Clause 8.2 Requirements for Products and Services

Table of Contents

• 8.2.1 Customer Communication
• Enquiries, Orders and Changes.
• Customer Feedback.
• Handling Customer Property.
• Requirements for Contingencies.
• For Auditors:

Are you communicating with your customers? Is this communication on a random basis or is it controlled by a process? Have roles, responsibilities and authorities been assigned concerning customer communication? Effective customer communications are essential throughout the production process or service delivery and especially during the early stages of product or service design. Miscommunications at this early stage can lead to serious consequences.

I was recently delivering an ISO 9001:2015 lead auditors’ course and one of the delegates shared this story. Her organisation manufactures steel security doors and had recently completed an order for 200 units. The doors were to be protecting the security of high-power electrical substation units. When their tradesmen were fitting the first completed unit, the customer observed that the steel gauge used in their construction was too thin and not according to the design specifications. Upon investigation, it was found that the customer had contacted the organisation with a change to the specification. However, the person receiving the phone call failed to pass the information through to the design department. All completed units had to be recalled and re-engineered at a cost of £200,000, a very costly lack of communication.

8.2.1 Customer Communication

(a) Information for products and services; I’m certain that you have a website and a whole marketing strategy that communicates the details of your products or services to existing or potential customers. Have you investigated how effective these communication channels are and have you explored other means of communication? You could provide live demonstrations at trade fairs, use traditional print media, television advertising and social media campaigns etc. Maintaining accurate, up-to-date information and delivering it in unique, creative ways that effectively satisfies customer requirements is a strategy that is not easy to achieve. Implementing a strategy through a controlled process is the purpose of this requirement.

Google appear to be very good at doing this. Have you typed in a search term recently or mentioned something in an email and then noticed that whatever website you visit, advertisements begin to appear that are directly related to your search term? This is targeted advertising at its most powerful. Websites that these adverts begin to appear on can be totally unrelated to your search term but are simply being used as placeholders for the advert. A great many people are unhappy about this and see it as an intrusion of their privacy. Unfortunately, you are providing Google with this privilege by agreeing to those ‘terms and conditions’ that nobody ever reads. If you are unhappy about this type of advertising you can find settings in your Google account to turn it off, but good luck finding those settings. Similarly, the best of luck to you when trying to find a method to complain about it!

Enquiries, Orders and Changes.

(b) Enquiries, orders and changes; can your customers contact you easily regarding enquiries, orders or changes to order specifications or do they have to wait for 15 minutes after having navigated a complex and automated telephone system? Do you offer real-time live chat through your website?

If I wanted to place an order with you how easy is it for me to be connected to the correct department and the correct person? Will my order details be confirmed with me immediately for review or will there be a delay of many days? How easily can I change the specifications of an order? Will changes to an order specification be confirmed in writing quickly so that I can confirm the details are correct?

What if an order delivery arrives that is incorrect, is there a simple process for correction or do I have to have to complete a maze of complicated forms? Will I be contacted to confirm the return of an incorrect order and receive instruction regarding its replacement?

I once placed an order for a graphics tablet that was purchased through a private seller on Amazon. UK. The graphics table that arrived was an inferior, cheaper model and not the model that I ordered. I contacted Amazon and was told to contact the private seller. When contacting the seller, I was informed that it was a packaging error at the Amazon warehouse and to contact Amazon directly. I did this and was told that the wrong order was sent through to them by the private seller and to contact them. I did this and they denied it was their fault and was again told to contact Amazon directly. I did this…….., I could go on with all of the unfolding scenarios but I’m getting as bored with it as you probably are. I’m guessing that a great many reading this example has probably experienced something very similar. After 10 weeks of communications, I was eventually issued a refund by the private seller because they ‘had no stock of the item that I wanted’.

Customer Feedback.

(c) Customer feedback; all points from A-E of this sub-clause sit under the heading of a ‘shall’. As you know, the declaration of the word ‘shall’ in management systems means that it is something that you must do. If you don’t currently have a process established for dealing with both customer feedback and customer complaints then you must develop and implement them. I dealt with the topic of customer feedback at clause 9.1.2 and so refer to that chapter for complete information.

Regarding customer complaints, you must develop a process that enables a customer to submit a complaint that is uncomplicated and easy to achieve. It could be said the effectiveness of the whole management system is based on the number of customer complaints that you receive. That statement is largely true but will depend on the intended outcomes for your management system.

With health and safety management systems you aim to reduce accidents to zero. With environmental management systems, you aim to reduce uncontrolled releases that cause negative impact to the environment to zero, reduce energy consumption and reduce waste to landfills to zero by recycling. However, even the best of companies will receive a certain amount of customer complaints due to any number of circumstances that may or may not be under their control.

I’m a customer and so are you. At various times I’ve had to submit a complaint either verbally by phone or online by email etc. I’ve often been very frustrated, especially with automated telephone systems by how difficult it is to get my complaint communicated and rectified. It often appears that an organisation is doing everything possible to make submitting a complaint more difficult. Contact details are often very well hidden behind multiple levels on a website. Chat boxes are becoming increasingly automated by using chatbot software. All of this amounts to customers like you and I feel very undervalued. Don’t be one of those companies, as I’ve said in clause 9.1.2 – make your customer service a top priority. Deal with customer complaints quickly and in a way that makes your customers feel valued.

Handling Customer Property.

(d) Handling customer property; are you providing a maintenance or repair service? You might be a garage performing an annual car service or MOT (UK). Are you a bank or insurance company handling and storing personal data? Are you a dry-cleaning company handling personal items of clothing? Mishandling customer property could turn out to be a costly exercise, both financially and reputationally. One can easily understand how this topic requires a robust process to ensure accidents and incidents are reduced to a minimum. The handling of customer property is discussed in more detail in clause 8.5.3 Property belonging to customers or external providers.

Requirements for Contingencies.

(e) Requirements for Contingencies; very much in the theme of a ‘risk-based approach’, contingency planning attempts to plan for unexpected, unplanned events. Referring back point (d), what would happen if the customer’s car got damaged or stolen whilst in the garage? What process would be initiated in the event of illegal hacking of the accounts of bank customers? How would you deal with a customer’s suit that got damaged or lost during the dry-cleaning process? It’s impossible to plan for all ‘what ifs?’ and, as usual, it’s best, to begin with, high-risk contingency planning and then work backwards from there.

For example, as I’m writing this book there is a world shortage of computer chips from China used for all manner of things that are caused by the Covid pandemic. Admittedly, nobody could have foreseen the occurrence of this global catastrophe. I would imagine there are a great many organisations who rely on computer chips from China authoring contingency plans to mitigate the effects of a similar disaster should it occur ever again. I happen to know that business continuity courses are selling fast and furious at the time of this writing due to the effects of the Covid pandemic. Business continuity is a broader, business-wide approach to continuity planning.

ISO 14001:2015

There is no similar requirement.

ISO 45001:2018

There is no similar requirement.

For Auditors:

• Check for an existing customer communications process.
• Check roles, responsibilities and authorities for the process.
• Check that it has been trained out.
• Check for a process that deals with customer feedback and/or complaints.
• Sample a complaint and investigate how it was closed, including any corrective actions and continual improvements.
• Check for a process for handling customers’ property where applicable.
• Check any incidents relating to the customer’s property and investigate how it was closed, including any corrective actions and continual improvements.
• Check for any contingency planning processes.
  
  

Questions that I will answer in future articles:

• What are the requirements for products and services?
• How to determine customer’s requirements.
• How to consistently meet customers’ requirements.
• How to develop a complaints process.
• How to develop contingency plans.
• How to develop a business continuity strategy.