Who is in Charge of Customer Satisfaction? Quality or Sales?

Ownership of this process typically comes down to a heated discussion between the two titans of customer relations– Quality and Sales.

The problem

I have seen this question play out at many organizations. The Sales and Quality departments are both very busy, and while both want to achieve customer satisfaction, neither wants to take on more work than they already have. Sometimes the discussions about the division of responsibility can get very serious and almost defensive, with both sides making excuses for why their department shouldn’t have to do the work, but one may ask, what is the real problem? Let’s explore the excuses and the reasoning behind those excuses and decide together which side should really be responsible for the Customer Satisfaction process.

Excuse No.1: Customer Satisfaction (is part of ISO and consequently it) is Quality’s job

Obviously this is an excuse often spoken by Sales. But why would Sales think that everything ISO should be owned by Quality?

Perhaps:

1. The Quality department failed to involve Sales in the ISO implementation process until the point when customer satisfaction information was needed. Therefore, Sales feels a bit left out and is uninterested in jumping onto a moving train. If the Sales department had been involved from the beginning, perhaps they would be more inclined to participate and take on some of the responsibilities of implementation.
2. The company did not adequately apply the second ISO 9000 principle of “Involvement of people” and pretty much let Quality run most of the ISO certification show. This of course, like in point 1, alienated many departments. Because Quality was allowed to have it all their own way, there is no room for other departments to contribute.
3. Customer Satisfaction is being regarded as merely one item to be checked off the long list of requirements for ISO, and not as a real source of information that can help the company improve.
4. Better training is needed to ensure all employees see the enormous value that seeking customer feedback can bring. Sometimes, in order to save money, organizations conduct lackluster training that does not provide much knowledge or motivate employees to get on the ISO bandwagon.

Excuse No.2: Customer Satisfaction (deals with the customer and therefore) is Sales’ job

Mainly, this is an excuse that Quality folks will bring. So, let’s see why Quality might think that everything customer-related belongs to Sales.

1. Sales, whether internal or outside, owns most processes that deal with outside customers. Therefore, it is a given for Quality folks that Sales should take the lead in seeking customer feedback. When Sales does not let other departments interact much with customers, or when Sales only lets Quality interact with customers when things have gone wrong, the Quality department may be happy to let Sales take on the responsibility for customer satisfaction. Perhaps if Sales involved other departments in customer relations from time to time, they might be more inclined to view customer relations as a shared responsibility.
2. The company did not adequately apply the first ISO 9000 principle of “Customer Focus” and pretty much let Sales continue to believe that customer focus is only Sales’ job. In fact, this principle makes it clear that customer focus is everyone’s job, but also that when talking about customers, we are referring to inside as well as outside customers.
3. Quality is too overwhelmed with all the tasks in their hands to get the organization ISO certified. And, while most tasks can be distributed to other departments (e.g. operations), Sales can seem to be in their own little world, rather than a part of the organization that can be asked to pitch in.

What is really involved after all in determining Customer Satisfaction?

From all this discussion over who should be responsible for the Customer Satisfaction process, you might think that it’s as complicated as design and development. In truth, customer satisfaction can be extremely simple.

Section 8.2.1 of the ISO 9001 standard requires organizations to “monitor information relating to customer perception as to whether the organization has met customer requirements”. So, that’s all ISO is asking: that we find out, on a regular basis, what the customer is thinking about us, specifically whether they think we as an organization are meeting their requirements or not.

The ISO standard also says “The methods for obtaining and using this information shall be determined.” The standard never said that you have to conduct a survey, electronically or otherwise. The standard doesn’t say you have to use Survey Monkey, or have your customers fill out a thirty page form. The intention of the standard is to allow your organization to figure out what method is the most effective way for you to seek meaningful feedback.

So could a one-on-one conversation with the customer’s representative be sufficient? Maybe. Depending on the type of industry, product or service you offer, you may just need to talk to your customer and ask them if you are doing well.

So what about the statistics and all the fancy charts you’ve heard so much about? Ah, that is neatly tucked in under section 8.4 Analysis of Data. Is in this section that the standard actually requires the organization to determine, collect and analyze the customer satisfaction data. In other words, while verbally seeking customer satisfaction is okay, you need to record the results for subsequent analysis.

This need to record the results is why many organizations decide just to use surveys, which bring their own problems. Because designing,sending and collecting surveys may be seen as time consuming, no one wants to be in charge of them – which brings us back to our original question: Who should control the Customer Satisfaction process?

The Shared Approach to Customer Satisfaction

In my opinion, the customer satisfaction process should be shared not just between Sales and Quality but actually Sales and Quality plus other departments, because customer satisfaction affects and is affected by the entire company. So here is how I would break down the responsibilities (assuming surveys are being used to obtain customer satisfaction information):

Of course depending on the resources your company has, you may need to adjust this matrix. The goal of this matrix is to ensure that the customer satisfaction process is not department-centric as well as to get everyone involved in this great task.

Survey says…

In my experience, about 60% of companies believe Quality should lead the customer satisfaction effort, as opposed to Sales, so there’s almost an even split. In practice, however, I usually see Quality doing the work, whether due to the size of the company or the resources available.

It takes time for companies to change, so if you want to share the Customer Satisfaction and Analysis of Customer Satisfaction responsibilities with other departments, be prepared for resistance. Before you implement a responsibility-sharing system like the one I describe above, I would advise that you get some really high-quality training in ISO. With proper training, your employees will come out with renewed knowledge of and enthusiasm for ISO, ready to take on new roles and share responsibilities.

This article was published by Quality Digest on 09/16/2013.