Monitoring and Measuring Customer Satisfaction

Monitoring and Measuring Customer Satisfaction is covered under Clause 8.2.1 of ISO 9001:2008:

8.2.1 Customer satisfaction

As one of the measurements of the performance of the quality management system, the organization shall monitor information relating to customer perception as to whether the organization has met customer requirements. The methods for obtaining and using this information shall be determined.

NOTE Monitoring customer perception can include obtaining input from sources such as customer satisfaction surveys, customer data on delivered product quality, user opinion surveys, lost business analysis, compliments, warranty claims and dealer reports.

The question asked to me by a colleague was  if then measuring and quantifying customer satisfaction was a requirement, was it good for an organization. My final conclusion and recommendation after in house discussion with John (our Senior VP) is that in simple terms ISO 9001 does not require the organization to quantify the satisfaction of customers. Clause 8.2.1 does require the organization to monitor information related to customer perception with regard to requirements being met. In system terms I would say that Customer Feedback is part of the Check segment in the PDCA cycle. A restaurant may measure customer satisfaction by how they feel or the size of their tips. …or late payment may indicate customer dissatisfaction. This qualitative measurement of customer perception as required by the standard need not be quantitative. The second question is whether it is good for the business? This is up to the organization in how the management uses the input in the P-D-C-A cycle, both at the check stage as an input and at the Act stage for making changes to the plan. We can not blindly rely on what customers say. "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."- Henry Ford.