Posts Tagged ‘Customer feedback’
My Customer Wants Us Certified to AS9100, HELP!
You are a small business owner who has just been told you must become certified to AS9100 in order to continue to receive business from your largest customer. You have been putting this off for some time, hoping you would be able to wait until the economy gets better. Now what, you have a deadline and you haven’t got a clue how to get there from here? The best advice, find a competent consultant and get some training to the standard.
Those organizations who recruit good consultants get the job done roughly twice as fast. By helping you avoid mistakes, a good consultant can help you get the job done faster. But only a good consultant can do this. Not all consultants are created equally, and it is important to select a consultant that is right for you. A reputable consultant works hard to ensure that you fully own your quality management system at the time of registration. Key services you will require, if you have no idea what you are doing or how you will do it are as follows:
1. Required documentation development and implementation
2. Training: Quality policy and objectives, Management review, Corrective and Preventive action, Internal auditing, AS9100 Overview, Risk analysis, Overview of the Complete QMS, Collecting and analyzing data.
3. If software is being used to facilitate and run your quality system, you will also need training and implementation services for this.
4. Implementation of a competency, awareness and training program, internal audit, corrective and preventive action programs, management review and overall continual improvement programs.
5. Conduct internal audits for entire system (all processes), one high level internal audit to the AS9101C checklist in preparation for registration audit.
This is just a short list of services that you may need to accomplish your goal of certification to AS9100. Depending on the size and complexity of your organization and processes more may be needed. A good consultant can help you determine your individual needs.
Sustained Success, What Does It Take?
The new version of ISO 9004 is based on the principle that satisfying customers may bring success, but to sustain success organizations need to go the extra mile and satisfy the needs and expectations of all interested parties. It is an attempt at relating quality management principles to the quest for sustained success in an organization, but it does not add anything new by way of management principles. It is portentous that sustained success can be achieved by clever application of the eight quality management principles through a system of practically managed processes that:
- Continually monitor and analyze the organization’s environment
- Define the needs and expectations of interested parties
- Create and maintain a mission, a vision and values consistent with the needs and expectations of interested parties
- Clearly specify, implement and communicate a strategy and policies for fulfilling the mission and vision which supports the values
- Identify, provide and manage the internal and external resources needed for the achievement of the objectives in the short and long term
- Provide products that will continue to meet the needs and expectations of customers and other interested parties, on an ongoing basis.
- Regularly monitor, measure, analyze and review the performance of the organization
ISO 9001 and Fulfillment of Customer Expectations
ISO 9001 is used when you are seeking to establish a quality management system that provides confidence in your organization’s ability to provide products that fulfill customer needs and expectations.
This is the standard in the ISO 9000 family against which your quality management system can be certified by an external body. The standard recognizes that the term “product” applies to services,
processed material, hardware and software intended for your customer. There are five sections in the standard that specify activities that need to be considered when you implement your system :
- Overall requirements for the quality management system and documentation Management responsibility, focus, policy, planning and objectives
- Resource management and allocation
- Product realization and process management, and
- Measurement, monitoring, analysis and improvement.
The requirements in four of the sections are applicable to all organizations – Quality management system, Management responsibility, Resource management, and Measurement, analysis and improvement. The Product realization section may be tailored to meet the needs of your organization. Your quality manual or other documentation will demonstrate how you meet the ISO 9001 requirements in your company.
The Value of Top Management Commitment
Top management commitment and employees empowerment is one of the most important and vital principle of a successful business management system, because it is often assumes to have a strong relationship with customer satisfaction. When implemented correctly, management commitment will creating an organizational climate that empowers employees. This can be achieved with top management commitment in your iso 9001 training employees and giving employees opportunities to be responsible for the quality of their work. A successful business management system strategy brings about a turnaround in corporate culture as compared to the old traditional system of management in which the top management simply give orders and the employees merely obey them.
The objective of quality improvement and customer satisfaction can be better achieve if the top management are committed to empower employees to be responsible for the quality of their work and also empowerment in relation to decision making authority and process. Empowerment in a quality system brings about a flattened organizational chart where there is a shared responsibility between the managers and the employees. Employees’ empowerment and improved level of job satisfaction can be facilitated by top management leadership and commitment to the goal of customer satisfaction.
Customer Relationship Management Software
Customer relationship management (CRM) is a customer-centric business strategy with the goal of maximizing profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction. Technologies that support this business management system purpose include the capture, storage and analysis of customer, vendor, partner, and internal process information. Functions that support this business purpose include sales, marketing, customer service, training, professional development, performance management, human resource development, and compensation. Technology to support CRM initiatives must be integrated as part of an overall customer-centric strategy. Many CRM initiatives have failed because implementation was limited to software installation without alignment to a customer-centric strategy. This is why CIS Continuous Improvement Software excels in CRM. All of these CRM requirements are totally integrated into one CRM Solution including the Cross-Platform Communication capability of CIS!
Your CIS consultant can show you how to improve communication both internally and with your customers and suppliers any time, anywhere.
ISO 9001 Some False Interpretations
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There are many different interpretations of the ISO 9001 standard (and some are absurd). In an effort to highlight some common misunderstandings we will highlight some of these myths, urban legends or perceptions of different requirements that may still exist.
Perception: Implementing and maintaining ISO 9001 is expensive.
False: it does not have to be expensive at all! Simply document your management system based on what you already do and put in place the programs required to improve upon them and you are pretty much done. The sooner you set up your management system and use it, the more cost savings you will enjoy. The ROI will be very quick!
Perception: The ISO 9001 system is a Quality System (belongs in the quality department or is the responsibility of the quality manager), or many organizations feel they need to hire somebody full time to manage the ISO 9001 system (internal audit coordinator, corrective action coordinator, ISO coordinator, etc.).
False: the ISO 9001 system covers your entire business starting with customer requirements, review and acceptance of those requirements, executing those requirements, measuring and monitoring your processes to ensure you are meeting those requirements and then, ultimately delivery of a product or service that meets those requirements to ensure customer satisfaction. If only the quality department is responsible for ensuring the above, then I suppose everyone in the company should work for the quality department.
How Do You Demonstrate Compliance to AS9100?
More than 60 percent of IAQG members have implemented the AS9100 standard internally and are flowing it down to their suppliers. Most members will require suppliers to comply to the updated version of AS9100 (which is aligned to ISO 9001:2008 and supercedes older ISO 9000 standards). This is consistent with the transition from the old ISO 9001 standard to the new version.
Organizations within the industry differ in their compliance to AS9100 verification requirements. Some use their own external auditors to verify suppliers’ quality management systems. Others share the results of their quality system audits with suppliers in the industry. Most provide suppliers with copies of external audits. Most permit suppliers to share the audit results with other customers, too.
The industry is using the results of third-party registrars as a means of demonstrating a quality management system’s compliance to AS9100. The Americas Aerospace Quality Group, working with the Registrar Accreditation Board, has established a process and requirements for auditors performing audits to AS9100 and registrars granting supplemental registrations. The process includes additional AS9100 training and practical experience and ensures that auditors are competent and that registrars are experienced in the industry. The AAQG has created a Registrar Management Committee to oversee this important function. Its methodology is defined in SAE AIR5359. Europe and Asia are developing equivalent methods.
Building Postive Customer Relationships
Building positive customer relations means a lot more today. It is not good enough to just say “hello” when someone calls or stops by the office. While recognition is a good thing, it doesn’t take the place of meeting the customer’s expectations. Is your company meeting those expectations?
Customers and inquiring, prospective customers have higher service expectations today than ever before. When developing a quality management system the quality policy usually proclaims “We strive to meet or exceed our customers’ needs” but do our actions really show that? Do we set ourselves up to fail by not putting the processes in place to actually accomplish what we set out to accomplish “Customer Satisfaction”? The market-and your competition-have educated the business world and the individual consumer to expect more.
The market has changed, it is now a global market, and customers have been educated, often by your competition, to expect and even demand more and faster service, no matter how they define “service.” If your company is not aware of these customer expectations, you are likely losing business to others who understand this new customer dynamic.
For those companies who wish to separate themselves from their competitors, there are several customer satisfaction techniques that you can use to get improved results:
Communicate, Communicate, And Communicate
Train Everyone to Properly Interface with Your Customers’
Don’t Shoot Yourself In The Foot By Having Administration Or Operational Personnel Communicate The Wrong Message
Positive Attitude – can you guarantee that every one of your personnel communicates a positive image about themselves and your company? People will quickly pick up on a negative attitude. It can turn off a customer faster than anything else you do.
Automated Customer Feedback Processes
If organizations are serious about building a service environment that supports their customers efficiently, then it’s essential for them to quickly identify those broken processes that threaten to subvert their ability to serve customers effectively. Given the clear business benefits enjoyed by truly customer-centric organizations that actively solicit customer feedback – and then use that feedback to shape their entire business operations – it’s surprising that four out of five organizations have yet to take advantage of automated, real time feedback within their customer service operations.
Despite over 80 per cent of all organizations say that they currently solicit feedback from customers, the majority of surveys are conducted too infrequently and are too subjective to generate meaningful data that can deliver value for the business.
Of those companies who are using the latest automated surveying techniques – opening up the ability to collect data from broad sample sizes and enjoy real time feedback – the majority of organizations are still basing their feedback strategies on out-of-date and subjective data that doesn’t give a clear picture of their current business position. Making the successful shift from a ‘complaint resolution’ to a ‘service recovery’ model demands an immediate response environment that can only operate successfully if steps have been taken to automate the customer feedback process.
Your CIS Consultant and help you strengthen your quality management system by giving you the tools to respond faster and resolve issues both internally and externally without leaving your office chair.