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Do you review EVERY SINGLE customer complaint during your Management Review?

Discussion in 'ISO 9001:2008 - Quality Management Systems' started by Nikki, Oct 23, 2015.

  1. Nikki

    Nikki Well-Known Member

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    Hello All -

    I am curious to know if you all review every single complaint during your management review meetings?

    These meetings seem to take a Loooooooonnnnggggg time, naturally, as we reviewing all the valuable information I have collected since our last meeting.

    But I seem to be getting some flack from management when it comes time to review the complaints.

    Basically, I put together a powerpoint presentation and a good portion of it is complaints. Slide after slide, usually about three complaints per slide, we go through. We patiently wait while all of management reads each complaint to themselves and then comments are made.

    Is there a better way to do this? It just seems drawn out and I want to make the meetings more enjoyable, while still reviewing what we need to review.

    Thoughts, suggestions?

    Thanks in Advance!

    -Nikki
     
  2. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    Nikki - that's not really the purpose of management review. It should be more of a strategic view, based on indicators - one of which is the number/type of complaints and not the individual issues. And, apart from anything else, YOU shouldn't be doing anything like you describe. If it were the thing to do, the process owner should be doing it. You should have a process to deal with them and then report up the classification of each complaint.
     
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  3. Nikki

    Nikki Well-Known Member

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    See this is the response I was thinking I might get.

    Although over the last 10 years, and through-out a bazillion audits (customer and registrar), everyone LOVES the MR's.

    I will say that customer complaints are just a portion of the meeting. We also go over corrective actions, internal rejections and review trends to identify where we need to add resources. We identify our biggest issues and brainstorm ways to eliminate them.

    But the complaints TAKE so long.

    While I get groans and moans when we start this lengthy review, I believe our Management actually likes to review each one. I am curious to see how they would react when / if I change it to a more grouped review rather than an individual review.
     
  4. RoxaneB

    RoxaneB Moderator Staff Member

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    If they like to review each one, I'd suggest you provide them with the material in advance of the meeting. Your role is to facilitate the meeting, I presume, and highlight recommendations as well as what the organization is doing really well. If you're looking eliminate waste and frustration at the time required for these meetings, create an engaging environment that focuses more on strategic discussion regarding the management system - trends, outliers, potential impacts (for better or for worse).

    The details of each item, if the group is super keen to review them at length, can be during another meeting. Create a team that focuses solely on complaints - i.e., reviewing, auctioning and potentially resolving. Management Review should be, in my opinion, like the Executive Summary of a report providing a high level and condensed version of the overall direction/decisions.
     
  5. Nikki

    Nikki Well-Known Member

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    Awesome suggestions RoxaneB! Thank you very much. I think I will take this approach for our next meeting :)
     
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  6. RoxaneB

    RoxaneB Moderator Staff Member

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    My pleasure and I look forward to hearing how the next meeting goes! :)

    As a footnote, if there are major complaints or major concerns or major nonconformities...key word being major...I've usually inserted a hyperlink or embedded a copy within the presentation. This can provide a compromise between those that want all the details and those that want a summary. But including every detail for every item can drive every one a bit batty...including you. o_O And, hey, we like you here on QFO and I'm not sure what the wi-fi protocols are over at the funny farm. :D
     
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  7. Somashekar

    Somashekar Well-Known Member

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    Nikki.... To me it looks like you are presenting all the elements in the management review the way you want it, and your management have no clue of what they have to expect in their review so as to provide necessary outputs.
    Here an example:
    1. We had 10 customer complaints in the past quarter
    2. Two were not connected with us and the customer has been informed where he can find the information in the user manual
    3. Eight required our further analysis
    4. Six out of eight was our goof-up and all were typically packaging related
    5. Two were concerned with supplier issues
    6. Status of the complaints will be briefed in the corrective actions part of the review.
    7. This quarter seems to have a sudden increase in the number of complaints, and we now know the concern area to take appropriate action.

    Management:
    1. I am concerned. I want this to be in control asap.
    2. Tell me what you want from me. I do not wish this is escalated to me from customers under any circumstance
    3. Let me have fortnightly status of the actions taken in this quarter
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2015
  8. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    I view it in a similar way to Soma. The complaints should have been processed. It should be an analysis of the type of complaint, including the subsequent processing - did it fix the issue? - so that management can look at them and see what needs improving in the product and management system...
     
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  9. Emmyd

    Emmyd Member

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    Pareto charts are also extremely helpful in distilling the details to areas that need the most attention from management (from a 10,000 foot level). I would think this is more productive than going through each complaint. Where I used to work, we had a meeting each week to cover the complaints, concerns, costs, etc. I reviewed the tech support information, summarized into pareto charts and analyzed this information, not only on a weekly basis, but a monthly one as well. Then, during the meeting, if anyone wanted to review a specific complaint I could pull that information up on the screen. The company owner really liked focusing in on the data, he knew what the actionable items were and what lessons could be learned from the trends and the issues found.
     
  10. drgnrider

    drgnrider Member

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    Sorry for being a tad late on this.

    For my Management Review, each topic that I need to cover gets one, maybe two, Powerpoint slides. My two-slide topics are generally CA, PA, & complaints. First slide is the raw numbers and categories, the second, if used, is information overflow that didn't fit on the first slide. Factory Director (Top Manager) and I have agreed, my target time is 45-60 minutes since all I am doing is giving the state of the Management System.

    Management has regular staff meetings where they cover the "details", so often other managers will say 'don't you remember we discussed this at staff meeting?', if not I take notes and get back to them. Most often, only one or two managers actually care about the additional information so for the rest it is wasted time... and added negativity to the ISO perception. Questions that I don't cover, or they want deeper information than I am prepared to give, I generally e-mail to all the managers.
     
  11. Jennifer Kirley

    Jennifer Kirley Moderator Staff Member

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    Such great responses already. :cool:

    The first thing that occurred to me is why there are so many complaints that it takes a very long to get through in management review?

    I like Soma's approach. What is being learned? What are the patterns? What stands out as serious, expensive, repeat, should be a priority? Has there been satisfactory follow up?

    Are there any actions that are dragging? If so, why?

    Such broad subjects might be most appropriate for top management, whereas details can be shared and explored, with you as facilitator/coach, in department level meetings.
     
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