Internal Audit - Non conformity not easily fixable (Sales and Contracts)

[Sardokar]

Hello

while performing an internal audit on our sales process we noticed that the SLA (promised response time on support contracts) that were sent to customers were vastly different from the response times present in our support procedure

and we are assessing our support process according to the promised response time stated in the procedure

my question is this :

We initiated a corrective action as to understand why this problem happened and take relevant measures for it not to happen again ...

but how do we remove the non conformity ?


i mean theres like 10-12 contracts that were sent with promised response times that are inferior to our standard response times !!!

From a business perspective i think it would be very ill-advised to send to those customers new contracts with INCREASED promised response times... the consequences could be catastrophic

so ..erm ... how do i correct the non conformity so that at the next re-audit it doesnt appear as a non conformity again ?

just one solution comes to mind ... decrease on our support tracking sheets the TARGET response time for THOSE customers so that it matches the response times promised on the problematic contracts

but that does not make it match our standard response time in the procedure and the non conformity remains ... or not ?

help please

Thanks

 

[AndyN]

Re: Internal audit - Non conformity not easily fixable

Change the procedure?

 

[tomvehoski]

Re: Internal audit - Non conformity not easily fixable

Eliminate the standard response time from your procedure. There is no ISO requirement to have required times. Instead it should be variable based on each individual contract with your customers, which is a better business practice anyway. If your standard response is five days, but the customer is perfectly happy with 10 days, why force yourself to work harder?

 

[Sardokar]

Re: Internal audit - Non conformity not easily fixable

But some customers were sent correct response times and some were sent non conform response times ( sales people were promising response times as they see fit !!! this has gotten me into an argument with their department manager already !!! )

Even if i change the procedure maybe that would fix the problem for 80% of the cases, but the remaining 20% (that were normal before) would THEN become non conform



EDIT : hmm ...maybe removing standard response times from procedure would work ... and then we would track support according to what was promised to each customer on his support contract

Thanks all

 

[tomvehoski]

Re: Internal audit - Non conformity not easily fixable

If there is no standard (because you remove it), whatever the customer was told is then automatically conforming.

If you told the customer you would provide five day service and didn't get to it for 10 days, you now have a nonconformance against your process performance, but not the procedure. Basically a late delivery.

If you told the customer two different response times, you have an issue with your contract review that needs to be resolved.

 

[Sardokar]

Re: Internal audit - Non conformity not easily fixable

This topic raises a more general question :

let's say we do internal audit every 6 months , and during these 6 months some employees filled all the records wrong (not according to procedure)

There's like 50-60 records ...

would they need to fill those records again correctly( all 60 of them ) to remove non conformity ?

 

[Jen Kirley]

Re: Internal audit - Non conformity not easily fixable

This topic raises a more general question :

let's say we do internal audit every 6 months , and during these 6 months some employees filled all the records wrong (not according to procedure)

There's like 50-60 records ...

would they need to fill those records again correctly( all 60 of them ) to remove non conformity ?

You just described containment. However, I wonder what the records are that the data can be conjured now. Typically we don't "rework" records. I have specifically advised my own people not to do so, but instead to appropriately address the issue of why the records are not being completed correctly.

When that is accomplished and a follow up audit finds no serial repeats of the problem (there could perhaps be one or two escapes, depending on what these records are for - for example, no mistakes should be tolerated in records for maintaining a nuclear power plant!) we can say the nonconformance can be closed.

 

[Golfman25]

I would rework the procedure. Removing the standard is prefered. If not, then providing for some exceptions would work as well.

As for correcting the past, you don't really need to do it. Your next audit should only consider nonconformances since the implementation date of the revised procedure. Good luck.

 

[Sardokar]

As a follow-up of the original post ( In which the technical manager was sending SLA terms that were different than the ones described in the Support procedure) ...

we also discovered during the same audit that the Support tracking report was using as TARGETS the response times described in the procedure as standard , even when support contract sent to customer contained different SLA terms than the procedure's ones

just to be clear ... I mean by this that if our procedure stated Response time for silver support is 4 hours max , but we promised on support contract of our customer a response time of 2 hours max , the support tracking sheet was comparing our actual response time against the 4 hours target ( although it should have compared it against the 2 hours (promised target))

Now , our support procedure clearly states that this support tracking report is filled as to give a clear and precise image of our support process performance


Finally , let me say that although the targets on the tracking report were wrong ( Target= standard , but promise to customer < standard ) , when we checked the Actual support work performed "on the ground" none of the work was superior to the promised support response time ( and hence none was superior to the procedure terms too)


my question is this ...

Can I Say there is a non conformity because the support tracking report was not accurate ( did not have the correct response targets ) as was required by our support procedure?

In my opinion , yes ...but I would like to have your opinions too

Thanks

 

[RoxaneB]

I'm beginning to think that the entire process should be mapped out so that:

1. Everyone knows their responsibilties.
2. Everyone is aware of the process, including practices and activities and records.
3. Terms for SLAs and what to provide to the customer (both in terms of communication and service) are known by employees.
4. A team can review the map and ask "Is this working for US?"..."Is this working for the CUSTOMER?"..."Does this process make sense?"