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We also occasionally receive notice of nonconformance by email, phone, or sales agent notification. We try to have it routed through our Customer Service, but they still sometimes come to our Shipping department, me (QA), or the plant manager. If it is a nonconformance issue of any kind, we route it back to Customer Service, who has a procedure to file a Potential Nonconformance report which goes to assigned parties.
I agree with the others, you need to route these emails into your CA system so it gets captured, investigated, and handled the way your system says it should, else you'll wind up getting bit by the customer eventually (or a registrar audit).
Now, not every instance of a customer issue should get treated as a nonconformance. We had a customer ask to send some material back this week. It was shipped exactly according to THEIR spec, and performed well for them, but it "looked" different from the material our competitor ships to them, so they don't "like" it. The contract did not state that the material had to look just like the competitor's. Even if we end up doing them a favor and take the very-much-conforming material back, I won't treat this as a nonconformance. It will get treated in a Management Review meeting, but not as a complaint with CA required.
I agree with the others, you need to route these emails into your CA system so it gets captured, investigated, and handled the way your system says it should, else you'll wind up getting bit by the customer eventually (or a registrar audit).
Now, not every instance of a customer issue should get treated as a nonconformance. We had a customer ask to send some material back this week. It was shipped exactly according to THEIR spec, and performed well for them, but it "looked" different from the material our competitor ships to them, so they don't "like" it. The contract did not state that the material had to look just like the competitor's. Even if we end up doing them a favor and take the very-much-conforming material back, I won't treat this as a nonconformance. It will get treated in a Management Review meeting, but not as a complaint with CA required.