Customer complaints are a fact of life in any industry. Even though manufacturers would prefer not to receive complaints, they do come with a silver lining. Managed effectively, they play an important role in improving your products and processes over time—that is, for companies that take a proactive stance on customer quality management.

The problem is that too many companies take a “check the box” approach aimed solely at complying with regulations or standards such as ISO 9001. But if you’re just doing it to meet requirements, rather than in a genuine attempt to learn from complaints, you won’t be able to benefit from the hidden insights they reveal.

By establishing efficient and effective customer quality management processes within an automated quality management system (QMS), however, manufacturers can use complaints to their advantage.

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