Focusing on the client of the management system perspective

Currently, most of the organizations focus on the customer and quite often resources are investing in creating a Customer Service department, which guarantees the client’s satisfaction, however, a question that we must ask ourselves is: how effective is the customer service department?.

ISO 9001 confers the requirements for creating a quality administration model. There are some guidelines or references to improve customer service, therefore it’s important to understand some concepts:

• A client. An organization or person acquiring a service or product.
• The client’s satisfaction. The client’s perspective about the necessary compliance.
• The Interested party. Individuals or entities which provide value to the organization, engaged in the company’s activities. Clients’ satisfaction and expectations contribute to the ongoing success of the organization.

Once these concepts are reviewed and understood, some of the following guidelines to evaluate our service performance and improve it is:

To identify the interested party. It is important to understand who the interested parties are, needs and expectations, their expectations and needs might change constantly, therefore the organizations shall determine and define a clear way and method to identify them.

To keep an administration under a process approach. In order to properly work for an organization, they shall identify and manage several processes that interact and relate with each other. Quite often, a process output becomes the element of the next process, therefore it’s important to identify the principal process, and supporting process which will be related to impact the customer service.

To continuously evaluate the performance. It’s important to evaluate for achieving the intended objectives; when the expectations and needs of the interested parties are identified, the organization will need to define aims and indicators. The aims shall be precisely defined and evaluated. For example, S.M.A.R.T. objectives, everything that could be measured can be controlled and improved.

Keeping communication. Internal and external communication is another important factor to guarantee clients and interested parties are satisfied. Such communication can be through several methods like surveys, contract reviews, client visits, suppliers’ visits, indicators of communications related to product returning, complaints, among others. The organization shall reply to different questions related to clients and interested parties to keep effective communication, for example:

Maintaining the constantly improvement. The objective of the ongoing improvement is to increase the client’s satisfaction. They are different ways to improve from small details in the workspace to big ones in the organization. These changes shall be defined by data analysis, objectives, improving products, processes, structures, and organization systems.

It’s suggested that the improvement process attends a structured approach like the Deming PHVA methodology, such methodology shall be coherently applicable, focusing on the process, enabling an evaluation, analyzing and providing solutions. The organizations shall constantly strive to comply and surpass client’s expectations; for this reason, the client’s approach was the first of eight principles used by the top management in conducting the organization towards performance improvement.