Question

Problem 4. TOTAL CUSTOMER SATISFACTION (TCS) and Flowcharts for customer complaint and feedback system and corrective action process Your job is a) To define systematic processes for customer complaints and feedback for customers and company. b) To define a systematic way to analyze the complaint data. c) To define a systematic corrective action process (create a “corrective action request” form)

Answer 1

A) Complaint handling involves the strategies used by companies to solve and learn from product and service failures in order to strengthen the organization’s reliability in the eyes of the customer (Hart et al., 1990). Consequently, the development of an effective complaint management process must take into account customer expectations and justice dimensions in order to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction and avoid switching behaviour.
Services recovery strategies must cover both internal and external complaint management objectives (Jeschke et al., 2000). Internal objectives are focused on employees that directly interact with customers facing difficulties and influence their subsequent satisfaction. The list of internal goals should contain: informing the employees about complaint management procedures, ensuring that policies and rules for handling complaints are accepted by employees, training and motivating employees to manage conflicts and to create positive experiences in customer interactions, developing an internal marketing approach. External objectives are focused on customers and must contain the following: regaining customer satisfaction, securing customer portfolio and straightening business relationship, extending sales through cross selling activities, generating positive word of mouth, collecting and using the customer complaints information to improve products, services and internal processes, avoiding negative perceptions and unfavourable influence on corporate image. Achieving external objectives depends on organizational commitment in meeting internal aims.
An effective recovery strategy involves carrying out planned activities, which can be summarized in three major steps: stimulate and receive complaints, resolve complaints, and send feedback to the customer (Bateson & Hoffman, 1999).
Actively encourage customers to express dissatisfaction is a necessary task for organizations, if we take into account the reluctance of customers to make complaints (Maxham III & Netemeyer, 2002). Therefore, a good way to stimulate complaints is to identify which are customer reasons for not sending a feedback to the organization, and then solutions can be sought to decrease or remove these obstacles.
According to Lovelock and Wirtz (2004), the barriers perceived by customers to express dissatisfaction are related to: customer inconvenience with complaining procedures, consumption of time and energy to complain, the lack of customer confidence in the actions performed by organizations to remedy the problems or to address the causes of dissatisfaction, the customer fear of being treated in a rude manner, to be scolded or to feel embarrassed in discussions with employees. Another barrier that may occur is the customer uncertainty about their own ability to evaluate the quality of products and services. This is especially the case with technical products, complex or specialized services in areas as medicine, architecture, law etc.
Various strategies are recommended to companies in order to decrease the above mentioned communication barriers. The first consists of feedback facilitation through free phone numbers, postal and electronic addresses written on all customer correspondence, business documents and communication materials. The second recommends ensuring customers about the importance of their complaint messages and organizational actions that will be performed to solve the problems (Michel, 2001). Thus, the customer should be informed about the service recovery procedures and product improvements by using telephone, mailing or e-mail contacts. The third strategy is to turn customer feedback into a positive experience by sending thanking messages to customers that complained and training employees to be courteous and polite to customers (Lovelock & Wirtz, 2004).
Organizations have developed various procedures to receive customer complaints. The most common involve the use of free telephone lines, physical forms found in the place of consumption, links on organizational web sites, and information obtained from qualitative and quantitative marketing researches

B)
Principle: Complaints are acknowledged in a timely manner, addressed promptly and according to order of urgency, and the complainant is kept informed throughout the process.
• Guidance should be provided to staff on how to respond to and prioritise complaints. They should be aware of internal complaint handling processes including how to assess complaints which may be resolved quickly and those which require investigation.
• Complaints should be acknowledged promptly. Complainants and, if applicable, the person who is the subject of the complaint, should be kept informed of progress and the outcome of the complaint.
• Complaints should be addressed promptly in order of urgency and staff should be aware of any target timelines for resolving complaints.
• Complaint Handling Officers should be empowered to either resolve complaints or be aware of, and have access to, the person who has the authority to do so.
• Where appropriate, special arrangements for responding to particular client groups should be put in place, for example, Indigenous Australians, children and young people, people living in regional and remote areas, people with disabilities and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
• Staff should be able to identify matters that may be public interest disclosures
and refer them to the appropriate process, and should refer any identified
misconduct and corrupt behaviour to the Corruption and Crime Commission
for serious misconduct or the Public Sector
Objectivity and
fairness
Principle: Complaints are dealt with in an equitable, objective and unbiased manner. This will help to ensure that the complaint handling process is fair and reasonable. Unreasonable complainant conduct is not allowed to become a burden.
• Complaint Handling Officers should deal with all complaints on their merit in an equitable, objective and unbiased manner. They must ensure that any conflicts of interest are declared.
• Complaint Handling Officers should ensure the complainant and, if applicable, the person who is the subject of the complaint, is given sufficient opportunity to present their position, to comment on any adverse findings and is provided with reasons for decisions on the outcome of the complaint.
• Complaint handling systems should have a review process in which the Complaint Handling Officer’s decision is reviewed by a suitably experienced colleague or superior before the complaint is finalised. There should also be an independent internal review or appeal process.
• Officers receiving and handling complaints should receive appropriate guidance or training, including for dealing with unreasonable conduct by the complainant or the subject of the complaint.
The Ombudsman WA publications Conducting administrative investigations, Investigation of complaints, Procedural fairness and Dealing with unreasonable complainant conduct may assist your staff

C)

Identifying the root cause of failure is a key tenet of any effective QMS. When a problem occurs, it is often just a symptom of the real issue. Symptoms can be treated but finding out why the symptom is experienced is the true purpose for implementing CAPA. Failure to implement an effective Corrective Action Preventive Action process is a violation of FDA regulations defining Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP).

Once implemented, the CAPA system must exhibit ten objectives to meet the intent of the FDA 21 CFR 820.100 requirement. The 10 objectives of CAPA implementation are:

1. Verification of a CAPA system procedure(s) that addresses the requirements of the quality system regulation. It must be defined and documented.
2. Evidence that appropriate sources of product and quality problems have been identified.
3. Tracking of Trends (which are unfavorable) are identified.
4. Data sources for Corrective and Preventive Action are of appropriate quality and content.
5. Verify that appropriate Statistical Process Control (SPC) methods are used to detect recurring quality problems.
6. Verify the RCA work performed is aligned to the level of Risk the problem has been identified with.
7. Actions address the root cause and preventive opportunities.
8. CAPA process actions are effective and verified or validated prior to implementation.
9. Corrective and preventive actions for product and quality problems are implemented and documented.
10. Nonconforming product, quality problems and corrective / preventive actions have been properly shared and included in management review.