Fine-Tuning Customer Satisfaction

ISO weighs in with a new series of guidelines.

A new series of ISO documents under development will focus on some of the processes organizations should use to address customer expectations, needs and satisfaction--as well as customers' problems. There are currently three documents in the emerging series:

• ISO/CD 10001, "Quality management --Customer satisfaction --Guidelines for codes of conduct"

• ISO 10002:2004, "Quality management--Customer satisfaction--Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations"

• ISO/CD 10003, "Quality management --Customer satisfaction --Guidelines for external resolution of customer disputes"

CD stands for "committee draft," which is one of the first stages of ISO's standard-development process. Two later stages, each with an international ballot, must be completed before the document can be approved as an international standard.

The projects to create these three documents were initiated by ISO/TC 176, the ISO committee concerned with quality management, due to requests for standards in these areas from the ISO Committee on Consumer Policy. The new standards don't provide guidelines on what a code of conduct should say or what types of resolutions are appropriate for customer complaints. Rather, they're intended to provide guidance to organizations for developing, maintaining and improving processes related to codes of conduct, complaints handling and external dispute resolution.

ISO 10002 provides guidance for organizations to create a complaints-handling process that's open to feedback, resolves complaints, and provides for analysis of complaints as an input to product and service improvement. ISO 9001 users will recognize that their standard requires a complaints-handling process. The guidance in ISO 10002 would be useful (but isn't mandatory) in setting up a complaints process to meet that requirement.

The other two standards in the series are still in the development process and aren't likely to be completed until late this year or early 2007.

A code of conduct is a set of commitments about an organization's behavior toward its customers or potential customers. ISO 10001 can guide organizations through the process of establishing codes to address this issue. It's not intended to provide guidance as to what should be in an organization's code, nor is its guidance related to other codes of conduct an organization might need (e.g., those concerned with ethical behavior). It's intended to describe processes to ensure that communication concerning codes is accurate.

There are three types of external dispute resolutions, and it's expected that the standard will provide guidance on selecting the best process for an organization to use. The process can be facilitative, advisory or determinative; in any event, it's undertaken outside an organization to address an unresolved customer complaint regarding the organization's products or processes. The three categories are quite different:

• Facilitative. A third party assists in reaching a voluntary resolution to the dispute.

• Advisory. Also called nonbinding arbitration or evaluation. A third party appraises the dispute and provides advice as to the facts of the dispute, the law, possible outcomes and how they might be achieved.

• Determinative. This is also known as arbitration, evaluation or conditionally binding arbitration. A third party evaluates the dispute, makes findings of fact and issues a determination as to how the dispute should be resolved.

Although the subject of complaints handling directly connects ISO 10002 to ISO 9001, the topics of the other two documents aren't directly related to ISO 9001 requirements. On the other hand, when they become available, they could offer valuable assistance to ISO 9001 implementers. For example, the code of conduct document might help in defining the items to communicate to customers in meeting the requirement of ISO 9001 subclause 7.2.3 on customer communication. Likewise, it's becoming common for organizations to look for ways to quickly and easily resolve complaints that can't be resolved in their normal internal-complaints process. Thus, the new external-complaints handling document might also help ISO 9001 implementers in the complaints-resolution area.

All three documents are intended to help organizations improve customer satisfaction. Certainly the document on codes of conduct should help organizations clarify their commitments to customers. The other two deal more with how to overcome customer dissatisfaction than they do with enhancing satisfaction. However, if an organization can build a system that eliminates all "dissatisfiers," it has gone a long way toward improving the value proposition for its customers. Improving the customer's perception of value is one key to achieving customer satisfaction.

About the author
John E. (Jack) West is a consultant, business advisor and author with more than 30 years of experience. From 1997 through 2005 he was chair of the U.S. TAG to ISO TC 176 and lead delegate for the United States to the International Organization for Standardization committee responsible for the ISO 9000 series of quality management standards.