in an investment organization that investing in subsidiaries (real estates & multi car agencies)

each and every subsidiary is certified with ISO 9001 and they take care of customer satisfaction as required by the standard.

now,,, who would be the customer of the investment division since it is certified with the ISO 9001 as well? or how to measure the customer satisfaction while they dont have a customer!!

I am quite confused here since the the external auditor was asking about the investment division customer satisfaction process/analysis/.....etc

thanks

Click to expand...

I remember a similar question being asked here sometime back. Is this some test/exam question? In practice, I doubt anybody can get this far with their QMS without even knowing who the customer is.

Re: ISO Cert. & Customer

Big Jim said:

Ask the question "who do I serve?" and you should be able to answer your question. Sometimes that could also be asked "who do I bill?"

Keep in mind that there may be different tiers or layers of customers. For example, an automaker sell to auto dealers, who in turn sell to consumers. That would be two tiers of customers. Their real customer is the auto dealer, but their product will not sell well unless they pay attention to the end user as well.

If you have a multi tier customer base, you may wish to find a way to discover what each tier thinks of you, but I would think your primary responsibility is to the top tier.

Click to expand...

that was helpful information thank you

Golfman25 said:

Probably the investors in the organization?

Click to expand...

i dont think so, thanks

harry said:

I remember a similar question being asked here sometime back. Is this some test/exam question? In practice, I doubt anybody can get this far with their QMS without even knowing who the customer is.

Click to expand...

this is not an exam question, my organization is recently certified (less than a year) ,,,, i hope to see you perspective in this issue if you wish

thanks

There must be something lost in translation or misunderstood. How can an organization function without knowing who their customer is? And how can an organization get certified to ISO 9001 without knowing who their customer is?

On a side note, saying that the investors are not the customer reminds me of my company provided 401K administrator.

I have a hard time envisioning an investment firm where the investors are not the customer. Where can I find people that will give me money to invest and I don't have to treat them as the customer?

aburaggi: I think it would be appropriate to justify your "I don't think so." answer. The conversation won't go anywhere with an answer like "I don't think so."