TABLE OF CONTENTS ISO 9001:2000 has placed customers at the heart of a quality management system whose objective is continual improvement in customer satisfaction. But why is that? Why is customer satisfaction so important? This chapter will explain:
Why loyal customers are more profitable.
How customer satisfaction drives loyalty.
Why measuring customer satisfaction is essential, though not an end in itself.
The key milestones of a customer satisfaction measurement process that will provide a reliable measure of customer satisfaction and meet the requirements of ISO 9001:2000.
ISO 9001:2000 is very clear that the central purpose of a quality management system is to ensure that the organisation provides goods and/or services that satisfy customers. To quote from the introduction to the Standard:
This International Standard promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of a quality management system, to enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements.
The Standard contains considerably more detail on customer satisfaction and this will be reviewed in full in Chapter 2, with subsequent chapters focusing on specific requirements of ISO 9001:2000 that relate to customer satisfaction measurement.
Ever since the American Consumer Association announced in the late 1980s that it was five times more expensive to win a new customer than to keep an existing one, organisations have become very interested in the economics of customer retention. Many case studies have confirmed this view. MBNA rose from the 38th largest bankcard supplier in...
