One of the declared goals of the ISO 9001 Standard is to allow the organization to enhance customer satisfaction (see clause 1—Scope). This is achieved by continually and systematically evaluating whether the product or service that the organization provides meets the requirements and expectations of its customers throughout its life cycle. The strategy is to create a systematical method that evaluates customers’ perceptions of the degree to which their needs and expectations have been fulfilled. The ISO 9001 Standard requirements include the following:
- The organization shall monitor customers’ perceptions of the degree to which their needs and expectations have been fulfilled.
- The organization shall determine and develop methods to collect data, process information, evaluate that information, and present results regarding customer’s satisfaction.
- Remark—among the methods used for monitoring and evaluating customer satisfaction or perception, the organization may use customer surveys, customer feedback on delivered products and services, interviews with customers, market share analysis, compliments, warranty claims, and dealer reports.
Needs and Expectations of the Customer
Monitoring customer satisfaction enables the early identification of problems concerning quality, performance, and functionality of the product and unfulfilled expectations of customers. The organization’s success depends on its customers, and therefore, understanding current and future customer needs will allow meeting customer requirements and exceeding customer expectations. Customer satisfaction is associated with the level of expectation on behalf of the customer: What are the expectations of the customer? What had the organization delivered? Had the expectations of the customer been fulfilled? Understanding what the expectations of the customers are is the first step when wanting to evaluate their satisfaction. I tend to divide the expectations into two types:
- Objective expectations—objective expectations refer to the characteristics of a delivered product or service that were communicated to the customer nd upon which the customer submitted an order. This type of evaluation shall indicatewhether agreements with the customer were fulfilled or not. The evaluation of those expectations considers specific elements or aspects of the delivered product or the realization processes.
- Subjective expectations—subjective expectations refer to customers’ perceptions of the degree to which their needs and expectations have been fulfilled. This type of evaluation shall indicate:
- Which customer expectations were not fulfilled,
- Which customer expectations were not identified.
- Which customer expectations were not fulfilled,
Each product has its characteristics that reflect customer expectations and the quality of the product. Those characteristics are results of product realization activities. And these are the activities that must be measured in terms of customers’ expectations.
After understanding what the relevant expectations of the customer are, you must measure them using the method for monitoring the customer satisfaction. Let us take, for example, a software product:
- Evaluating the objective expectations will examine whether all the functionalities or characteristics of the software that had been promised to the customer were actually delivered.
- Evaluating the subjective expectations will examine whether
- The functionalities or characteristics of the software that were delivered do fulfill the expectations of the customers.
- Other functionalities or other characteristics of the software are expected by the customer.
Determining the Method for Monitoring Customers’ Satisfaction
After understanding what the expectations of the customers are, you need to develop a method for monitoring customer satisfaction. The objective of the method is to gather data and information regarding the extent to which customer expectations are fulfilled, submit it for analysis, and initiate actions upon its conclusions. When determining the method, please refer to the following issues: The method shall
- Indicate who the target group of the analysis is
- Indicate how customer satisfaction information is to be obtained or with which
- tools the data and information will be collected
- Define responsibilities for obtaining the data
- Indicate which business activities are to provide that data
- Indicate which methods or tools will be used to analyze the data
- Indicate the communication channels to allow data to flow between intereste parties
- Indicate the interface between the conclusion of the analysis and the improvement processes
- Indicate to whom the data and its analysis is designated
Defining Time Frames
It is necessary to define time frames or periods for each of the customer satisfaction activities (e.g., those mentioned in this table). This definition of time frames or intervals has two objectives:
- Scheduling or planning the activities for measurement of customer satisfaction
- Allowing the corrective actions or improvements to achieve their objectives
- However, a customer satisfaction survey may be consecutive, which means that the
- collection, gathering, and analysis of the data may be an everyday task. But please
- allow time between one measurement of customer satisfaction to the next in order to evaluate the effectiveness of corrective actions and improvements.
This webpage contains only a fragment of the chapter 9.1 Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation from the book: ISO 9001: 2015 – A Complete Guide to Quality Management Systems published by:
Why choose the book ISO 9001:2015?
Share This
