NCR No: 1 - 8.2.1 - Customer perception was not been conducted

[SilverHawk]

I am also losing sleep over this NCR No: 1 issued by the BVQI auditor. The NCR No: 1 read as, "It was found that the customer perception was not been conducted during the point of audit."

Can anyone help to explain what is nature of the NCR and what is the non-conformity? Perhaps, someone would like to suggest how am I suppose to address this NCR.

I do not understand why some of the auditors would be let on loose auditing organizations and issuing such wordings on the NCR. Have these auditors fail to undergo proper auditor training course on how to write a good NCR which is self-explanary.....

 

[Douglas E. Purdy]

Did you show them?

I am also losing sleep over this NCR No: 1 issued by the BVQI auditor. The NCR No: 1 read as, "It was found that the customer perception was not been conducted during the point of audit."

Can anyone help to explain what is nature of the NCR and what is the non-conformity? Perhaps, someone would like to suggest how am I suppose to address this NCR.

I do not understand why some of the auditors would be let on loose auditing organizations and issuing such wordings on the NCR. Have these auditors fail to undergo proper auditor training course on how to write a good NCR which is self-explanary.....

SilverHawk,

Did you show them the methods by which you were measuring and monitoring your customers' perception of complying with their requirements?

Doug

 

[Wes Bucey]

SilverHawk,

Did you show them the methods by which you were measuring and monitoring your customers' perception of complying with their requirements?

Doug

Doug's on the same track I would be. Who accompanied the auditor on his rounds? Who was present when the auditor presented his findings before leaving? The best time to ask the questions is when the auditor is present. The best person to ask is the auditor. Sometimes auditor and auditee get off on the wrong foot. It always helps to have an experienced person accompany the auditor to look for such problems and take steps to ameliorate them or halt the audit.

Is there a possibility of a major language barrier causing misunderstanding on the part of auditor or employees?

 

[SilverHawk]

Customer Perception???

We do conduct a customer survey and at this moment we have only one customer. We have submited a customer survey form and yet to receive any feedback.

Is it that we do not get any feedback from the customer, the auditor issued NCR under customer preception??? I am at lost!

 

[Wes Bucey]

"Surveys? We don't need no stinking surveys!"

We do conduct a customer survey and at this moment we have only one customer. We have submited a customer survey form and yet to receive any feedback.

Is it that we do not get any feedback from the customer, the auditor issued NCR under customer preception??? I am at lost!

I apologize in advance if this all seems too simplistic, but often we have to go back to the basics and ignore "sophisticated" techniques.

If you have only one customer, you are wasting his time and maybe even alienating him by asking him to complete a survey.

Which individuals in the organization deal with individuals at the customer? The organization personnel who have contact should be bringing feedback from the customer to the organization. The organization can organize and record that information to determine customer satisfaction.

In a silly paraphrase of an old American western movie:
"Surveys? We don't need no stinking surveys!"

 

[SilverHawk]

Bucey, BTW can you explain the differences between customer satisfaction and customer perception? I am trying hard to understand why the BVQI auditor the NCR stating that customer perception was conducted!


As I have mentioned we do conduct a customer survey but I am still cracking my brains on what do I have to do to conduct a customer perception????

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Silverhawk,

I agree with you that the wording of the NCR is poor. When I teach the Lead Assessor course, or an internal auditor course, I strongly emphasize the importance of CLEARLY written findings so, anyone expected to implement corrective actions could understand the problem and take appropriate measures.

As mentioned above, the third-party audit protocol normally provides for debriefing and exit meetings in which, the audited organization has an opportunity to ask for clarifications or voice their disagreement with a finding. Apparently your organization did not exercize this.

Nevertheless, the issue about perception. Read carefully the actual requirement of ISO 9001:2000 8.2.1 Customer satisfaction
". . .As one of the measurements of the performance of the quality management system, the organization shall monitor information relating to customer perception as to whether the organization has met customer requirements. The methods for obtaining and using this information shall be determined. . ."

If you believe that you have implemented such methodology and presented objective evidence to your 3rd party auditor and s/he still wrote you up, then appeal it.

 

[Wes Bucey]

Silverhawk,

I agree with you that the wording of the NCR is poor. When I teach the Lead Assessor course, or an internal auditor course, I strongly emphasize the importance of CLEARLY written findings so, anyone expected to implement corrective actions could understand the problem and take appropriate measures.

. . .
If you believe that you have implemented such methodology and presented objective evidence to your 3rd party auditor and s/he still wrote you up, then appeal it.

Right! As Sidney says, the entire paragraph reads:

8.2.1 Customer satisfaction
as one of the measurements of the performance of the quality management system, the organization shall monitor information relating to customer perception as to whether the organization has met customer requirements. The methods for obtaining and using this information shall be determined.

Reading between the lines, here's what I think happened:

1. The auditor showed up and saw an organization that didn't feel comfortable in its own Quality System. (several of us who have gone out on any audit of strangers, whether suppliers or 3rd party clients, have seen this from time to time.)
2. This auditor may not be an articulate Wordsmith like Rob Nix, so his writeup left a lot to be desired in terms of specifics.
3. The folks at the auditee organization couldn't wait to get the auditor out the door (why? Any number of reasons from venal "I hope he doesn't see anything else wrong." to clueless "I didn't know we could ask questions.")
4. Silverhawk is a consultant to the auditee (whether he was a consultant prior to the audit is immaterial) who was NOT present at the audit.
5. Silverhawk looks over the organization and says, "These guys really aren't as bad as this audit report makes them look."
6. Silverhawk knows the chapter and verse of the Standards, but is a little unsure [at this point] if his interpretation is sufficient to challenge the auditor.
7. Silverhawk wants some moral support in his stand against the auditor as well as tips on how to negotiate his client an easy (inexpensive) way to fix the nonconformances.

If all these suppositions are pretty much on the mark, the bottom line is that Silverhawk has to open a dialog with the auditor to get absolute clarification of exactly what the auditor meant without engaging in any defensive statements until he has an absolutely clear understanding of what the auditor was thinking. At that point, Silverhawk needs to lay out a plan which may include any or all of the following:

1. cross-examination and record-making of conversations and chit chat the organization has had with its only customer regarding the customer's perception (if asked directly, do your guys think the customer would say the organization does a good job of meeting its specifications or do the customers think there is a lot of room for improvement? ) Is there objective evidence - one hundred straight shipments without a rejection, say, to validate the hunch that customer is happy with silverhawk's client?
2. An internal quiz of all employees to see whether they understand the "big picture" to offset the other finding discussed in another thread. If not, create and implement a series of get togethers to help the employees learn this. Retest to confirm the learning sticks with employees.
3. Armed with all the answers to nonconformance findings he is sure he understands, Silverhawk is ready to give objective evidence they are all resolved.

 

[SilverHawk]

Points Taken

Thanks, Bucey. I has call up auditor but he is not around! Even our employees have a little comments about this auditor. Never mind what he has written on the NCR we will talk to the Ccertification Manage to get his points. I am sure that we are not going to cancel the NCR but we need to slove the quality of the NCR. We are getting a bit confused about the statement and are we trying to tackle the customer perception or customer satisfaction issue here.

Can you plainly explain the links between these two words?

 

[db]

We are getting a bit confused about the statement and are we trying to tackle the customer perception or customer satisfaction issue here.

Can you plainly explain the links between these two words?

Customer Satisfaction is how well the customer is satisfied. Customer Perception is how the thinks about you.

In several places, the standard talks about satisfying the customer. You can meet all of my requirements, but I might still not be enthused about dealing with you. I might be satisfied with the product, and the transaction, but still would rather take my business elsewhere (if I could).

This “perception” thing is tough. It is asking you to monitor information related to how the customer thinks about you. That isn’t always easy. TS actually helps here TS states that performance indicators should include things like:

Delivered part quality performance
Customer disruptions
Delivery schedule performance
Customer notifications related to quality or delivery issues

The question is, what does the customer really expect from you? And how do you ensure you know what the customer really wants (not just product related – consider the entire transaction)

Hope that helps